Changes are Coming for Young Adults

Year after year, more and more young adults go without health insurance. Many lose coverage when they graduate from high school or college and are no longer eligible for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or are dropped from their parents’ plans.

But all this is changing with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which the Commonwealth Fund writes about in their new study called: Rite of Passage? Why Young Adults Become Uninsured and How New Policies Can Help. As the authors point out, young adults between 19-29 represent one of the highest uninsured groups in the country.

“As of 2008, the number of uninsured young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 was nearing 14 million, representing three of every 10 uninsured persons in the United States. But this figure most likely underestimates the problem. Unemployment has soared in this age group over the past year, reaching 17.2 percent among 20–24-year-olds and certainly increasing the number of young adults without health insurance.

Health reform—specifically, the enactment of the Affordable Care Act of 2010—promises to cover approximately 32 million uninsured people over the next 10 years, including the majority of uninsured young adults”

The new law promises to help young adults by:

• Granting them the ability to remain on parents’ health plans up to age 26, unless they have their own offer of coverage in some cases. This begins as early as September 2010, but many insurance companies have agreed to extend this coverage immediately.
• Instituting new insurance market regulations, including a ban of lifetime limits on insurance policies, beginning as early as September 2010

Read here for more information about how young adults will benefit from health reform.