Obamacare News Blog

Adult Children on Parent’s Health Plan: When will it happen?

The new health care reform bill has promised that children as old as 26 can stay on their parents health plans. Due to the bill’s fine print, however, many parents may have to wait until 2011 before this benefit becomes available.

Adult children health care coverage explained

Prior to health care reform, may children who were over 18 and not full-time students could not remain under their parent’s health insurance. Under the new health care act, children less than 26 year can stay under their parent’s coverage, as long as the adult child is not offered insurance through an employer.  Although the act will be in place by September 23rd, it will not become effective until the next plan year.  This is the fine print that some people didn’t read. This will mean that most people trying to take advantage of this provision will have to wait until January 1, 2011.

What should Adult children do for health insurance

Whether your adult child qualifies for this benefit or not, you should probably compare your options with an individual affordable child health insurance plan. When kids are young and healthy, insurance companies always charge less than their older counterparts for individual health insurance. We are not aware of any provision that makes sure that children covered under their parent’s plan will be guaranteed a competitive rate. On the contrary, we believe that the health insurance companies will, in the short-term, consider Adult children on their parents plan as “risky” since they chose not to move to less expensive plans that require medical underwriting. The assumption is they pre-existing conditions that will proclude them from being approved on an individual plan.  This, of course, will change in 2014 when all new health care plans will be mandated to approve everyone.

What are some low cost alternatives

Before placing your child on your family plan you will want to check out if there is an individual plan that is less expensive. HSAs or Health Savings Account qualifying plans are great alternatives for coverage. You can learn more about hsa contribution limits and how much you can put away tax free on our site dedicated to health insurance HSAs.