How the Affordable Health Care Act helps Young Adults with Insurance

When a young adult has left home to go to college, they often lost the benefit of their parents’ health insurance.  The insurance offered to them by the college was minimal and sometimes costly.  Due to the recently enacted Affordable Health Care Act, young adults can now be insured up to the age of 26 under their parents plan.  Some tips:

Step 1:  Read your policy to determine if it has a provision for the coverage of children.

Step 2: Inclusion of children up to the age of 26 is allowable regardless of whether the young adult is married, living with you, in school, or  financially dependent on you.  Part time jobs do not include insurance coverage and individual policies can be expensive.

Step 3: Coverage will not require that the young adult have their own policy.  They will remain as a covered individual under the parents’ policy

Step 4: An exception might be if the young adult is eligible for insurance from his own employer they may be ineligible to remain on their parents plan.  Ask the insurance representative.

Step 5: Plans must provide a 30 day enrollment period.  You must receive information about this enrollment period in writing.

Step 6: Enrolling your young adult during this enrollment period,  would mean that your plan is covering the enrolled individual from the first day of the plan year.

Step 7: Read the answers to many frequently asked questions on this by going to the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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