Affordable Health Insurance

More Young Adults Gain Affordable Health Insurance

September 22nd, 2011

Over one million young adults have already felt the benefits of the health care reform working for them. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in the 1st three months of 2011, the percentage of young adults who got covered with an affordable health insurance has increased by 3.5%. In 2010 only 66.1% of young adults between the ages of 19 and 25 were insured but it has increased to 69.6%.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services attribute the success to the new health care law. Through the Affordable Care Act, young adults could stay in their parents’ policy until they reach age 26. This is regardless if they’re single, students, working or still living with their parents for as long as they don’t have affordable health insurance benefit from their employer. As USA Today reports, as the economy is experiencing tough times, more people become uninsured but more and more young adults are gaining coverage.

This takes a lot of burden off of young adults. Young adults no longer have to worry about losing their medical and insurance coverage when they need to quit school or develop an illness or losing their jobs. This comes in useful particularly now that the state of the economy is not looking up. Unemployment affects young adults aged 20-24 more than adults aged 25-54. Young adults’ unemployment rate has increased to 7.3%. Because of the ACA’s provision that allows them to stay as dependents on their parent’s policy, when they look for new jobs, their decision in choosing a job no longer needs to be dependent on the health care benefits they will get. Kaiser Family Foundation notes that some people are benefiting from the provisions of the health care reform but they are not aware of this.

Some may be skeptical about crediting the new law for the increased rate of insured and there is actually no direct proof that the increase is indeed due to the reform, but officials said that the increase only happened about the time that this provision was implemented. In the past, enrollment rate for all age groups were about the same.

The health care reform however is still under scrutiny and there are some states who refuse to accept funding for the major provisions of the law to be implemented by 2014. Supporters of the new law however hope to make this as proof that the health care reform is the key to reduce the rate of the uninsured.