Obama Succeeds in Improving Young Adult Health Insurance Participation
Certainly one of the successes of the controversial health care overhaul that President Obama pushed and championed is the rise in medical insurance coverage for young adults.
In September of 2010, 35.6% of adults between the ages of 19 and 25 were uninsured. By March of the following year that number was down to 28.8%. The Obama Administration was expecting an increase of between 700,000 to 2.1 million, but was pleased to find that 2.5 million young adults have gained coverage.
Federal officials also discussed research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that compared coverage rates for the 19-25 bracket with the 26-35 range. While the 26-35 range remained stable, the 19-25 range has expanded notably. This suggests that the provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that allows parents to keep dependents on their health insurance plan until they are 26 is really showing dividends.
The young adults age group has traditionally been the age group with the highest rate of uninsured persons.Therefore, this is an important win for the very optimistic health care act that aims to bring medical insurance to over 30 million uninsured Americans.
While parents can now rest easy knowing that their children have medical insurance if they need it, it is also costing them an extra 1 to 3% on insurance premium costs. Traditionally, employer-sponsored insurance plans are family plans, it is becoming popular, however, for employers to heap additional “perparticipant” costs on employees for adding children back onto their plans.
Starting on March 26th, the Supreme Court in Washington, DC will hold a three-day marathon to discuss the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. So far the only one of four federal courts of appeals to find any portion of the law unconstitutional was the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.