Tell me why you think 26 year olds should be covered under parents' insurance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I agree that children should be covered through their college years - why up to age 26? Why did this become the cut-off age? Was there some data that the administration used to determine this age? Seems to me that most kids leave college at age 22 or 23 at the latest after 4 or 5 years of undergraduate work. I think 26 is a bit old to be considered a "dependent" that needs coverage from a parent's policy.

The extension in age to 26 came about because of the poor job market. As college graduates become more and more common, there are far larger numbers of recent grads with no work experience flooding the job market. That plus a lot of older workers who are retraining for new jobs, and the number of entry-level positions is just too small to handle the addition of so many workers into the workforce. So, there is an increasing number of young adults who are finding it necessary to go back for graduate or professional school and there is a growing number of such students who will be 25-26 years old when they get their first job that offers their own health insurance. However, by and large, this is one of the healthiest demographics of adults and hence the most profitable for the health insurance industry. In order to help cover the costs of ensuring that everyone including less healthy never-before-covered individuals, they added the young adult students. As has been pointed out, adding in these young adults is actually a good thing as their premiums will help keep the associated costs of providing insurance to many less-healthy that are now mandated that the insurance companies must insure. The costs are spread out and this keeps those who have always had insurance from seeing skyrocketing costs from adding that large population of expensive-to-insure individuals.

I think OP and these perplexed pps are not familiar with the concept of graduate school or something... that was my immediate thought when I heard people can stay on their parent's plans until 26- "great! they can stay on through grad school, law school, MED school!" The insurance coverage offered by my grad school was atrocious and expensive (and insurance coverage was mandatory to go to that school), and would have just added to the already exorbitant cost of grad school.

[Anonymous]

I think 26 makes sense because it's around the age when most young adults finish graduate school. When I applied for financial aid for law school, my parents' income information was used to determine what type of aid I was eligible for. The assumption is that if a young adult is still in school, the parents are helping them financially.

I also agree with the PPs above -- this is a group that is very cheap to insure because they don't typically use much care, and they are often trying to get their careers started and may not be able to find jobs with health care benefits (or be able to afford insurance, or see the need to carry it).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why limit it to 26? If we need to extend the concept of a an adult providing benefits to his or family to include their relatives-by-birth-or-adoption, and we don't want to cut it off at the age of majority, why cut it off at 26?

Oh because it benefits the insurance companies to have young & healthy folks but they want to get rid of them before they get older and start having babies and such. It has nothing to do with benefiting the people, it has everything to do with politicians catering to the groups who own them.

You totally lost me on this one. It does not benefit a 26YO just starting a career to be on his parent's cheaper plan?

[Anonymous]

The problem with this whole insurnace/obamacare business is too many people are too busy counting other people's money and worrying about what other people "get."

You worry about you, ok?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because when you are a college student, it's a sort of prolonged period of dependence upon one's parents. In some ways, yes you are an adult, in others, it's not like most college students are full time workers with a job that pays for insurance. Heck, can most recent college graduates even find a job these days?

We have a sliding scale for many "adult" thresholds.... when you can drive, have sex (without it being statutory rape),when you can smoke, be drafted, vote, drink.... I don't see anything wrong with setting an age for dependence on parental insurance. As long as the premium is paid, then what's the problem?

And I'm an HR person, I disagree that most or many employers pay for adult child coverage. My firm is extremely generous with health insurance and we don't do this for everyone - only certain executives as part of a negotiated compensation package. The insurance is considered to be in lieu of salary.

I agree that children should be covered through their college years - why up to age 26? Why did this become the cut-off age? Was there some data that the administration used to determine this age? Seems to me that most kids leave college at age 22 or 23 at the latest after 4 or 5 years of undergraduate work. I think 26 is a bit old to be considered a "dependent" that needs coverage from a parent's policy.

I agree.

26 is too old.

Too old why? If you think that your kid needs to go out and buy insurance in order to own their independence, fine. But if you as a parent want to insure your child when they can't afford it, why not?

Honestly I don't get this. The same people arguing against a mandate are now complaining about having additional options.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad they are covered- Our three oldest are 24, 22, and 20. But I can't offer you a good reason why they should be.

Contrary to what some of the PPs have stated, it isn't costing us a dime more. We pay the same BC/BS federal employee family rate now as we did when they were younger. It doesn't matter if we have 2 kids or 20, it's the same price.

My 22 year old has insurance through his employer. Ours is secondary. The other two are in school full-time. However, none of them ever really use it. They are all very healthy.

[Anonymous]

As of last March, 30.4 percent of people over age 25 in the United States held at least a bachelor’s degree, and 10.9 percent held a graduate degree, up from 26.2 percent and 8.7 percent 10 years earlier.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/education/census-finds-bachelors-degrees-at-record-level.html?_r=0
Not a lot of people go to grad school, not enough to cover sub-adults to 26. It's more about high unemployment and underemployment in people 18-26 years of age. It's some where in the 20-25% range.

[Anonymous]

Maybe if people started having entry level jobs with benefits, rather than unpaid "internships" or poorly paying jobs without benefits, this would be less of a societal issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why limit it to 26? If we need to extend the concept of a an adult providing benefits to his or family to include their relatives-by-birth-or-adoption, and we don't want to cut it off at the age of majority, why cut it off at 26?

Oh because it benefits the insurance companies to have young & healthy folks but they want to get rid of them before they get older and start having babies and such. It has nothing to do with benefiting the people, it has everything to do with politicians catering to the groups who own them.

You totally lost me on this one. It does not benefit a 26YO just starting a career to be on his parent's cheaper plan?

It does benefit a 26 year old. But it also benefits a 28, or 38 year old who is just starting a career and could be on a parent's cheaper plan. Except, that doesn't benefit the insurance companies as much - the older folks are more likely to cost them, so they don't want their pet politicians to fight for no age limit on family plans. This has nothing to do with the individual, it has everything to do with making money for big insurance (just like other provisions in the ACA).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm glad they are covered- Our three oldest are 24, 22, and 20. But I can't offer you a good reason why they should be.

Contrary to what some of the PPs have stated, it isn't costing us a dime more. We pay the same BC/BS federal employee family rate now as we did when they were younger. It doesn't matter if we have 2 kids or 20, it's the same price.

My 22 year old has insurance through his employer. Ours is secondary. The other two are in school full-time. However, none of them ever really use it. They are all very healthy.

That has more to do with the BC/BS FEHB pricing structure. For some reason, BC/BS FEHB has only two tiers of coverage: Individual and Family.

Most employers have three tiers of insurance coverage: Individual, Individual + One, and Family. If you were not a Federal Employee, prior to the ACA, you would have switched from Family to Individual + One coverage when your youngest headed off to college. Since 18- to 26-year-olds are healthy, they cost the system very little. So, your reduced premium would have meant fewer dollars to pay for the uninsured or under-insured.

With the ACA, most families will pay Family coverage premiums until their youngest is 26. So, most families will pay 8 additional years of Family premiums -- which are usually much higher than Individual or Individual + One premiums -- to cover young adults who will never get sick. They will elect to do so because they have the disposable income and want to insure against the possibility, however slight, that a serious illness or injury will bankrupt them or ther twenty-something child.

As for your situation, OP, are you sure you wont be paying higher premiums for 8 years? Do you and your husband both work? If so, wouldn't it be cheaper for each of you to elect Individual coverage at work rather than having one of you elect family coverage under BC/BS FEHB?

[Anonymous]

NP here. I don't think children "should" be covered but I think it's economically wise and socially sound to arrange it so that they "could" be covered. Many people that age are still in school (undergrad, grad, or professional) or just out of school (working in entry-level jobs, and/or paying off student loans). People in these categories almost never buy health insurance if they aren't provided it by their employer, so making it possible through their family's plan is beneficial to everyone. The individual is covered (which saves the costs of emergency care and brings down the costs for everyone by having healthy young people enrolled in the plan), the additional cost to the family is minimal (and can be absorbed by the parents if they choose which frees up funds for loan payments or consumer input into the local economy), and the individual has more flexibility regarding job location and type if they are not facing choices about health benefits or riskiness. And, of course, insurance companies get paid to cover someone who needs very little care and thereby make money.

Of all aspects of the ACA, this one is the most obvious win-win(-win-win) in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:these kids keep your premiums lower because they are good risk. they are very cheap to cover and it is the easiest vehicle to continue their coverage which is important and ultimately lowers costs for everyone.

This makes perfect sense, although not as much sense as a single-payer system. Therefore, knee-jerk "conservatives" will ignore it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:these kids keep your premiums lower because they are good risk. they are very cheap to cover and it is the easiest vehicle to continue their coverage which is important and ultimately lowers costs for everyone.

This makes perfect sense, although not as much sense as a single-payer system. Therefore, knee-jerk "conservatives" will ignore it.

Even though a ton of Republicans signed their kids up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe if people started having entry level jobs with benefits, rather than unpaid "internships" or poorly paying jobs without benefits, this would be less of a societal issue.

If everyone could get a job with health insurance, we would not need most of the ACA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with this whole insurnace/obamacare business is too many people are too busy counting other people's money and worrying about what other people "get."

You worry about you, ok?

Fortunately, we live in a society. That's why we worry about one another. If this doesn't appeal to you, move to the Congo.