The White House issued rules on Monday allowing young adults to remain covered by their parents
health insurance policies up to age 26. The promise of such coverage has attracted great interest. Employers and insurers say they have been flooded with inquiries.
Under
the rules, an employer-sponsored health plan or a company selling individual insurance policies must offer coverage to subscribers children up to the age of 26, regardless of whether a child lives with his or her parents, attends college, is a dependent for income-tax purposes or receives financial support from the parents.
Coverage is to be available to married and unmarried children alike.
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, estimated that 1.2 million people would gain coverage because of
the new requirement.
The health department estimated that the average cost to cover each new enrollee would be $3,380 in 2011, $3,500 in 2012 and $3,690 in 2013.
The cost will be borne by all families with employer-sponsored insurance, with family premiums expected to rise by about 1 percent, the government said.
The rules generally take effect for insurance plan-years that begin on or after Sept. 23 this year.
However, the rules allow an exception for employer-sponsored health plans that were in existence on March 23, when
President Obama signed the health care bill. In general, such health plans can exclude adult children of workers until 2014 if the children have access to insurance through another employer-sponsored health plan. That might occur, for example, if a 24-year-old child is working for a business that offers health benefits to employees.
Many insurance companies have voluntarily agreed to provide dependent coverage immediately, without waiting for the requirement to take effect in September 2010 or in January 2011, when many companies renew their coverage.
