California health insurance student gap.
The recent health care legislation made a popular promise to allow parents to be able to keep their children on their group insurance until age 26. Details are starting to emerge that may effect a large number of young people adversely. It seems that this new rule does not apply to children of federal employees covered under TRICARE, the defense departments health plan. This means it will not allow coverage for the children of 9.6 million service members.
There is more to the story. The idea was to extend coverage to young adult children at a lower cost under group insurance. Group insurance for dependents may be less expensive in other states but not in California. Individual health insurance in California is often half the cost of covering children with group insurance and at www.GreenInsuranceServices.com we encourage every one to check out the rates and benefits of individual coverage. The only reason you would cover your child under your group insurance policy is if they were uninsurable for an individual plan.
This extended coverage was suppose to begin sometime this fall, but here is another exception. If the group plan you are insured with renews in the fall, you company has three months to comply with the new rules which will result, in some instances, to delaying the coverage of an older child to late next spring.
These new rules will also, more than likely raise the cost of health insurance for both group and individual plans. We'll have to wait and see and we'll keep you informed in future blogs.