Family Health Insurance Pros and Cons
June 2010
Medical coverage is all over the news - sometimes it's bad news, and sometimes it's good, but since the debate and passage of the healthcare bill it's practically unavoidable.
Some of the changes brought with the passage of the bill have already begun to take effect, and others will do so as early as September. Both critics and supporters of the bill are watching closely to see how these changes will be received, and how they will impact the medical coverage market.
Family health insurance is niche in the overall insurance market that may incur both positive and negative ramifications as more and more of the bill's mandates take effect.
On the one hand, laws limiting what insurer's can deny in the family health insurance market could extend coverage to thousands of young people. As of September, parents will be able to keep their children on their plan up to the age of 26, extending coverage to up to 2 million young people who didn't have coverage before.
Other limiting laws include barring insurance plans from denying coverage to kids under the age of 19 with pre-existing conditions, and banning insurers from imposing annual limits below $750,000 in coverage for emergency services, prescription drugs, and maternity.
As the LA Times states in its most recent article on the
healthcare bill, these new mandates are designed to help Americans see some beneficial changes resulting from the bill before 2014, when the rest of the new laws take effect.
Facts on:
Family Health Insurance & the Healthcare Bill
Did you know...
Starting this year parents can keep their children on their insurance until the age of 27?.
|
But what about family health insurance and costs? As yet there are no laws controlling how much insurance agencies will charge to cover kids with conditions, young adults, etc.
For now the White House appears to be working on some means of minimizing what insurance companies can charge for medical coverage. No one wants this bill to become "an excuse to simply drive up costs."
Young adults don't tend to cost much anyway, which is why many insurance companies have begun to comply with this new mandate already. Those with pre-existing conditions, however, can cost a lot.
Those who worry about rising costs are waiting to see how the administration will limit premium hikes that go above the cost of medical inflation. Oversight of the insurance agency has become more and more popular with state officials as well, insinuating that the days of extravagant premium hikes for insurance coverage may soon be coming to an end.
Recent Topics:
