Health Insurance For Children Over 25 And Federal Health Insurance

In these new economic times when fresh graduates have it much harder than the previous generations to find a solid job with health benefits worth mentioning, many young adults are perplexed while looking for possiblities of removing a big financial uncertainty about possible health costs and looking for ways to purchase a suitable health insurance.

The recent new health care law of 2010, while attempting to reduce costs of healthcare by driving toward the single-payer system, has a four year (until 2014) adaptation period, during which the transition is supposed to happen. Unfortunately, this causes even more confusion in an already fragmented, and complicated health care system in the US.

In this article we will provide the basic options for a young adult over 26 years to find a health insurance that will allow him or her to sleep well knowing that, even in the case of an accident, or any other catastrophic health event, requiring major medical intervention, the financial situation of the person will not be jeopardized, and that the insurance will be able to take care of the majority of the medical treatment cost.

While the following options are always subject to change, especially between now and 2014, it is likely that all of these options will remain in place at least until 2014. Unfortunately, age 26 marks the age when a young adult can not be insured under the parent's health insurance plan, according to the health care law of 2010. The existing options include getting insurance through employment, getting it either on the individual insurance market or from one of the standard state health insurances for low income citizens during the time of unemployment or part time employment, and, in case of pre-existing conditions, from the newly-created federal pre-existing condition insurance plan, PCIP. One option that is not available to young adults over 26 years old is family health insurance plan through one of their parents.

Health insurance plans through employment: This remains the main source of insurance of young adults. In the coming years, you can expect higher premiums, higher deductibles, and higher copayments with health insurances through work, and fewer employers even offering them, but at least the employee can not be denied the insurance due to the pre-existing condition.

Private or individual health insurance coverage: When group insurance through employment is unavailable, there is always an option to purchase insurance on the individual market. The high deductible individual health insurance and major medical insurance are especially popular. However, the underwriting of individual policies is subject to filling out application forms, and the insurance can be declined due to what insurance company deems a pre-existing condition. Which can be something as simple as being overweight for example. It can even be a condition that you have in the meantime been healed from. Furthermore, for certain "pre-existing conditions" such as pregnancy, there can be waiting periods of as much as 18 to 24 months. The current health care law does not require insurers to accept applications of people over 19 years of age who have a pre-existing condition.

State sponsored health insurance policies such as Medicaid and Healthy Families: These have strict rules and limits on personal income or family income of an applicant, and will only kick in when one's income falls below those limits. Because of current budget crunches on the state level, individual states have been recently scaling back these health insurance benefits. This trend is expected to continue.

Pre-existing condition insurance plan: When you are over 26 years old, make too much money to qualify for state sponsored health insurance, yet are unable to get health insurance either from your employer or on an individual insurance market due to a pre-existing condition, there is a new way out, the PCIP, or the pre-existing condition insurance plan, sponsored either by the federal government or by individual states. This is the real benefit coming from the health care plan of 2010. You will get a reasonably priced insurance with great benefits, and you will not be declined regardless of any pre-existing condition. The only drawback of the PCIP plan is the waiting period of 6 months, during which you will not be able to have any insurance.

For additional info on these plans see our site http://highdeductiblehealthplan.org. You will find information on all the above mentioned plans, as well as information on non-insurance products that can help you save money on health services during the waiting periods when you do not maintain any insurance. Specifically, check out the section on health insurance rate.