<p>I still say the son’s new company plan at $400 a month sounds steep.</p>
<p>In my experience…with an employer who self insures…the EMPLOYER is the person to get information from…in writing…not the insurance company.</p>
<p>My H’s company self insures. If the spouse or dependents can receive insurance from their employer they can not be insured under my H’s. It sounds like BCEagle91’s company does not have that provision. </p>
<p>The only thing I have to add is that H’s company audited all their employee’s last summer. We had to prove that our kids were our dependents and we had to prove that they didn’t receive insurance from another source. I hear that is becoming more prevalent as companies try to keep their insurance costs down. The company sent a letter telling us how much money it saved them.</p>
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<p>I am NOT a health insurance expert…but my understanding was that the “dependent” issue was no longer permitted under the new health insurance legislation.</p>
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<p>Maybe yes, maybe no. There are a lot of variables in who has to conform to the health reforms and who doesn’t. For MOST plans, yes, they have to cover children up to age 26 but like I said earlier, if this is a grandfathered plan, they don’t have to comply their plan year 2014-which could very well be late in 2014 depending on when plan renewal is.</p>
<p>^^^
Maybe not but we had to send in our tax return to show the spouse and our dependents. I thought that was the reason. We had to black out our financial figures. We also had to provide birth certificates and marriage license. Does this mean that even though our child wasn’t our dependent he had to be our natural child?</p>
<p>So confusing. So glad our child when he got a job, he had health insurance and we didn’t even think about keeping him on our health insurance. I know that our cost did not go down when he was dropped.</p>
<p>Sounds like your plan is grandfathered and not required to keep kids on the plan to age 26 yet. You do not have to prove that they are dependents once your plan rolls over. It’s really in the best interest of most companies to do that, young people don’t go to the doctor as much and it helps spread the risk to more people, giving them better table ratings.</p>
<p>Our son would only have to pay about $220/month with the combo-benefits package.</p>
<p>Good luck sorting this out for your son, BCEagle.</p>
<p>Am happy that we don’t have to worry about this for any of our Ds.</p>
<p>[Questions</a> and Answers: Keeping the Health Plan You Have: The Affordable Care Act and ?Grandfathered? Health Plans](<a href=“http://www.healthreform.gov/about/grandfathering.html]Questions”>http://www.healthreform.gov/about/grandfathering.html)</p>
<p>Perhaps this link will be helpful.</p>
<p>And this one…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/fact_sheet_young_adults_may10.pdf[/url]”>http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/fact_sheet_young_adults_may10.pdf</a></p>
<p>Two years ago I had to send in a copy of my kid’s college schedule to “prove” he was a full-time student and therefore eligible to remain on my health insurance.</p>
<p>Last year and this year I did not have to do this.</p>
<p>So for us, something changed.</p>
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<p>Steve…what am I missing…the section below is in the FAQ regarding the health care legislation. It REQUIRES all plans, including grandfathered ones, to have these things.</p>
<p>Maybe this is out of date…certainly folks should check with their employers. BUT remember that the employers are trying to save money…make sure you KNOW what your policy should be covering.</p>
<p>Q: What new consumer protections will I get?</p>
<p>A: The Affordable Care Act requires all health plans – including grandfathered health plans – to provide certain new protections for plan years beginning on or after September 23, 2010. The reforms that apply to all individual market heath plans include:</p>
<p>•No lifetime limits on coverage for all plans;
•No rescissions of coverage when people get sick and have previously made an unintentional mistake on their application;
•Extension of parents’ coverage to young adults under 26 years old;</p>
<p>[Fact</a> Sheet: Young Adults and the Affordable Care Act](<a href=“http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fsdependentcoverage.html]Fact”>http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fsdependentcoverage.html)</p>
<p>Coverage Extended to More Children. The goal of this new policy is to cover as many young adults under the age of 26 as possible with the least burden. Plans and issuers that offer dependent coverage must offer coverage to enrollees’ adult children until age 26, even if the young adult no longer lives with his or her parents, is not a dependent on a parent’s tax return, or is no longer a student. There is a transition for certain existing group plans that generally do not have to provide dependent coverage until 2014 if the adult child has another offer of employer-based coverage aside from coverage through the parent. The new policy providing access for young adults applies to both married and unmarried children, although their own spouses and children do not qualify.</p>
<p>I should add that if your company has 50 or fewer employees, most of the reform changes do not apply to your plan.</p>
<p>Steve, I think we are saying the same thing. Most policies have to continue kiddos up to age 26 with the exceptions being that if they are eligible under another plan through the kids’ employer (that is the grandfather provision). </p>
<p>The “grandfather provision” does not allow for employers to exclude these 20 somethings from coverage on their parents’ plans for other reasons…or so it seems.</p>
<p>Otherwise, it looks from YOUR quote that most kiddos up to age 26 WOULD be able to continue coverage under their PARENTS’ plans until age 26.</p>
<p>If their company size is such that they have to or the child doesn’t have other coverage. The other exception would be if they don’t offer dependent care at all-like some have posted their plans state–if they have access elsewhere they can’t be covered under the plan. I still wouldn’t say “most” kids as most 26 year olds have jobs of their own and with the reform, more access to employee plans.</p>
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<p>EVERY company is different. There are no regulations that a company to provide a ‘persona log in area’. </p>
<p>There are no regulations requiring that insurers administer the plan. But mostly what they are doing is processing claims. A company could easily keep the HR-aspects of the benefits admin in-house, or outsource it to a national benefits firm (which is different than the insurances carriers processing claims).</p>
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<p>Of course, because all of that information is required for claims processing - nothing more. But it does not also follow that the clerk at the end of the 800 line will also have a copy of the ER’s required monthly contributions. The insurance carrier being paid to be claims processors, for the most part, and not benefits experts. </p>
<p>Just bcos your company does it one way, doesn’t mean that others do it similarly.</p>
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<p>Now you are adding facts not in evidence. Twenty-something guys rarely get sick. They rarely need a HSA. They are actuarially healthy. If the OP’s son has health issues, the recommendation might be different. But since the OP did not offer up any such detailed medical history – nor should he – I can only go by the information that he provides.</p>
<p>fwiw: A small group, a single, 80/20 PPO plan, $250 deductible, $30 office copay, $2k stop-loss, with a national carrier can be had for ~$500/mo. in (high cost) California; that’s $6k all-in. It is hard for me to comprehend why it would cost 2x that much in New Hampshire.</p>
<p>edited: just re-read the OP’s post, and see that the state in question is Massachusetts. Then perhaps the state cost differential is related to Romney Care?</p>
<p>I thought that if a child’s employer offered a healthcare plan, they could not elect instead to stay on the parents plan. Unless this has changed, thats what the healthcare reform act said. <a href=“http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001459[/url]”>http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001459</a>
US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in the page titled “Answers for Families and Small Businesses” on its website healthreform.gov (accessed June 22, 2010), provided the following:
“The Affordable Care Act requires plans and issuers that offer dependent coverage to make the coverage available until a child reaches the age of 26. Both married and unmarried children qualify for this coverage. This rule applies to all plans in the individual market and to new employer plans. It also applies to existing employer plans** unless the adult child has another offer of employer-based coverage (such as through his or her job)**. Beginning in 2014, children up to age 26 can stay on their parent’s employer plan even if they have another offer of coverage through an employer.”</p>
<p>jym, that detail applies ONLY if the parent’s medical plan is a grandfathered plan.</p>
<p>What qualifies as a grandfathered plan exactly?</p>
<p>Looking at this info. and trying to see if I’ve interpreted it correctly. I have a 22-year-old daughter who graduated last May–she’s an actress. She’s been cast in several paying productions, but those types of acting jobs don’t provide health insurance and never will. Right now, D’s covered under our family plan. My husband’s company (which employs 20 people) was recently notified by Blue Cross Blue Shield that it would no longer recognize the company as a group because more than half of the employees lived outside of Massachusetts. As such, those of us in MA were offered access to a non-group PPO (which provided the same coverage as what the company offered when it was group insurance). The company is covering 100% of the non-group plans for the employees, but because the price went up so much as non-group, we now have a very large deductible ($5800 for the family plan). Based on the information in the link (post #49) on grandfathered plans, etc. it looks to me like my D should be covered until age 26 on our family policy and it doesn’t matter that it’s a non-group/individual policy. Am I correct?</p>