How do you deal with your child health insurance who lives along during such as medical school after age out of parents’ insurance? Thank you for your answer.
If your kid needs healthy insurance during say medical school, just buy the plan offered from the school. It’s usually the cheapest option because they are assigned the med school hospital as care providers and/or treated at the student health.
There is a concept of “professional curtesy” where if a medical student seeking treatment but are short on cash and can’t pay the co-pay, the university based hosp will usually just comp it. They just need to ask. But being a curtesty, is not universal… depends on the school and the hospital.
We are now dealing with this with our second, although both of ours are working (no longer in school) but living alone. For our first, she had the option to take insurance through her employer, and that is what she did. Our second does not have this option - her employer does not offer health insurance so she would need to buy on the open market. She can stay on our insurance through COBRA and, while it is significantly more expensive than we are paying now, her (COBRA) cost will be comparable to what she would need to pay through an exchange and provide significantly better coverage. So, she will stay on our insurance through COBRA. Hope that helps.
Full time med students are eligible for Medicaid in some states.
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This ^^^… My daughter is a SLP graduate student lived alone for many year’s. She and her cohort don’t make much baby sitting and putting themselves through graduate school for a masters. She doesn’t want our help. In Oregon it’s incredible insurance. She just got a job offer and their insurance plan is just OK. She’s going to miss the plan she had.
“some” being the catch.
In Colorado, since after Covid extensions ended, an adult under (I think) 55 and not disabled must work or go to school at least 20 hours a week to qualify. The max you can make is something like $12k per year. State minimum wage is $15/hr but many cities have a much high amount (Denver is $20/hr) so $15/hr x20/hr wk x 52 weeks = $15,600.
I guess if you are only going to school and not working at all (first year?) a med student might qualify but it is unlikely to last for long. I’d think buying it thru the school you are paying tuition to would be the best plan.
If the medical school offers health insurance. The school my kid went to did not for the first two years. They had just discontinued it. In her third year, they reinstated it. In the interim, she had an individual policy for a few months, then bought off the exchange. She had to establish residency and have a minimal amount of income to buy on the exchange. But somehow she managed it those two years.
We and she were glad when the school reinstated medical insurance.
I don’t deal with it. To me, at age 26, my kids are adults and they should deal with it. DC #1 got health insurance through their employer. DC #2 will be 26 next year and will have a couple of months left at their residency (not medical related). They will have to get something - likely thru ACA or some type of major medical (if they still have those).
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Med school is full time. There is no option to attend med school part time at any accredited US medical school. Med school requires typically around 30-60 hours/week of instruction and supervised clinical activities.
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Does the school not offer their students health insurance plans as part of their mandatory fees?
Some professional schools do…and some don’t.
Our daughter used ACA. She qualified because she didn’t have income and no longer could qualify under our family insurance plan through my husband’s company.
His company has since changed their plan to allow coverage, if the student was previously under our insurance with an added premium cost. She has her own insurance now through her employer.
I agree with @RookieCollegeMom. They are adults. We had no idea that she had applied for the ACA coverage until she told us later. That’s when I checked out our insurance plan. Mom and Dad werent involved.
I thought there was a minimum income to be able to get insurance from the exchange. Did that change?
I have no idea. All I know is she qualified through ACA and I think our state’s Medi-Cal system covered her. I’ll have to ask her.
There was in most states (insurance is still a state product) and many had those who didn’t meet the minimum on medicaid, or children on Chips. Now it is much harder to qualify for medicaid for adults without children under 50 years old.
Some states also had very few insurers offering the ACA plans. I think Georgia only had one insurer offering ACA at one point.
They did. My kid had to buy off of the exchange for two years. Luckily, she had just enough income to qualify. The first year, there were a few options but the second year, there was only one option for her to buy…so that’s what she got.
Aging out at 26 makes one eligible for COBRA under most plans. Son paid that for one year and then moved to Uni health plan for grad/prof students.
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My S had a job, but it didn’t offer healthcare. He paid COBRA as long as allowed (luckily it was a reasonable rate), and in the meantime, his job added healthcare. It was more than the COBRA rate, so he stayed on COBRA as long as possible.
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