<p>I agree with the posters who said that health insurance is not on the minds of most young 20 somethings. My S has health insurance through his employer, but I elected to keep him on my plan until he turns 26 this year. The premium for family coverage was the same regardless of whether I had one or two kids under the plan. Since I have a HSA and always shell out the 5K deductible annually (D has chronic health issues), it also made sense to keep him under the family deductible. I think allowing children up to 26 to remain on their parents’ plan and removing the pre-existing condition exclusion were good changes. The rest… not so much. My employer doesn’t even cover the full cost of the employee. Because they provide some coverage and I am not eligible for any subsidies, coupled with the increase in my premiums under ACA (over 30%), my insurance has become totally unaffordable. Paying over 18k a year to insure a family of 4. Ouch! If it gets any worse, I may have to quit my job so I can get insurance coverage! </p>
<p>To be honest, those 20 year olds who aren’t thinking about health insurance are almost certainly those who have never had to worry about being uninsured. If you’ve never had health problems and you’ve never had to go without insurance, of course you’re not going to think about it. </p>
<p>For those of us 20-somethings were previously “uninsurable” or who had premiums through the roof because, you know, we USED the health insurance… the ACA is a godsend. </p>
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<p>Their coverage has to fulfill several criteria. It’s not just “any insurance”. My fiance was eligible to buy off the exchange despite the fact that his employer provides insurance because it didn’t meet ACA standards. </p>
<p>That’s true romani. But, that is most of them.</p>
<p>I don’t think parental insurance coverage motivates or unmotivated 20-somethings. When I graduated and got a job, I didn’t think at all about health insurance at all. Of course, it was just a given if you got a full-time job. But that was back when the economy was producing decent jobs for 20-somethings.</p>
<p>The ACA provisions permitting people to be on parents’ insurance until the age of 26 are just a bandaid solution to a much larger problem: un- and underemployment. I don’t see recent grads thinking, “Great! Now I can mess around for another 4 years because of the ACA.”</p>
<p>I don’t see my 23-year-old saying, “Great, I was going to get a good job with insurance but now I’ll get a crummy job instead.” </p>
<p>Well they can say I’ll take a great job without insurance…</p>
<p>Well, they could always have taken a great job without insurance and purchased their own policy on the independent market. Many did. And, if it’s a great job with wages above the poverty level… surprise…it just got a lot more expensive.</p>
<p>But, I see no measurable impact on the vast majority of young people.</p>
<p>I know folks who can now buy coverage who couldn’t before. It is reassuring to D, since her cinema field often has part time gigs and projects; she didn’t expect benefits from jobs and likely wouldn’t get any. We are glad we can get them for her. </p>
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<p>Really? If you want to tell me where the great jobs are for my kid, I’m all ears, Flossy. At the same time, you can tell me where the individual insurance policy was for dstark’s daughter, pre-ACA.</p>
<p>Well, there are less great jobs for everyone these days, sadly. But, that’s another issue. Pre-ACA young professionals did manage to work under contract or as consultants or start their own firms and purchase their own insurance at a very affordable rate. Obviously, pre-existing conditions were a problem. </p>
<p>My kids are still in school and do have jobs although one is fine for now and one is pretty good, but neither is great. They have never mentioned insurance as a factor in the big after college job hunt and I do have two arts kids so looking for a job with insurance was never going to happen for them anyway. It changes nothing for us unless they are so poor they qualify for Medicaid or a huge subsidy but that would not be anyone’s goal…</p>
<p>About 10% of our state is asthmatic. The pre-existing condition barrier was a HUGE issue for those wanting to get insurance. We could not purchase an individual policy for S until I went to our insurer (BCBS) and asked them if they had anything to offer him between the time his university’s policy ended and he would be covered again under our family policy on Jan 1 of the year afterwards, under the ACA. We could have gotten something as an alum, but the coverage was even more expensive and seemed to cover less.</p>
<p>Pre-existing conditions are a HUGE issue, as insurers like to cherry pick the healthiest, youngest folks to insure so they can pay minimal claims while collecting premiums. Everyone in our household has pre-existing conditions. If we didn’t have H’s insurance through his employer, we would have had a lot of trouble trying to get coverage.</p>
<p>The current system was not serving all of us many folks with pre-existing conditions. It was clearly broken as far as we were concerned. Even if the new system isn’t perfect, the former one wasn’t either.</p>
<p>In my state, insurance for a 26 year old pre ACA was about $500-700 a month, with no pre exists. I hardly think that is affordable to the average 26 year old, or most people. As soon as the ACA markets hit, the prices plummeted. </p>
<p>I did not expect young, healthy people to go running for insurance even at more affordable prices when they feel they have little or no need. Just not something that comes to mind. In time, a number of them will be “caught” with a medical need or one kind or other and have to get the insurance and pay some penalty. That’s what it will take, I have no doubt. But the small amount of penalty money, and payments from those caught this way, though a drop in the bucket is something towards the cost of providing insurance to more people. Previously, there was no recompense or recourse. I know some folks who racked up huge medical bills, and had to walk away from them, and not pay a dime towards them, when they were young and uninsured. </p>
<p>The state to state variances are a big deal. My 19-year old son’s policy pre-ACA was 90-dollars. Post ACA it’s 96. We’ll see what happens but I expect larger hikes in the future. He is healthy but a fast driver who likes to surf and ski, and has a tendency to break things. I don’t think he’ll ever have a problem finding 100 bucks a month, but if it goes up dramatically who knows</p>
<p>I don’t think my son even knew or cared if his company offered insurance, when he accepted the job. He realizes that not getting insurance isn’t even an option…good deal that he’s fully covered on our policy for no additional cost, but he would have paid whatever the price was if he wasn’t. There was never a chance that he’d be uninsured.</p>
<p>I don’t believe that insurance is a motivator for most young people, unless they have a family to support. That makes all the difference in the world. I’ve seen a couple of different perspectives. Either like my kid, where of course you have to have it, but whether the job provides it or not is irrelevant…or they think nothing will ever happen to them, so they don’t really need it. I never thought much about it, went right from college to the military, to full time employment, with a short (and expensive) COBRA gap. Never have or would go without it.</p>
<p>I was on another forum where various people… well, various men, and I think they were young and single men… were saying they didn’t need insurance because they were healthy. This was on a forum for mountain bikers, where discussion of a person’s injuries and consequent surgeries is not rare. But these invincible young men are convinced they “know how to crash” so they won’t get hurt.</p>
<p>^^ For populations like that, Fang, I think this it how it’ll work. In July of this year, one of those Young Invincible Bikers will get injured and end up with medical bills he can never pay off. Then next November, a few of us buddies will think, “Hmmm, let me just check out this health insurance thing.” They’ll log on and discover that their injured buddy could have been covered for a few hundred dollars a month. They’ll sign themselves up, and mention it to a few other buddies, who will also check it out, and so on. </p>
<p>For the Young Invincibles, it will be a matter of seeing how lack of insurance affects their personal friends and acquaintances, and discovering how cheap it could have been for those peers to be insured.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the young men with wives, and even more the men with children, wanted insurance. It was the single guys who were convinced that they would never crash. And sadly, some of them will remain convinced they know how to avoid crashes until they are riding in the ambulance.</p>
<p>CF, many years ago, one of my classmates crashed and was seriously injured. Motorcycle accident a few years out of college and off of parents’ insurance. No insurance, in fact. It was a serious issue in that though the parents were not on the hook,for their son to get optimal care and some reconstruction that was not essential for survival meant they had to pay. They were fairly well to do, but it was a horrible hit to them financially, and it really dealt them a financial blow that they could not recover. As Lamas was relating, this did bring a lot of awareness to the need for insurance.</p>
<p>It’s not a new problem that young adults coming off their parents’ insurance are often uninsured. By extending the age to 26, the chances are better that more will be in job situations that offer insurance, that the “kids” are more mature and will get insurance, and the ACA exchanges and discounts will allow those with low income to get insurance. Someone making $20K a year is not likely to sign up for health insurance at $6K a year in premius. $1000- 1500 a year, more likely, but still it’s a hard sell when they have not needed insurance or just don’t get it. I was floored at how uniformed my kid was about how insurance worked. We always paid the deductible and the copays and didn’t make a big deal about it as we have had HSAs and also in recent years, have not had huge medical bills (knock on wood). We generally did not even get much from our insurance as we didn’t go much over the deductible. Son thought it was all paid for by insurance. Ha! Now he knows better. But I had to spell it out to him, something I just figured he’d know. His brother got a job immediately out of college with insurance and has always been covered since on his own, and learned very quickly what it did not cover, but my one who stayed on our policy till age 26, nope. He did not give it a thought. Other kid also got a job with insurance right away and is doubly covered right now. </p>
<p>I am hoping that these changes in the way insurance works and is available will result in fewer uninsured people in this country, and that this is an overall improvement. That there are some who are adversely affected, does not surprise me. Changes like this will have some paying more, covered less, fewer options, but I’m looking at the overall. So far, personally we have benefitted. My brother is not so thrilled. His kids’ pediatrician has decided to go the concierge route, so he is going to have find a new one that will take his insurance. Here where I live, even before ACA, this has been happening, and I don’t know if more will try that route. My guess is that they will, and then there will a return to the system when some of those who try this don’t get the income they hoped to get. But it will mean more disruptions to more people and if too many doctors try this at the same time, it will cause a shortage of what’s left, especially in some areas. I think it will be a temporary blip, but a problem nonetheless to those so affected. My brother would be irritated at what could be a major problem for him being considered a temporary blip, I know. But most any change is going to result in upset until things settle down. And until they do, there is no telling for sure if something is an improvement overall or not.</p>
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<p>My 30k hospital bill last year for a routine surgery scared two of my close friends into buying insurance (both young males, recent grads, working at good jobs without benefits). </p>
<p>I’d frame that bill and blast it all over social media if it meant each and every person I knew without insurance signed up. </p>
<p>Unfortunately even now, I know a lot of young people who are uninsured. They figure they could go on Medicaid if they get a huge hit. They don’t understand how these things often work. There are young artist funds for healthcare in NYC, but they are limited, and the ground rules for eligibility are not that open, but many in the arts think that they are so covered and that “what will be, will be”. </p>