At a rally on Friday at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., President Obama got some of his loudest applause when he talked about a provision in the health care legislation that would allow adult children to remain on their parents’ health insurance policies until the age of 26.
The provision cited by the president is of the more significant changes included in the reconciliation bill in terms of what the legislation will mean in the short term for consumers of private health insurance.
The Senate-passed bill would have required insurers to offer dependent coverage for adult children, but only in new insurance policies. Existing policies would not have had to include the change.
Currently, states determine the age at which dependent children no longer must be covered by their parents’ plans, and the limits vary.
The reconciliation bill, which is to be voted on by the House on Sunday, would allow parents to keep their adult children on their insurance plans and would require all insurers to make such coverage available through existing policies. Of course, insurers could still charge for it, and the coverage might not be cheap.
The change would take effect six months after adoption of the legislation. The reconciliation bill says that the dependent coverage must be made available only if the adult child has no option to enroll in group health insurance coverage through an employer.
The provision is among the most popular aspects of the legislation because of its potential benefit to Americans who already have health insurance through the employers, which is to say a majority of the population.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also stressed the inclusion of that provision in the bill, noting at rallies and news conferences in recent days that college graduates would be free to pursue their dreams without worrying whether they could immediately obtain health insurance on their own.
