In the next few weeks, there will be a lot of college graduation ceremonies taking place. This is the first group of graduates who will be finishing school since the Affordable Care Act required health insurance companies to cover people who are between the ages of 19 and 26 under their parent’s health insurance plan. This is going to make a big difference.
The part of the Affordable Care Act that is going to be the most beneficial to new graduates is the part that was made into law in September of 2010. From that point on, insurance companies were required to provide health insurance coverage for people who are between the ages of 19 and 26 through the young person’s parent’s health insurance policy.
This meant that young adults who were already covered through their parent’s health insurance would no longer be dropped from the policy when they turned nineteen. It also meant that young adults, including those who were attending college, could be added to their parent’s health insurance plan if they were not already covered by it. The person who is between the ages of 19 and 26 doesn’t have to be living with his or her parents in order to be covered by the parent’s health insurance, and also doesn’t have to be financially dependent upon his or her parents in order to be covered. The young adult could be single, or could be married, and still get health insurance coverage from his or her parent’s health insurance plan.
Graduating from college is a very big deal. It is the turning point in many people’s lives. Suddenly, a person goes from being “a student” to being one of the millions of job seekers in the United States. If I had to guess, I would say that finding a good job, in the field that the new graduate got his or her degree in, would be at the top of people’s minds as they get closer to graduation day. This would be an especially pressing matter for a young adult who is deep in debt from student loans. In the past, it would be imperative that the new graduate find a job that offered health insurance benefits, because that would be the only way that the young person would be able to afford health care.
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says that if students do not have to worry about finding a job with health insurance, then they will have a greater opportunity to find a job that they want to do. They won’t have to settle for a job that they need to take in order to get health insurance, but that is otherwise not something they wanted to be doing. This is the first group of graduates who will have this advantage.
Image by Ben Chaney on Flickr