Keeping Kids Insured Until Age 27
Tony Kessler
409 Posts
A key early benefit of the health care reform package is that employees can keep their adult children (up to age 27) on company plans. I've read that you can start offering this expanded coverage as early as Sept. 23, but many families will likely have to wait until Jan. 1, 2011, because, as you know, many health-care plans operate on the calendar year.
Here is a link to an IRS release with more information on the new benefit:
[URL]http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=222193,00.html[/URL]
Just curious, are any of your employees asking about this? tk
Here is a link to an IRS release with more information on the new benefit:
[URL]http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=222193,00.html[/URL]
Just curious, are any of your employees asking about this? tk
Comments
Sharon
Sharon[/quote]
At one time it may have been the same for insurance plans as it is for the IRS, but according to everything I've heard, read, and been told about the new law, it won't be anymore. The coverage to age 26 doesn't rely on them being your "dependent" in any traditional sense of the word; they can even be married now and you will be able to keep them on if they don't have other health insurance available to them. Beginning in 2014, I believe it is, it won't even matter if they have other health insurance available to them through their own job or a spouse's job, if you want to keep them on your plan you'll be able to.
I thought it was to age 26 [I]unless[/I] your children are married. Now I am weirded out.
I hope not... and not according to our TPA. I do know of others in this area that are also set at 23 years of age and must be a full time student. I received the following today from our TPA: "The Government is still working on the “Congress Blueprint” which will explain the intent/criteria of the new regulations. I have not seen a definition (that I trust) of what the numbers will be based on (worked 2013 or scheduled 2014) in order to determine full-time status =-average 30 hours each week. Until we can read the final determination, a lot of questions are unknown. I checked with our legal department and they do not have any further information on the subject at this time either. I noticed a lot of articles of interpretation on the Internet so if you want to read up on things Google (§ 1513 of PPACA) but keep in mind the regulators are still working on the intent so all true answers are not known. Gov. is still working on providing guidance for the portion of the Health Reform that will be effective for Plan Years beginning Oct 2010 so the portion effective in 2014 is probably way down the list and even if they knew the intent, it has many years to change."
Just remember, "they are from the government and they are here to help us......"
I thought it was to age 26 [I]unless[/I] your children are married. Now I am weirded out.[/quote]
Yeah, at first I thought (hoped) that it would be [I]unless[/I] they were married, too, but I've read in several places and attended a webinar a couple of weeks ago that specifically discussed the fact that a married child could be on the plan as a "dependent", even though they may not be dependent on the insured employee in any other way. They did say that there will be rules issued to further define "dependent", but for now age 26 & no other health insurance, even if they are married, is the reality. Frankly, I'm afraid once they start looking at it and thinking about issuing rules, they're going to decide that 26 is way too young and raise the age to 35 or something!
Spokesmen for some insurance companies told the [I]Post[/I] that they didn't yet know how their coverage for young adults will work, including whether it will involve the extra premiums and whether the dependents' medical status will affect premium costs.tk