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May 18, 2009 8:24 pm US/Eastern
Bill Would Provide Insurance For Young Adults
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
At what should be the most happy of occasions -- college graduation -- students learn pretty quickly, commencement into the real world has a price -- as 2009 Carnegie Mellon University graduate Tina Daup discovered.
"With my parents' health insurance, the day I graduated was the day I lost my coverage," said Daup.
Victoria Bushmire, of Regent Square, who graduated three years ago, went eight months without health insurance.
"It's nerve-wracking because you're going to get sick or you're going get into an accident. You have to be really careful you don't do those things because you have no way of paying for them," she said.
But a new state law could change that -- a parent's health insurance could cover young adults until age 30.
To qualify, the young adult must be single, under age 30, have no dependents, have no other health coverage and be a Pennsylvania resident.
State Representative Jim Christiana, 25, of Beaver, remembers going a year without health insurance, and he says parents worry the most.
"Bad things, unfortunate things happen to families every single day, and this would really help people sleep at night, parents sleep at night, that their kids are at least covered under their policy," he said.
The new law doesn't mandate coverage by employers and some health insurers already market stand-alone coverage for recent grads.
But Highmark's Cherie Vybiral, who sees lots of parents, supports the bill.
"They're very concerned. They don't want there to be a lapse in coverage. They want them to have the comparable coverage to what they had experienced under their group plan," Vybiral said.
Again, nothing requires an employer to offer this health insurance coverage for the young adults in its employees' families, so employees need to ask their employers to add this benefit.
Governor Rendell is expected to sign the bill, and it will take effect six months later.
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