Current law requires children to be covered until age 26 on their parents’ health insurance policies, so i had been thinking of waiving the student health insurance offered through the university (about $4k annually as I recall). However, there are rumblings this is one of the provisions that maybe rescinded as the Administration continues to tinker with health care. Without getting into the politics, is this on any other parents’ radar?, Is anyone doing any contingency planning? Debating with myself whether we should sign up for the student health insurance in case this carry-until-26 years-old provision goes poof.
I wouldn’t worry - go ahead and waive while the window’s open. First of all, the university is still following the policy and hasn’t issued any notices that this will change. Second, If your child is currently under your insurance and you anticipate he/she will be so as of Jan. 1, then there’s no reason to pay $4,000 for something that may well not happen. Don’t fork over additional dollars unless you have to. Third, the provision you mention is part of ACA which is a CONGRESSIONAL act not an executive order. The executive branch of the gov’t can’t “rescind” federal law unless the bill gives the president the authority to do so through the dept. of HHS. Not sure if you’ve noticed but congress has a lot on its plate before tinkering more with ACA and they were unable to repeal it last year. So this issue isn’t going away anytime soon. The age 26 provision is popular, just like the covering of pre-existing conditions. So you are very likely completely safe with the waiver for a while 
We just waived as I prefer spending that $4,000 on something else and whatever the university offers is simply not going to be superior to our family health plan.
ok thanks, you have laid out a logical approach. Unfortunately (?) my training as an Aerospace engineer causes me to think of all the ways something can go wrong, and to be honest at this point it is impossible to predict policy moves here in DC.
@Tiglathpileser - I’m just a hick residing in Flyover Country but will take a crack at providing some perspective:
ACA is by no means exempt from being used as a political football, but in the years I’ve been following its impact on health care availability and affordability I’ve yet to read anything that suggested coverage till age 26 was seriously threatened. It’s true - there’s never a dull moment in Washington so stay tuned . . . if it’s any help, we currently have three in college and two of the schools provide coverage and require proof of insurance if we waive it. The third does not. So not all institutions even have the same health coverage policy. Furthermore, now that the individual mandate is dead with the new Tax Bill, it’s not even clear anyone is required to purchase coverage anymore. A big mess . . . . but one with all signs pointing to status quo for a while.
Even if the coverage to age 26 gets changed it likely wouldn’t happen immediately and there would be adequate time to line up insurance for all the college students and young adults affected. Losing family coverage would also be a “qualifying event,” allowing your kiddo to enroll at the time coverage was going to be lost under the family plan.
I wouldn’t double cover and for our kids, only double-covered S the year he was aging off our family plan (before ACA, you ages out at age 22, so his SR year of college).
As another option, I was able to waive student insurance for Fall semester and pick it up, at prorated price, for Spring semester for my freshman D.
Since our family policy runs on calendar year and school policy on academic year, this gave me time to make cost effective adjustments. I saved a lot of money by switching our family plan to one very advantageous for me (since I have Medicare primary) but not so much for D. Her college policy became her primary coverage (and it’s quite good) so it all worked out. I did not want to actually drop her off the family policy.
Her college plan is just a little over $1,000/yr. Some ppl are paying $4,000???
We get slightly screwed since my wife has Kaiser and our D goes to Northeastern. Massachusetts does not have a Kaiser faciility. So I had to get separate insurance thru my work when ordinarily I would have just waived health insurance completely. Yep, NOrtheastern’s health insurance would come out to $4k for the school year (does not cover summer). As it turns out I still have to pay about $2K per calendar year but I guess that beats $4K.
We signed our son up for UChicago’s full-year health insurance plan. At 4k/yr it’s roughly the same cost and much better coverage than what we can get through the “Affordable” HealthCare Exchange. We are dropping him off of our sub-par plan and he will stay on this plan until he graduates. Lucky him!
@ProfessorPlum168 For the record, the Northeastern health insurance is actually exactly 2K for the year (and does cover summer). It’s just charged annually in one charge.
@PengsPhils hmmm you are right. I wonder what the D was looking at.
UChicago health plan, based on anecdotal evidence, is nothing to write home about. For most people, in most situations, parental plans will be a cheaper option.
The waiver process is strange - some requirements are more stringent than what the university’s own plan offers. Bug the College enough with phone calls and e-mails, and they’ll overlook most requirements that have nothing to do with getting care or paying for it.
Democrats are in the minority, so none of their proposals will get a vote. The Republicans tried health care reform last year, and it was a political disaster. Now it’s a midterm election year, so neither party is going to mess with people’s health care. Don’t worry about the politics.
Politics aside, check your local carrier limits. Our NY carrier limited “dependent students” to a cap out of state even though zero deductible and we were stuck mid year so had to pick up the UChicago policy. Switched carriers and no longer an issue.
^ Fortunately S19’s spring break ski accident made very clear to us what the extent of out-of-state coverage is under our plan. Very good point, though, for those who tend not to require their health insurance while on vacation and so haven’t quite tested its limits yet!
Current law ALLOWS children to be covered until age 26 on their parents’ GROUP health insurance policy. The parent is NOT required to keep the child on the plan, and for those who don’t have group health insurance, there is nothing requiring any insurer to make individual policies cover more than one person. Children are not covered if parents are on medicare or medicaid (child may qualify for medicaid also), or self employed.
The part of ACA which increased coverage for children to age 26 is not a target of reform. Trump likes the provision and while he really has nothing to say about it, I doubt congress will go after that since it is not big source of revenue to fund the ACA.