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Affordable Care Act Offers Recent Graduates More Choices News

Posted Wednesday, May 11, 2011

For Immediate Release
May 11, 2011

Press Release
Affordable Care Act Offers Recent Graduates More Choices

JACKSON, Miss - It’s graduation season here in Mississippi, and the promise of a new beginning for young adults is exciting. But for some, it’s a little frightening. In an unstable economy, many graduates fear that they will not be able to find a job and may believe that they won’t have health insurance either. Yet, the Affordable Care Act (health care reform) now allows college graduates to have the option of getting coverage through their parents’ health insurance plan.

In March 2010, the historic Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act health care reform law was signed, and one of the major provisions of the law that took effect in September 2010 is that all family health insurance plans must offer coverage to dependents until they turn 26. “Under the Affordable Care Act’s dependent coverage provision, children can stay on their parents’ health insurance even if they live out of state, are married, or file their taxes independently,” said Keri Abernathy, program manager of Health Help Mississippi.

According to the Young Invincibles, an organization that advocates for young adults’ access to health insurance, prior to this provision, Mississippi was one of ten states that did not require employers to expand dependent coverage at all. Consequently, the majority of family plans in Mississippi only offered coverage to young adults up to age 19 or until they graduated from college.

Many young adults would not have the means to buy their own health insurance without the Affordable Care Act.  According to a 2010 report by the Kaiser Family Health Foundation, about half of uninsured young adults are full-time workers and many lack access to their employers’ health insurance coverage. As a result, young adults are two times more likely to go without health insurance than older adults.

“Young adults shouldn’t have to make a job choice based on the benefits offered by a particular job,” said Roy Mitchell, executive director of the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program. “This provision of the Affordable Care Act will go a long way to providing greater job choice and opportunity to college graduates.”

For more information about how you or your son or daughter can enroll under the dependent coverage provision of health care reform, contact Health Help at 1.877.314.3843, and visit their website at healthhelpms.org

Health Help Mississippi
Kaiser Family Foundation Study
Young Invincibles’ Mississippi Fact Sheet