Healthy "Kids"

[Working in NH]

As was quoted previously, this insurance for young adults will be 100% paid for by them. They are not an expensive group to insure; in fact, I believe that having them included in a group with young children (who use more care than young adults and thus cost more to the insurance companies), may actually lessen the cost of the program overall. Young adults do not live in the same world that their parents and grandparents did when they were in their twenties. They are not in the same place in their lives that, historically, twenty-somethings have been in. I read an interesting viewpoint that the reason for this extended adolescence is not the doing of the twenty-somethings,
but that, as people live longer and stay in the workplace longer, there are less 'adult' roles and jobs for the young people to move into.

"Young people's willingness to forgo insurance, it turns out, is a major problem for the entire health-care system, which needs them on the rolls to help spread out risk and keep older Americans' premiums from going even higher. Young adults, after all, are less likely than older generations to need health care, meaning insurance companies can charge them low premiums and, in most cases, sit back and collect without much risk of paying out for health-care services." (from Young, Invincible — and the Key to Health-Care Reform, Time Magazine online, accessed 9/22/2009)

So, don't worry that you're funding insurance for some lazy young kids. If they want it, they will have to pay about $200/month for it. That's not cheap for a one person policy. Where do you think they should be getting insurance? Should they go without? It's very hard to get entry level jobs, and many entry level jobs do not offer insurance. My 20 year old works at WalMart while attending college and will not be eligible to purchase Walmart's health insurance until he has worked there for two entire years.