Just In Time: Young People Benefit from Health Care Bill

A University of Maryland student offers a backhanded compliment to American health care reform. (Flickr/Andrew Aliferis)

Christina Garcia, 23 years old, never worried about getting sick—until she lost her insurance. On Jan. 30, a month before her birthday, her insurance company sent a “friendly reminder” that her coverage would be terminated the day she turned 23. “I knew it was coming,” says the University of Kansas senior. “Every day, I was getting one step closer to being uninsured.”

Garcia is now one of the 13 million young people ages 19 to 29 living without health insurance. Young adults in their 20s are the Americans most likely to be uninsured, and nearly 30 percent of that group lacked insurance in 2008.

As if by clockwork, the day after her birthday, Garcia became ill and had to be hospitalized. “It’s hard to focus on getting well when you can’t afford to be sick,” says the Kansas native today. “All I could think about was ‘Get me out of here; I can’t be here.’”

Garcia was so frightened by her hospital stay that, once healthy, she contemplated dropping out of school to get a full-time job with health care benefits. “I never thought I would have to consider that,” she says. “I don’t want to drop out of school, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.”

Nowadays, in an effort to stay well and avoid the ER, Garcia stocks up on over-the-counter cold and flu remedies. “Paranoia can really get to you,” she says. “If I even think I’m getting a cold, I automatically start taking DayQuil and NyQuil. I had to learn to take care of myself.”

Garcia is confident that her home remedies will suffice until September of this year, when she will be able to benefit from the recent passage of health care reform. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law last month, enables young people to remain on their parents’ health insurance policy until the age of 26.

“I can’t wait for that moment of relief,” Garcia says. “It’s something about being young, that makes you think you’re going to live forever. But it’s those times when you do need medical attention that you realize how important health insurance is.”

Along with Garcia, at least two million other Millennials, generally those between the ages of 18 and 29, are waiting for relief.

For Holly Jackson, September can’t come soon enough. After being diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of 14, getting sick went along with just waking up in the morning. And while she can currently rely on her mother’s health care plan, which covers her as along as she is a full-time student, Jackson will be graduating in August. At that point, she’ll have to pay out-of-pocket for her six monthly prescriptions, not to mention doctor visits.

“I was so afraid that I wouldn’t be able to afford to live,” says the University of Maryland–College Park student. “I can’t go without insurance; it’s really a matter of life and death for me.”

Jackson, who has yet to find full-time work, was prepared to do practically anything to help pay for her treatments. “Insurance companies have no idea of what it feels like to be sick and have no way of paying for it,” she said. “I don’t understand how they sleep at night.”

More than half of the 50 states already have laws that extend the age of dependent coverage, with New York and New Jersey covering young people as old as 30 and 31, respectively. But September will mark the first time in history that the federal government has required insurance companies to let young adults around the country remain on their parents' policies.

Currently, the age 26 provision is available to young adults whose parents have insurance plans providing dependent coverage for children. That means any group health plan or plan in the individual market that provides dependent coverage for children to continue to make that coverage available up to age 26, regardless of the young person’s school enrollment.

There are limits to this amplification, however. Married children can remain on their parents’ plan, but not their spouses or their children. Health and Human Services also has yet to decide whether or not insurance companies will be obligated to provide dependent coverage for young people living in different states from their parents.

Still, many young people were surprised that the sweeping care changes directly impacting them would begin so soon. “This bill is coming right on time,” says Jeffrey Ward, who plays football and baseball at Concordia College in Selma, Ala. “It’s really going to take pressure off of me and my parents.”

Ward, a 20-year-old sophomore, has never had an athletic injury, but he worries about the possibility of it happening. Both he and his parents have been uninsured in the past, and his school doesn’t require athletes to have health insurance coverage. With the passage of health care reform, however, his mother and father are now in the process of obtaining insurance that would allow them to no longer worry about their son’s safety on the field. “With me playing football, I worry a lot about physical injuries,” he says. “And because I don’t have insurance, my parents are constantly reminding me to play it safe.”

Like Ward, Torri Adrian is also eager to feel unburdened by health care woes. After losing her job, and, subsequently, her insurance, in August of last year, Torri now pays out-of-pocket for her monthly prescriptions.

“Eighty dollars a month is a lot for prescriptions,” said Adrian, who’s currently temping at a hedge fund, “especially when your work is only temporary. And affording yearly check-ups is out of the question.”

For Adrian, the new health care bill will provide the “nice cushion” she needs. “It’s nice to know you’re covered,” she says. “That’s what our government is for, to take care of its citizens.”

Whitney Maddox is a Race and Policy intern at the Center for American Progress. She is currently seeking her master's in Professional Studies in Journalism at Georgetown University.

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