State Extends Insurance to 29-year-olds

Pennsylvania residents may now be able to stay on their parents’ health insurance policies until age 30 thanks to a new law that went into effect yesterday. 40% of Pennsylvania’s estimated one million uninsured residents are in their twenties, and Insurance Department officials say the new law may provide coverage for 15-thousand of them. Until this week, the cutoff for dependents on family health insurance policies was 19, but that’s now been bumped up to 29. Insurance Department spokeswoman Rosanne Placey says people interested in the shift should call their employers. She says, “Your family member who has the insurance should contact their benefits administrator to determine whether or not they’re expanding coverage to include this adult child benefit. If they are, find out when the child will become eligible. When are they going through another open enrollment renewal cycle?” Placey notes employers aren’t required to provide family coverage, so some companies may not decide to offer insurance for the twenty-something children of employees. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the recession has hit job seekers under thirty particularly hard. The Bureau says 14.8% of 20 to 24 year-olds are unemployed.