NH Healthy Kids Buy-in for Young Adults: Passed, but Nonexistent

by: beverlywoods

Wed May 26, 2010 at 08:34:47 AM EDT

This year, my daughter turned 19. She has been terminated from NH Healthy Kids coverage because of her age.

When I asked about the buy-in, I was told that no date for that program to begin has been set.

Consulting the text of the law, I see that there is no requirement that this ability to buy in ever be actually implemented. A corporation is set up that "may" implement it.

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.u...

Which is too bad, because at the convention I attended a session on affordable health care, and when I asked about the buy-in I was told that some state reps thought that the federal legislation enabling young adults to be covered by their parents' policies would supplant the need to implement the buy-in.

Of course the reality is that a large number of parents whose kids are on Healthy Kids don't have any insurance coverage onto which they could add their children. Jobs that don't pay a lot also tend not to have benefits.

So I'd like to remind everyone that even though there is legislation on the state and federal level that may eventually improve access to health care, much of that improvement is 4 years away. Right now we have lots of low income NH residents who have zero coverage, including young adults who cannot yet buy in to Healthy Kids.

Unless we take further action, for the next 4 years we will still have people losing everything they have because they got sick, postponing necessary treatment, and/or dying of preventable causes. And some of those will be young adults who are supposed to be able to buy in to Healthy Kids.