Dependent Children and California Health Insurance

Dependent children are able to remain on an adult's policy in a subscriber/child, subscriber/children, or subscriber/family make-up.

This can be beneficial both in terms of monthly premium and/or benefits for California health insurance plans so let's understand a little better how coverage for dependent children is treated.

A big issue these days is with adults being offered Covered Ca and children under age 19 being offered medi-cal based on household income. We look at how to address this in detail at our Covered Ca and medi-cal for children guide.

First, What Defines A Dependent Child?

This definition has changed since we originally wrote this article due to passage of Health Reform and we applaud the change since the old age (18) caused issues for college students and did not reflect the reality of young adults age 18-25.

A dependent child in terms of health insurance is a minor age 0 to 25 (till 26th birthday following Health Reform changes) who is under the policy of an adult.

There is no longer a requirement that the dependent be a full time student in order to stay on the parent's plan as a dependent.

What happens when a dependent child can no longer remain on the Family health insurance policy?

If the policy is a California individual family health plan, the over-age child can usually be split off onto his/her own policy with the same coverage as the parent's plan with most major carriers.

This makes sense since you can usually split family policies in the case of divorce, etc.

Medical underwriting is no longer required for individual/family health insurance.

It does make sense to re-evaluate the child's situation to see if they can qualify for a tax credit through Covered California.

Covered California and Dependent Children

Here's the rule.

Covered Ca defines household by the # of people that file together on a 1040 tax form.

If the family is not claiming the child, the young adult would be a household of 1 and we would create a separate Covered Ca account for him/her.

You would only consider the child's income in this situation.

This gets tricky...use our services as Certified Covered Ca agents. It's 100% free to you!

Below a certain amount, they will get Medi-cal. Over a certain estimate for income and we can get rich plans and tax credits.

Run your Covered Ca quote for the child here and we can help going forward:

We can quickly establish what is available (especially subsidies) by phone at 800-320-6269 or by email.

Dependent Children On Employer Health Plans

If the policy is a Small Group health plan, the dependent should be able to get Cobra for at least 18 months and perhaps up to 36 months with a Cal-Cobra extension regardless of health.

This assumes that the group plan stays intact.

It usually makes sense to run an individual health insurance quote as an alternative to the Cobra option but a dependent never wants to exhaust his/her cobra election period without having other health insurance coverage firmly in place.

The real difference between Covered Ca and Cobra is the network of doctors you can see.

The Covered Ca networks is smaller.

You can get much more info on Covered Ca versus Cobra here.

Cobra tends to be more expensive (albeit for richer benefits) so individual health plans may offer a good alternative.

Losing group health insurance is a qualifying event to enroll in Covered Ca at any time

Again, never drop coverage until written notification of approval from the carrier for a rate and plan you want.

What are the benefits to keeping children on as dependents?

With a group health plan, the benefits to keeping children on the adult parent's plan is obvious if the employer is paying all or a percentage of dependent coverage.

The company is subsidizing the dependent coverage and therefore, it is usually hard to find a better value on the individual health market.

Some carriers will apply one dependent rate for multiple children.

If the oldest child is within the 19-26 age, it would be advantageous to keep him/her on the family plan since the rate is the same with or without the older child for certain carriers.

Otherwise, you or the company would have to pay the family rate plus an individual health plan for the overage dependent child.

Individual/family plans no longer present the same benefit for multiple children under a flat "family rate".

If a child is on a group plan and has health issues, medical underwriting is no longer required for individual/family enrollment.

Dependent coverage versus college plans

Another consideration is whether it makes sense for a dependent child to go with a college health plan or remain as a dependent.

You can quote the Covered Ca plans here for your dependent child to compare against college plans.

Aside from the premium effect mentioned above, it's important to compare apples and apples in terms of coverage.

There are benefits and costs to college plans so it's important to understand and compare them thoroughly.

College plans are probably going to phase out over time due to Health Reform constraints.

We're happy to help you compare the options. You can find more information on college plans here.

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You can run your Individual Health Plan for Dependent Children Quote here to view rates and plans side by side from the major carriers...Free.

Again, there is absolutely no cost to you for our services. Call 800-320-6269 Today!