Hi, guys.
I’m doing a little research for a side project on HCR and I was curious about how it would affect me, a senior in college. Here’s some hypothetical scenarios for you:
Any help or answers you can give would be great!
In some states you can lose coverage on your parent’s health insurance when you turn 23, even if you are still in school. My daughter did, under California law. Under the new plan you will get to keep it.
This assumes that your parents have coverage. There are plenty of other implications, but this is the only one I’ve studied because it applies to my family.
… until you are 26, regardless of college status - but you have to be unmarried. Also, if you are a college student who is 18, you cannot be excluded from coverage on your parents plan if you have a pre-existing condition. Both of these take effect this year, not in 2014.
In 2014, when you turn 26, you need to have your own insurance. Either through work or by purchasing a policy.
Do you happen to have a list of states that affects? Or know if Georgia, in particular, is one of those states?
It affects the entire country. It’s a national requirement.
Err, I meant to say, the states that had laws that previously restricted out-of-school students under 26 from staying on their parents’ insurance plan.
My mention of states was because Maryland, for example, already requires coverage of kids until 26, so if you live in one of those states you may not see a difference in the new plan.
Is there anything big that will happen in four years that will change for people already out of school?
Rather than saying the states “restricted” older students from being covered, I believe the proper terminology would be to say they “did not require” older students to be covered.
For isntance, here’s a section of the law in Missouri:
However, in the covering memo, the Department of Insurance also said, “An insurer or HMO will have the choice to provide coverage past 12:01 a.m. on the 25th birthday of the dependent.”
In other words, the age limit of 25 in Missouri is a minimum, not a maximum.
Yes, insurance companies will no longer be allowed to deny you coverage because of pre-existing conditions. For my two children who have aged out of dependent coverage but don’t have employers who offer health insurance, this is very big, indeed.
Thanks, guys! This helped a lot!
I could always use any extraneous information anyone wants to throw at me, though. 
You can always download it and read it 
(Actually, you can use search in the PDF fairly productively)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3590:
The last one is the final bill.
The biggest change is the one mentioned – starting in 2014, everyone will be required to carry insurance or pay a fine, while at the same time, insurance companies will not be permitted to deny coverage – or even charge higher rates – for those with preexisting conditions or a history of illness, and won’t be permitted to drop people when they do become sick.
People without employer-sponsored insurance will be enrolled in state (or possibly regional) exchanges so they can be part of a large pool of insureds. Spreading the risk is the name of the game in insurance, so when you have a bunch of folks in a big pool, rates go down. At the same time, employers of more than, IIRC, 50 employees will be “encouranged” to provide coverage, or pay a fine of their own. Employers will be given tax credits for this, and individuals with low to moderate incomes will be provided subsidies to purchase the required insurance.
Additionally, there have been changes to the student loan program. They won’t apply to you, as you’re graduating. But starting IIRC later this year, the federal government will no longer be subsidizing the provision of private Stafford loans. Instead, the government will be loaning the money directly. What had been happening is that the banks had provided the loans – and so reaped the profits from interest payments – but they didn’t carry the risk of default. That was borne by the fisc. Basically, the government was just pissing away $60 billion to provide a windfall to private lenders. Now that goes away – the same amount will be available for loans, and at AFAIK the same rates (possibly rates will tend to go down), but the fisc that’s taking the risk of loss will also be the ones who reap the profits. $36 billion of the savings will go to increased Pell education grants, while the rest will go to subsidizing community and historically black colleges and paying for a (relatively small) part of the health care expansion.
Moreover, the rest will also pay for a limit on repayment of student loans. I’m a little fuzzy on this, but my understanding is that for new loans (maybe this doesn’t start right away), repayment will be capped at 10% of discretionary income for 10 years. That means that federal loans, at least, won’t hamper people from taking lower wage jobs, for instance in the public sector, or in teaching. Again, this is only for new loans, but if you go to grad school someday, you may benefit.
–Cliffy