California health insurance
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Guide to California
health coverage
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Dependent Children and California health plans
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.
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 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 his 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.
Related Popular Pages:
Important changes for California Health Reform
Cobra versus Individual health insurance
Again, there is absolutely no
cost to you for our services. Call 800-320-6269 Today!