Recently, health insurance companies have discussed stopping the sale of individual health insurance plans for children because of a provision in health care reform. Starting September 23, 2010, health insurers will no longer be able to deny children with pre-existing conditions insurance coverage.
Many insurance companies were worried that without an open-enrollment period for children to sign up for health insurance coverage, adults would only sign children up when they were sick and then drop the policy.
Nancy-Ann Min DeParle, the director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said, “Some state insurance commissioners expressed concern that, without an open enrollment period that was widely communicated, people might wait until their children got sick to enroll them in coverage, causing plans" costs to increase.”
In response to those concerns, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a few guidelines for health insurance companies and for children with pre-existing conditions. The HHS will allow health insurance companies to issue an open enrollment period for children under the age of 19.
Health insurers will issue their own open enrollment period but must follow State laws because some states already have guidelines set in place for enrollment periods.
The open-enrollment periods will help keep costs down for health insurers and for children who already have individual health insurance policies. It will also guarantee that children with pre-existing conditions have access to the private insurance market.