Obama Health Gift to Guitarist Adds Adult Kids to Payrolls BusinessWeek
By Alex Nussbaum
April 5 (Bloomberg) -- When Brian Howell, a 23-year-old Nashville, Tennessee, guitar player, feared a lingering cold had turned into an infection last year, he decided against seeing a doctor. It would have cost too much, he said.
“I decided just to drink a lot of tea and take some Mucinex,” Howell said. “It turned out OK -- thankfully.”
Howell hopes to stop gambling with his health next year, he said. That’s when young adults up to age 26, who aren’t covered by a company insurance plan, will be able to join their parents’ policies under the U.S. health overhaul signed into law last month. The change may save Howell $800 a year in premiums, money he said he plans to put into savings and a diet that’s less dependent on road-tour fast food.
Fourteen million Americans ages 19 to 29 were uninsured in 2008, the largest group among the 46 million without coverage, according to a January report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research group. The expanded benefits, effective next year, will help people seeking their first jobs, those working for firms that don’t offer insurance and risk-takers starting their own business, said Landon Gibbs, executive director of SHOUTAmerica, a Franklin, Tennessee-based health-care advocacy group.
