Colorado Health Insurance

If you are looking for child-only health insurance, and finding it nearly impossible to get coverage, you are not alone.  ObamaCare has all but destroyed the "child-only" health insurance market in Colorado, and across the nation. 

Fortunately, Colorado is one of the few states where you can still purchase a child-only health insurance policy, during specific open-enrollment or special enrollment periods.

Why is child-only health insurance so hard to get these days? As of September 23rd, 2010, the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) requires all insurance companies to guarantee coverage to child applicants regardless of health status.  As a result, most private insurers, throughout the country, have made the financial decision to no longer offer child-only health insurance policies, but rather, allow children to be covered ONLY if applying with a parent or guardian.

However, the State of Colorado, as a result of this unintended consequence of Obamacare, passed a new law requiring all insurers doing business in the State of Colorado to offer at least one product to children on a guaranteed basis.  To protect the insurers from "adverse selection", or purchasing insurance for the child only when needed, the insurers have been given the right to offer these child-only plans only during specific open enrollment or special enrollment periods.

We are finding that many parents are no longer able to afford to keep their children on their employer-sponsored health insurance plan, and thus are seeking to insure their child(ren) on a separate, more affordable, individual major medical plan.  Unfortunately, the parents, after dropping their children from their group insurance plan, are quickly learning that, outside of specific open enrollment periods, there are no options for short-term health insurance coverage for their child.

This is becoming a MAJOR MAJOR problem, which is a dirct result of ObamaCare.  Additionally, parents are learning that it has become extremely expensive to insure an infant (under the age of 2) on any personal health insurance plan.  This drastic increase in infant premiums is a direct result of the PPACA, which forces insurers to cover all well baby checks and immunizations at 100%, with no cost-sharing on the part of the insured.  Pre-ObamaCare, we could cover an infant child on an individual health insurance plan for less than $90/mo, but because of the new PPACA preventive care mandates, rates for an infant under the age of 2, now range from $200-$500/mo.

Despite the pleads of our insurance and NAHU lobbyists, which fell upon deaf ears, Congress went ahead and passed the PPACA, knowing full well what it would do to the child-only health insurance market.

If you have been directly affected by the consequences of ObamaCare with respect to Child-Only Health Insurance coverage, please make sure to talk to your representatives about this matter, and don't forget to Tweet @ThanksObamaCare on Twitter...http://twitter.com/#!/ThanksObamacare