Side Effects: Obamacare Causes Some Insurers to Stop Offering Coverage for Kids

Kathryn Nix / August 04, 2010

The effects of Obamacare are getting weirder with each passing month. Now, new requirements created by the law are causing some insurers to consider no longer offering “child-only” policies to avoid having to raise rates.

Most children are covered by parents’ employer-provided insurance or by government programs. But some parents buy individual health insurance coverage just for their kids. Starting next year, Obamacare prohibits insurers and employer plans imposing any pre-existing condition exclusions on children and requires them to accept all applications for children who qualify for coverage under their plans (so-called “guaranteed issue”). Those provisions could have serious and unintended consequences for children, as well as others. (more…)