Side Effects: Children Face Reduced Access to Coverage Under Obamacare

Kathryn Nix / February 07, 2011

While the Senate failed last week to pass a full repeal of Obamacare, the negative effects of the health care overhaul continue to build the case for scrapping it and starting over. Americans were told that Obamacare would open the door to medical coverage for all children. Those with preexisting conditions would become newly protected by a requirement that health insurance companies “guarantee issue” to all children 19 years old and under. No child would be denied coverage.

But being able to get child-only coverage depends on the existence of child-only policies. And under Obamacare, this is anything but certain. A recent Republican Senate committee staff survey of state insurance departments found that 20 states no longer have insurance companies offering child-only policies. According to Politico, this is because “many carriers decided to leave the market altogether … rather than take on the burdensome cost of writing policies for potentially pricey medical conditions.” (more…)