Third Principle: Maintain Coverage When Relationships Change
Just as people get married to get onto their spouses’ job-based health insurance, they often lose that coverage when they get divorced. Divorced people are more likely than the general population to be uninsured (21% of divorced people lack coverage, compared to 16% of the general population). Young adults often delay marriage so they can stay on their parents’ health plans, or opt out of coverage altogether (30% of married 19-25 year olds lack health insurance). Almost half the states now require insurance providers to extend coverage of unmarried, dependent children well into their 20s (to age 30 in New Jersey). The narrow definitions of family used by most employer health plans mean that an ex-spouse or a married child is no longer considered to be part of the employee’s family and therefore can’t be covered, even if they can’t afford coverage on their own.
- State laws should be amended to prohibit employers and insurers from automatically terminating the family status of child who marries or forms a domestic partnership. The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) should also allow otherwise-uninsured adult children to stay on their parents’ plans, regardless of marital status.
- New Hampshire’s 2008 Divorce Health Access Law prohibits employers and insurers from automatically terminating the family status of divorcing spouses of covered employees. States should adopt this model law, and the FEHBP should incorporate the same principle. The end of a domestic partnership should be treated the same way as a divorce.
