Jul 30 2010
CNNMoney: "Think your whole family is covered by your company health plan? Get ready to prove they're actually your kin." Under the new health overhaul law, starting next year "employers will have to provide coverage for dependents of employees [until] age 26. That will further inflate coverage costs for companies at a time when employers are already bracing for a 9% jump in their health care plan expenditures in 2011." To offset these increased costs, "companies will raise premiums on plans and systematically weed out ineligible individuals, said Tom Billet, senior consultant with human resources consultancy Towers Watson." Consumers may receive letters asking for proof of family, which could be in the the form of "marriage certificates, birth or adoption certificates, affidavits that establish domestic partner relationships, proof of legal guardianship and possibly even proof of immigration status" (Kavilanz, 7/28).
 This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
|