Demographics of Insurance Coverage

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur201312.pdf

Report released by the CDC in December 2013 which gives the percentages of people insured in this country broken down factors such as age, gender, race, and state from January through June 2013. California is one of the states that has a higher percentage of uninsured people than the national average. 7.2% of children between 0 to 17 years old in California were insured at the time of the interview that was used to obtain the data for this study.

I suspect that these numbers and percentages are going to change with the Affordable Care Act and it will be interesting to see the difference between January through June 2013 and January through June 2014. There was no statistically significant difference between January through June 2012 and January through June 2013.

Health Care and Child Support

To follow up on my post from last week about health insurance, there are other options other than allowing coverage to lapse. There are assistance programs available at low cost.  Health care does have an effect on child support. One or both parents are often required to maintain heath insurance coverage for any minor children as long at it’s available at no or little cost through their employer. "Available at no or little cost" is loosely interpreted and essentially any out of pocket expenses will be considered reasonable under this definition. Through the Affordable Health Care Act, various options may be available to parents who need assistance for health insurance coverage for minor children.

Starting as early October 1, 2013, parents can choose new insurance options through Covered California. (See http://www.coveredca.com/). This will be for coverage that will start January 1, 2014. The program shall allow financial assistance for qualifying families including Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and through tax credits that will help pay the premiums.

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/css/resource/june-2013-child-support-report

Health Insurance after Divorce.

About 115,000 women per year lose private health insurance in the months following a divorce and more than half that (approximately 65,000) will lose coverage long term. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23147653

Typically, the court cannot prevent an insurer carrier from ending coverage for a divorced spouse of the named insured because they are no longer "related to" the insured. There may be other options available such as COBRA continuation health coverage which gives former spouses the right to temporary continuation of health coverage at group rates if certain criteria are met. COBRA coverage is paid for by the beneficiary and it can be quite expensive, though it is generally less than individual private health insurance. COBRA costs for health insurance are typically the full cost of the coverage for the beneficiary including the cost to the employee and cost to the employer plus 2% for administrative costs.

COBRA conversion benefits are only available for a set amount of time and will terminate after the maximum period has ended.  If arrangements are not made in advance of COBRA ending, there will be a break in coverage. There may be options available for affordable health care and planning in advance for the anticipated lapse in health care coverage will minimize the length of time uninsured.