The Daily Campus

Issue date: 9/21/06 Section: Commentary

The Daily Campus [Click to enlarge]

The state of New Jersey passed a law which allows young adults to stay on their parents' health insurance plans well into their 20s. So long as these young adults live within the state and have no dependents of their own, New Jersey gives them the right to stay on their parents' plans until they are 30 years old. This increased age limit marks a significant improvement over many states' existing health insurance laws, which typically remove children from their parents' plans at age 19 (or 22 or 23 if the children are full-time students), This acknowledges a new reality for today's young adult - the need to remain dependent upon one's parents for a longer period of time.

Given the increased cost of living and the higher percentage of students attending college and schooling beyond college, most young people spend their early adulthood saddled with debt. As a result, more and more young people are relying upon their parents financially after college, in an attempt to slow their fast acquisition of debt - a trend that's colloquially referred to with the portmanteau "adultescence." In allowing these young people to remain on their parents' health plan, the state of New Jersey is appropriately recognizing the prevalence of "adultescence" and helping to make the situation more manageable for affected families. The new law can potentially allow these young people to pay less for their coverage, receive better coverage or at the very least simplify and consolidate the billing process, if their coverage is paid for by their parents.

The law is also beneficial in that it helps combat a growing problem amongst the 18 to 34 year-old demographic - the absence of health insurance. The Census Bureau has found that about 30 percent of adults aged 18 to 24, and more than 25 percent of 25 to 34 year olds, do not have health insurance - well above the national average of 16 percent. The problem is multifaceted, and can be partially attributed to the absence of employer-provided insurance in lower-level positions, young people's mistaken impressions that healthy people don't really need health insurance and the aforementioned presence of large scholastic debts. New Jersey's law will help reduce these numbers of uninsured young people, lessening the likelihood that young adults will face staggering medical debts in the event of a severe accident or health problem.

Many states have recognized the need to afford young people the right to remain on their parents' insurance for longer periods of time, and already half of them have seen, in some capacity, proposals similar to New Jersey's. In Connecticut, a proposal increasing the age limit has reached the committee level. Hopefully, the state legislature will make the right choice and allow older adult children to receive coverage under their parents' plans. Making health insurance more accessible to young people, who are the future of this nation, should be a priority for lawmakers both in Connecticut and across the country.

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