Unhappy with a provision of the federal healthcare reform law banning the practice of denying coverage to children with pre-existing medical conditions, large insurance companies have decided to stop offering child-only policies in certain states. The new rules go into effect today (September 23).

 

Insurers made the move out of concern that parents would wait until their children were sick to enroll them in new policies.

 

Those dropping child-only plans include WellPoint’s Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, CoventryOne, Humana and UnitedHealth Group’s UnitedHealthCare. The decisions affect people in Colorado, California, Ohio, Missouri and other states.

 

Ethan Rome, executive director of the activist group Health Care for America Now, called the move “immoral” and the companies’ rationale for opposing the new law, “market uncertainty,” “patently dishonest.”

=Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Health Insurers in Certain States Won’t Issue Child-Only Policies Anymore (by Marian Wang, ProPublica)

Major Insurers to Drop Child Policies Ahead of Coverage Mandate (by Stephen Webster, Raw Story)