Insurers Are Again Selling Child-Only Health Policies After Interventions From States, Study Finds

One of the first provisions of the Affordable Care Act to take effect prohibited insurers from turning down children younger than 19 on the grounds that they had a preexisting medical condition. The provision was supposed to make coverage more accessible to vulnerable kids whose families were trying to buy coverage on the individual market. Instead, it had the opposite effect: Insurers in many states stopped selling child-only policies.

That may be changing. A new study found that since the law passed in 2010, 22 states and District have moved to address the problem through new laws or regulations that encourage insurers to sell child-only plans. Children's health advocates say the changes are having the desired effect: Insurers in many states have reentered the market, and in some cases new insurers have started selling child-only plans for the first time.

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Source: Kaiser Health News