The below Health insurance companies are approaching the Healthcare Law in good faith and have opted to comply early with the age 26 mandate of PPACA. In Illinois, this is much fanfare about nothing because the State legislature passed very similar legislation several years ago that required all fully insured, newly installed and renewal groups effective 6/1/2009 and later to offer coverage to age 26 dependents excluding married dependents. The new Federal legislation supersedes that law to require eligibility of 26 year old married dependents as well.
Nonetheless, the press/administration have made a big deal about this aspect of new Federal Law (with the consensus being 9/23/2010 as the required implementation deadline). Carriers are voluntarily complying early and publishing announcements/mailings indicating that they are in compliance. Although the carriers are operating ahead of the mandate, they are all announcing/implementing them at slightly different time frames. Given that all the carriers are communicating a little differently, we thought we would offer the attached summary collating all the resources in one place. Below is a summary of what each of our carriers are doing and samples what they are sending out.
BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois:
Effective May 1, 2010, BCBSIL extended their age limit to all premium business
(with the exception of collectively bargained premium groups who may opt out).
There is no action needed by the group or the member. Consumer Markets will also be
complying and sending separate letters to the group block and the individual block.
Click here for the official BC/BS announcement.
Humana:
On April 19th, Humana announced that they were in compliance. A copy of their
announcement is attached. In addition, Humana released a great follow up FAQ.
No information on additional mailings was made available at the time of this distribution.
UnitedHealthCare
On April 19th, UnitedHealthcare announced their intention to comply and started sending notifications out to their fully insured groups. UHC also put together a very nice FAQ as well.
Once again, this requires no action for the members to maintain eligibility.
Trustmark Companies (Starmark):
Has also announced that they will be complying effective 6/1/2010.
Their announcement is attached.
IRS Tax Treatment of the Age 26 Coverage
Thankfully, the IRS has already provided guidance about the tax treatments of dependents to age 27 (no, that is not a typo). It is good news in some respects because in 2009, the IRS code did not reflect the Illinois Age 26 information so many parents of children had “inputted income” ramifications. The bad news is the deduction ends in the year the “child” turns 27 (so most likely there WILL be some inputted income calculations necessary in the tax year the person turns 27). |
