Friday, December 24, 2010

Child Only Health Insurance California 2011 -Anthem Blue Cross Live Blog

I am blogging this live while attending an Anthem Blue Cross conference call. Important news concerning Child-only health insurance coverage in California beginning January 1, 2011 for children under 19.

Per CA AB 2244, children may apply for coverage without a parent being a co-applicant during certain periods. This includes both healthy children and children with pre-existing conditions who need guaranteed-issue coverage. Children receiving guaranteed-issue coverage can be rated up in premium (as of today) but cannot be declined.

The enrollment periods will be as follows:

*January 1,2011 - March 1, 2011 Open Enrollment Period
*The Birthday Month of the Child (regardless of which day in the month)

Outside of these open enrollment windows, children will not be able to apply for coverage on child-only coverage policies. Outside of the open enrollment or birthday month, children will only be allowed to apply with a parent as co-applicant (and the parent must be approved for coverage for the child to be offered coverage).

Anthem will be imposing a 15-day waiting period for effective dates on all individual health plans beginning January 1, 2011. So a child-only PPO application submitted January 1, 2011 will be eligible for a start date of January 16, 2011.

As soon as I find out how the rate-ups are going to be set up for children-only guaranteed-issue health coverage, I will post a blog.

Anthem states that the maximum cutoff age to apply is 18 3/4 years of age.