Major California insurers to resume sale of ‘child-only’ health insurance

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Are you searching for health insurance for your kids? Perhaps your employer has eliminated coverage for dependents. Maybe you lost your job –- and the family benefits you once enjoyed.

Your options will expand Jan. 1.

That’s when California’s major health insurers have agreed to resume selling single policies for children. Anthem Blue Cross, Health Net Inc., Aetna Inc. and their competitors had halted the sale of such coverage in September rather than comply with the nation’s new healthcare overhaul. It required insurance companies to accept everyone younger than age 19 regardless of their medical conditions.

But now insurers in California have changed their minds, thanks to a new state law. It will prohibit insurers who stop offering child-only coverage from selling new policies in the individual insurance market for five years. That will cut into profits in a state with millions of new customers waiting in the wings.

See full report on children’s insurance here.

-- Duke Helfand