Some insurers stop writing new coverage for kids



In Florida, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Aetna, and Golden Rule - a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare - notified the insurance commissioner that they will stop issuing individual policies for children, said Jack McDermott, a spokesman for McCarty.



Starting later this year, the health care overhaul law requires insurers to accept children regardless of medical problems - a major early benefit of the complex legislation. Insurers are worried that parents will wait until kids get sick to sign them up, saddling the companies with unpredictable costs.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida issues about 9,000 to 10,000 new policies a year that only cover children. Vice president Randy Kammer said the company's experts calculated that guaranteeing coverage for children could raise premiums for other individual policy holders by as much as 20 percent.

"We believe that the majority of people who would buy this policy were going to use it immediately, probably for high cost claims," said Kammer. "Guaranteed issue means you could technically buy it on the way to the hospital."

Kammer said the company did not make the decision lightly. "We were looking at all our other individual policy holders who pay a lot for coverage, and we didn't think it was fair to given them that kind of an increase to benefit a small population that receives a greater advantage than they do," she said.

Industry officials estimate that children's policies account for 8 percent of single coverage plans sold directly to consumers.

To get around the problem, insurance companies and state insurance commissioners are pressing the federal government to require an open enrollment period for the guaranteed children's coverage.

Parents could only get the guaranteed coverage during a designated month each year, or if the family went through a major change, such as a divorce or a parent losing their job. Open enrollment periods are standard for most employer health plans, and some government programs.

"That seems to be a fairly reasonable approach," said Holland, the Oklahoma commissioner, a Democrat. "It would create a mechanism to get children into coverage but limit the ability to misuse the system."


