Closing a health insurance gap for young people
Pennsylvania General Assembly sends health insurance expansion bill to governor.
The first Pennsylvania law of 2009 is a measure allowing children to remain on their parents’ insurance plans through age 29. That’s welcome news to uninsured twenty-somethings.
Listen: [audio:090515sdinsure.mp3]
With companies downsizing and imposing hiring freezes, many recent graduates have had a hard time securing steady employment.
No job often means no health insurance, but the bill passed by both chambers would allow Pennsylvania residents in their twenties to stay on their family plans.
That’s welcome news to Jess Doban, a 24-year-old uninsured Philadelphia resident who’s held a series of jobs since graduating from college two years ago.
Doban: Everyone I know bounces around so many jobs at this point, and everybody’s new at the company so, you know, last one in is the first one out. So everybody’s always a bit panicked that they’re going to lose their job with the economy, with the way it is. Something to fall back on would be very nice.
Administration spokesman Chuck Ardo says Governor Rendell will sign the bill into law.
Though Ardo adds Rendell is surprised it’s taken until mid-May for the General Assembly to get a bill to his desk.
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