Historically, young adults have been a group with one of the highest uninsured rates.¹ Although individual states had enacted laws that allowed adult children in various circumstances to be dependents on their parents’ private family health plans, only in 2010 was there a standardized national law that allowed all adult children under the age of 26 to be covered.² Because the change in law occurred mid-year, this report examines the coverage of young adults aged 19 to 25 in the 2 years before the change (2008 and 2009) and in the year after the change (2011). To gain a perspective on what was happening to a similar group of people, the report uses adults aged 26 to 29, who did not have access to their parents’ policies, as a comparison group.

Early estimates from the National Health Interview Survey have shown that the uninsured rate for adults aged 19 to 25 declined in the first 6 months of 2011 compared with 2010.³ In addition, because the provision targets only private health insurance plans, one would expect a similarly patterned increase in private insurance during this period.⁴

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¹ National Center for Health Statistics, Health, United States, 2008 With Special Feature on the Health of Young Adults, Hyattsville, MD, 2009.
² Cantor, J. C., D. Belloff, A. C. Monheit, D. DeLia, and M. Koller (2012), “Expanding Dependent Coverage for Young Adults: Lessons From State Initiatives,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Vol. 37(1), pages 99–128.
³ Cohen, Robin A. and Micheal E. Martinez, Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, 2011, National Center for Health Statistics, June 2012.
⁴ The National Defense Authorization Act of January 2011 brought TRICARE into compliance with the other dependent provision laws.