Insurers Can Charge Higher Premiums For Sick Kids Under Obamacare

Jillian Bandes | October 15, 2010 9:16 AM

Insurers dropped child-only policies earlier this year after it became clear that Obamacare would allow families to purchase children's health insurance right before children got sick — defeating the purpose of insurance alltogether. Now, the administration is trying to get them to come back, by giving them permission to raise rates on sick kids in certain circumstances:

The Obama administration, aiming to encourage health insurance companies to offer child-only policies, said Wednesday that they could charge higher premiums for coverage of children with serious medical problems, if state law allowed it.

...In September, the administration said that insurers could establish open-enrollment periods — for example, one month a year — during which they would accept all children.

Now, on Wednesday, the administration, answering a question raised by many insurers, said they could charge higher premiums to sick children outside the open-enrollment period, if state laws allowed such underwriting, as many do.

I wonder if this will actually incentivize many insurers to issue child-only policies after first refusing to do so.