Amid the challenges of adulthood, one rite of passage is unique to the United States: the need to find your own health insurance by the time you turn 26.
That is the age at which the Affordable Care Act declares that young adults generally must get off their family’s plan and figure out their coverage themselves.
When the ACA was voted into law in 2010, what’s known as its dependent coverage expansion was immediately effective, guaranteeing health insurance to millions of young Americans up to age 26 who would otherwise not have had coverage.
But for years, Republicans have whittled away at the infrastructure of the original ACA. Long gone is the requirement to buy insurance. Plans sold in the ACA’s online insurance marketplaces have no stringent quality standards. Costs keep rising, and eligibility requirements and subsidies are moving targets.
The erosion of the law has now created an “insurance cliff” for Americans who are turning 26 and don’t have a job that provides medical coverage.
Some, scared off by the complexity of picking a policy and by the price tags, tumble over the edge and go without insurance in a health system where the rate for an emergency room visit can be thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars.
Today, an estimated 15% of 26-year-olds go uninsured, which, according to a KFF analysis, is the highest …