Health Bills Target Young-Old Cost Gap

Young adults, a group that helped elect President Obama last fall, could have the highest costs to bear but the most to gain under the health care overhaul proposals in Congress.

The reform bills require insurance companies to reduce the disparities between what they charge the young and the old, with potential to dramatically raise prices for young adults.

But there are provisions that try to help provide coverage to young adults, such as tax subsidies.

"It works both ways," said John Holahan, director of the health research center at the Urban Institute. "They're disadvantaged with the more you move away from [the current price] rating, but more advantaged with income subsidies."

Young adults have often been overlooked in the battle to extend health insurance coverage to all Americans. They have the highest rate of uninsured status of all age groups, either because they can't afford it on fresh-from-college salaries or they hope that their age will save them from high-cost medical care. A 2008 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that young adults, ages 19 to 29, make up 29 percent of the uninsured population in the United States.

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