The Employee Benefit Research Institute
has a new study focused on the 3.1 million young adults newly eligible for coverage on their parents' health insurance plans under Obamacare and how they use that health insurance. They looked at one very large company's experience providing health insurance under the adult dependent mandate (ADM).
The most interesting finding, according to Paul Fronstin, director of EBRI’s Health Research and Education Program and author of the report, is "the types of health care services used by those in the ADM cohort [...] The ADM cohort was more likely to incur claims related to mental health, substance abuse, and pregnancy.” This group had higher health care spending than the otherwise insured 19-26 year old population because they used more medical services and because of higher hospital inpatient spending. That could be a result of deferred care, particularly for those with mental health and substance abuse issues, who could have been without treatment until they were eligible for insurance under their parents plans, and thus had more acute problems.
This added population of insured people doesn't come without a cost; they used about $2 million in health care services in 2011 which is about 0.2 percent of the employer’s total health spending. What's not calculated by this study, however, is the cost savings in the long run of having this group of people, many with acute health care needs, receiving timely treatment in settings other than emergency rooms.