Today is the first day to enroll in TRICARE's new coverage plan for young adults. Under TRICARE Young Adult (TYA) Prime, unmarried adults 26 and younger who can't get insurance through an employer can get coverage simply because their military parents are covered by TRICARE.
Before TYA, TRICARE only covered young adults until they turned 21, or 23 if they were full-time college students.
So, why the change? Well, it has to do with the 2009 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as "Obamacare" by its detractors. That law requires health insurance companies to extend coverage to the adult children of their beneficiaries (as long as they're younger than 26). Congress also approved an accompanying bill that affects TRICARE beneficiaries.
I've got to say, this would have come in so handy when I was a 24-year-old waitress without insurance. I was always afraid I would get something like appendicitis, and the cost of going to the hospital would've wiped out my parents' bank account.
But enough about me. What do you think of the new TRICARE plan? Will you or your children enroll? (If you're looking for more information on the plan, click here.)
