Obamacare News Blog

HealthyGrads.com: Hope for Recent Grads Looking for Health Insurance

The new site,  features general overviews, plan details, online applications and rankings of top plans that are best suited for young adults. The company hopes to provide a needed service to individuals who, if they are not careful, can find themselves without health insurance coverage shortly after receiving their diplomas. Most family insurance plans will only cover children to age 19 if they are not full-time students and many insurance plans stop dependents’ coverage immediately upon graduation.

Healthygrads.com is designed to help recent grads avoid a gap in coverage and is specifically targeting young people between 19-29 years old. A demographic that company CEO Eric Scheinbaum says has been largely underestimated. “It’s a myth that young people don’t care about insurance. Anyone who is smart enough to invest in his or her education is smart enough to know that health insurance is a must have. Young people are our fastest growing group of new customers.”

Scheinbaum goes on to explain that while recent graduates value health insurance, they seek different benefits than your typical health insurance customer. “Recent grads don’t want to pay for expensive benefits that they believe they will not use such as brand-name prescription coverage.” What they do value, according to Scheinbaum, is being able to visit a doctor or the emergency room without having to pay a deductible. They also gravitate towards plans that offer dental and vision benefits but no lengthy contracts.

Healthgrads.com features only the top youth-oriented plans that fill the criteria above. All recommended plans are underwritten by top insurance providers such as Blue Cross, Blue Shield and UniCare with GenY plan names such as Tonikplans, SoundPPO and EssentialPPO. According to the site, Medicoverage never refers their clients to “fly-by-night” insurance companies that may not be around when you need them.

Although the company designed the site for young adults, they believe the previous generation will also find the site useful. They expect about 1/4 of the Healthygrads.com visitors will be parents. “While we have been impressed by the number of recent grads that have taken responsibility for researching and purchasing their own insurance, we know that sometimes a parents nudge in the right direction makes all the difference in the world,” says Medicoverage Director of Marketing, Chris Mihm. “Many parents will email a link from healthygrads.com to their recent grad and let their children take it from there.”