A handful of well-known health insurance companies are stopping all child-only health insurance policies according to the article “Some Insurers To Halt New Child-Only Policies” by NC Aizenman found on WashingtonPost.com.

This is in response to the new healthcare law that will require these types of plans to accept children with preexisting conditions as of September.  By dropping the plans altogether they can avoid this rule.  This may seem counterproductive, but the Obama administration believes in the big picture everyone will be better off, and hopefully this is the case.  Most of these companies will still continue to cover existing child-only policies, and will accept children with preexisting conditions in new family policies.

It’s currently unknown how many children will be affected by these changes since child-only plans represent a small share of the non-group health insurance policies available in the marketplace.  Somewhere between 100,000 and 700,000 children have this kind of coverage according to administration experts.  The good news is that most poor children with preexisting conditions already qualify for health insurance through government programs.  Let’s just hope that no child suffers because of a loop hole or miscalculation of benefits.