Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield is citing the federal healthcare reform program for it’s decision to stop selling policies that cover only children. Wellmark is Iowa’s top health insurer – covering more than half of the state’s private health insurance market. The company on Friday announced it has suspended sales of child-only policies.
The roughly 9,000 Wellmark customers who already have child-only policies are not affected by announcement. Other health insurers have dropped child-only policies over concerns that parents would wait to buy insurance for their kids after they’ve developed medical problems.
The new federal healthcare reform law, approved in September, will require nearly all Americans to buy health insurance. It will also ban insurers from discriminating against anyone with a pre-existing health problem beginning in 2014.