Health Insurance for Americans Under Age 27 & Pete Wentz on Health Care

Photo: October 13, 2009 press conference. Photo taken from Speaker Pelosi's blog.

Yesterday, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA), announced that a key provision of the house version of the health care bill would allow youth to stay on their parents' health insurance plan until their 27th birthday.

This article from the Hill says that Speaker Pelosi has been working with fellow leaders to merge the versions of the healthcare bill passed by three different committees into what will in many ways be a whole new bill.

See the summary on Nancy Pelosi's blog, here.

Read the text of this key provision, here.

Watch highlights of yesterday's announcement, below, including excerpts from Krisja Kendricks' remarks.

According to Nancy Pelosi's blog post, while a senior in college, Krisja was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She was still covered by her dad’s insurance plan and received excellent and prompt medical attention, surgery and therapy—but two months after she graduated college, she was kicked off the plan. She applied to numerous insurance companies and, time after time, was denied coverage because she’d had cancer. Krisja said, “essentially because I needed insurance, I was not eligible for it.”.



Photo: Pete Wentz

On October 21st @ 4pm PT Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz will participate in a live online health care forum with Rock the Vote President Heather Smith and U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. Register to participate here, and submit your questions for the participants.

UPDATE (11/9/09): watch the archived footage of the online health care forum below.