Providing Healthy Futures for Former Foster Youth

Juvenile Law Center,

Among the numerous important benefits that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) created for young adults was its special investment in youth aging out of foster care and their unique health care needs. Effective since January, 2014, a provision of the ACA made former foster youth eligible for Medicaid coverage until age 26, regardless of their income, as long as they were in foster care at age 18 or older and enrolled in Medicaid at that time.

Foster youth miss out on so many benefits that other young adults receive. This is one important benefit we can all help ensure they don't miss.

This provision gives former foster youth the same kind of support that other young adults have under the ACA: the ability to have free health insurance until age 26. While all young adults have struggled to get adequate insurance coverage, former foster youth have additional obstacles.  They often lack stable families upon whom they can rely to acquire health insurance.

As youth enter adulthood, they need many things to be successful—a place to live, a good education, a skill-building job, and people who care about them. To have a chance at being successful they need these important resources, people, and skills, but they also need adequate health care. Despite the availability of health insurance under ACA for over a year, many eligible young adults across the country have not enrolled – primarily because they don’t know that they qualify.

May is National Foster Care Month and presents an ideal opportunity to help foster youth get the health care and health coverage they need. Juvenile Law Center has developed new materials, including application information for every state, that anyone can use to help reach out and inform current and former foster youth about this important Medicaid benefit. You can also help educate your colleagues on the provision so that more eligible young adults can get insured.

Foster youth miss out on so many benefits that other young adults in biological families receive – this is one important benefit we can all help ensure they don’t miss. All they need to do is apply.

For more information visit www.jlc.org/getcovered.