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Thank you, M. Speaker.  On Tuesday, Speaker Pelosi announced an important new addition to our health insurance reform package – young adults will be able to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until their 27th birthday.

Young adults make up one third of the entire uninsured population, numbering 13.7 million.  Only 53 percent of young adults are even eligible for employer-based insurance and 51 percent do not have health coverage through their jobs.  Young adults have the highest rate of injury-related emergency department visits and 15 percent have a chronic health condition.  Half are overweight or obese, 9 percent have been diagnosed with depression or a related condition, and the highest prevalence of Human Papilloma virus, which has been linked to cervical cancer, is among women aged 20 to 24.  Young adults experience 6 preventable deaths each day due to lack of health insurance.

This is clearly an age group that needs health insurance, but young adults are among those least likely to have access to coverage.  Allowing them to remain as a dependent on their parents’ health insurance plans will bring quality health insurance within reach for millions of young adults, who otherwise would have lost that coverage.  I am proud to support this provision, and the overall health insurance reform bill, which will not only bring affordable coverage within reach of young adults, but of all Americans.

Thank you, M. Speaker, and I yield back.

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