With political candidates and pundits on both sides of the aisle offering what they think should and should not be done by the Federal Government to improve access to affordable healthcare insurance, many states have taken the ball and run with it.

Not willing to sit idly by while the Federal Government wrestles with health insurance reform, many states have put into effect or proposed some very innovative ideas to lower health insurance and healthcare costs for their citizenry. Tax credits and mandates are just a couple of the ideas some states are using to increase access to low cost health insurance products. Here are a few other affordable health insurance strategies from across the nation.

Some States have found a great way to decrease the numbers of those without affordable health insurance in their regions is to increase the age of who is considered a dependant child. Traditionally a child could no longer be covered under his parent’s health insurance plan once he or she turned 19 or 23 if they were living away at college. Some states like New Jersey have raised the age as high as 30. Other states have raised the age limits not only for dependant children to stay on their parents medical insurance plan, but the age to which children of low income families can remain on State provided health insurance benefits.

Arkansas and North Dakota are two states that have allowed Mandate Free Health Insurance policies to be sold in their States. In an effort to lower health insurance premiums, health insurance regulators in these states have allowed those in the market for private health insurance to buy polices without all of the full benefit coverage that would normally be mandated by the insurance companies.

Other states have expanded the options for employers to make group health insurance purchases, and therefore provide lower cost group health insurance polices to their employees.

States have employed various types of health insurance mandates to improve access to health insurance coverage. These healthcare insurance mandates range from the individual and company health insurance mandates put into effect in Massachusetts, to states that require vendors and contractors applying for Government or municipal contracts provide affordable health insurance benefits to their employees.