A milestone was achieved this week for health care in the state of New York.

Governor David Paterson announced he has signed three bills into law that would provide affordable and more accessible insurance to New Yorkers.

With the economy plunging one of the biggest nightmares for people is how to keep their health care coverage. If you lose your job, what do you do? If you graduate from college and are no longer on your parents plan, what do you do?

The state has come up with solutions for both problems.

“It’s absolutely good news for medical consumers in New York. It’s good news for people who are finding themselves uninsured either in the economic downturn as the result of losing their jobs, or in New York for the persistently uninsured population of young adults,” said Magda Schaler-Haynes, senior policy advisor for the New York State Department of Insurance.

Bills signed by Gov. Paterson will:

* Allow people who lose their job to extend their COBRA health insurance from 18 months to 36 months

* Allow unmarried children through age 29 — regardless of their financial dependence — to be covered under a parents’ group health insurance policy.

This is important because both groups of people will be able to get insurance at approximately half the cost of regular insurance because they can qualify for group rates, not individual rates.

“It reduces it from the average New York premium of $900 a month to somewhere around $400 a month so it is a significant savings,” Schaler-Haynes said.

More than 2.5 million New Yorkers are currently uninsured. Officials hope that these measures will change that.

It’s worth nothing that parents who want to continue the insurance after their kids graduate would have to pay extra, but it would be at the group rate, which is about half of the individual rate.

(Source: CBS2 HD)