Gov. John Lynch signed a bill yesterday that will allow young adults to purchase low-cost health insurance from a state plan originally designed for low-income children.

But it may be as long as a year before any adults are able to sign up, the program's president said yesterday. And it's likely to be more expensive than first described.

"This is more complex than it looks on the face of it," interim President Jeffrey White said yesterday.

The legislation is the first of its kind in the country and was designed to offer insurance options for adults younger than 26 who can't buy insurance through their families or employers. Under the law, the state's Healthy Kids plan can expand to offer insurance to young adults who earn less than $43,000 a year. Adults are required to pay the full cost of their premiums, so the plan will not cost the state or federal governments any money.

Lynch testified in favor of the legislation and lauded it during a public signing yesterday morning. Adults under 26 have the lowest rate of health insurance in the state, and Lynch said the measure builds on a previous effort to allow some young adults to stay on their parents' insurance plans.

In March, Gretchen McFarland, then the president of the organization, told lawmakers the plan would include comprehensive coverage - including medical and dental care and prescription drugs - and would cost about $200 a month. She estimated that about 2,000 of the estimated 22,000 eligible young adults would sign up in the program's first years.

She described the program as similar to an existing Healthy Kids offering that allows families with moderate incomes to buy insurance for their children from the program, which is subsidized for poor children by the state and federal governments.

McFarland resigned from the organization in May, after less than a year on the job. White, who is serving as president while the board conducts a search, said the program faces a long road before it will be ready for enrollment.

"I'm dealing with the perception - and I firmly believe that perception is reality in many people's minds - that we're going to have a product that's going to roll out in a couple of months, and it's going to cost $200," White said. "And I don't think those are perceptions that are going to stand the test of reasonable examination."

During legislative hearings, the plan was described as an expansion of the existing insurance pool. But White said Healthy Kids will instead build a separate plan just for the adult subscribers and will need to design a new package of insurance benefits for them.

Among the questions the organization is considering is whether the plan should include maternity coverage. White said prenatal care is very expensive and is a much bigger concern in the adult population than in the pool of children enrolled in Healthy Kids.

White also said Healthy Kids is working with an overtaxed computer system. In order to add thousands of new subscribers, it may need to invest in new infrastructure.

Sen. Kathy Sgambati, a sponsor of the legislation and a board member at Healthy Kids, said the organization is concerned the plan could become a magnet for the sickest young adults, which would drive up costs.

"My hope is still that we could attract enough enrollment so the pool would not be skewed to just those who had significant medical needs," said Sgambati, a Democrat from Tilton.

But she said board members were concerned enough about the possibility to recommend separating the children's insurance pool from the new adult one.

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