California SB 257, the PARENT Act, would make pregnancy a qualifying event in California, letting a pregnant person enroll in or switch an individual health insurance plan without waiting for open enrollment. The bill would also prohibit health plans from denying or limiting maternity coverage for surrogates and gestational carriers. It passed the state Senate and is in the Assembly; until it is signed, pregnancy still does not trigger a special enrollment period in California.
Why Pregnancy Doesn’t Already Open Enrollment
This catches most people off guard. Federal Affordable Care Act rules list the events that open a special enrollment period: marriage, the birth of a child, loss of job-based coverage, a move. Pregnancy itself is not on that list. The birth triggers a special enrollment period. The nine months leading up to it do not.
California’s list mirrors the federal one. The California Department of Insurance recognizes events like gaining a dependent through birth or adoption, getting married, losing minimum essential coverage, and being released from incarceration. Pregnancy is absent here too. A person who becomes pregnant while uninsured currently has three paths: wait for open enrollment, qualify for Medi-Cal based on income, or wait until the baby is born and enroll then. SB 257 is written to close that gap.
What the Bill Would Change for Enrollment
SB 257 adds a single new triggering event to the lists that govern individual market enrollment in California: “The individual is pregnant.” The right applies regardless of how the pregnancy was conceived, including pregnancies carried by a gestational carrier. It extends to the pregnant person’s dependents and to anyone for whom the pregnant person is a dependent, so a spouse or child can enroll or switch at the same time.
A pregnant person would have 60 days from the triggering event to apply for coverage through a health care service plan outside Covered California, or to pick a plan through the Covered California marketplace. Marketplace plans may offer a longer window if federal regulations allow one. Coverage would generally start the first of the month after plan selection, matching how other special enrollment periods work in the state.
The new enrollment right is specific to the individual market: plans you buy on your own, whether through Covered California or directly from an insurer. Employer-sponsored coverage runs on its own enrollment rules under federal law and is not affected by this part of the bill.
Protections for Surrogates and Gestational Carriers
SB 257 also rewrites what plans can and cannot do when the enrollee is a surrogate. For plans issued, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2026, a health plan could not:
- Deny or limit maternity or newborn care because the enrollee is acting as a gestational carrier.
- Deny coverage to the enrollee or the newborn.
- Raise premiums, deductibles, copayments, or coinsurance based on the circumstances of conception.
- Reduce or limit reimbursement to an attending provider because the patient is a surrogate.
- Otherwise treat the pregnancy differently because of surrogacy.
These protections respond to real coverage disputes. Insurers have sometimes argued that a surrogacy pregnancy fell outside normal maternity benefits and used that argument to deny claims. The bill removes it. Unlike the special enrollment provision, the anti-discrimination rules apply more broadly to commercial health plans and CalPERS plans, so they would reach employer-based coverage as well.
What You Can Do Right Now
Until SB 257 becomes law, the existing options are what you have. Pregnant Californians with household income up to 213% of the federal poverty level qualify for Medi-Cal at any point in the year, independent of open enrollment. Medi-Cal coverage continues through a 12-month postpartum period after the pregnancy ends, regardless of income changes during that time, and the expected baby or babies are counted in household size for eligibility.
Above the Medi-Cal threshold, the choices are narrow. Covered California’s open enrollment runs November 1 through January 31. Outside that window, you need a qualifying life event, and today pregnancy is not one. People who find out they are pregnant in February or March often go months without coverage for prenatal care. That is the exact scenario SB 257 is written to fix.
Where the Bill Stands
Senator Aisha Wahab introduced SB 257 on February 3, 2025. It has cleared the California Senate and is pending in the Assembly. If it is enacted, the provisions affecting health care service plans would apply to plans issued, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2026. Until then, pregnancy is not a qualifying event for individual market enrollment in California, and the plan to buy or switch into has to wait for open enrollment or a different qualifying event.