Health Insurance and Pre-Existing Health Conditions

According to the new health care bill introduced by Congressional Democrats, insurance companies will no longer be allowed to deny people coverage because of their pre-existing conditions in 2013.  Until that time, people who are seriously ill or lose their health insurance because of their health will have to rely on the federal government to pay for their health insurance.

President Obama promised those who can’t get insurance that they would immediately get health coverage through a new high-risk pool.  However, in the health care bill that was approved last month by the Senate Finance Committee, people in the high-risk pool would have to wait 6 months until they could receive coverage.  The reason for this 6-month waiting period was to reduce the number of people who dropped their private insurance to receive help from the government.

Alternatively, the bill from the House of Representatives did not include a waiting period, but instead require insurance plans to pay into the federal high-risk pool if they cancel coverage for seriously ill patients.  This revision does solve the problem for people who are seriously ill and cannot wait 6 months to receive coverage, yet, there still seems to be a problem with the financing of this high-risk pool.

In both of versions of the health reform bills, the government will set aside $5 billion for the high risk pools.   The $5 billion is supposed to cover the uninsured for 3 years until private insurers can no longer turn consumers away.    Currently, 30 states have high-risk pools for those who cannot get insurance from private insurers, which covers 200,000 people at a cost of around $1 billion a year.  According to experts, there are an estimated 1 million uninsured citizens that are in poor health. If all of them signed up for the federal program, that $5 billion could be exhausted in just one year.