ObamaCare promised that it would protect people with pre-existing conditions.
The truth? ObamaCare has failed people with pre-existing conditions. Linda Gorman explains how and why in an op/ed in The Hill:
States like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts decided to cover pre-existing conditions using the ObamaCare approach. They passed guaranteed issue laws requiring insurers to issue policies regardless of individual health status. Some also eliminated risk pricing and replaced it with community-rating price controls.
Premiums were more affordable, products were more attractive, and people with pre-existing conditions were offered more reasonably priced coverage in states with more sensible regulation, medically underwritten individual policies, and segregated high-risk pools. In Kansas in 2009, a 27-year-old man could buy a policy with a $5,000 deductible for $50 a month. The same policy for a 60-year-old cost $179 a month. Policies were guaranteed renewable once they were in force. It was illegal to raise someone’s premiums because he became ill.
As Gorman points out, "when people can get a policy regardless of their state of health, they have little incentive to purchase insurance." That's one of the many errors of the ObamaCare approach to health care. There were models that worked, prior to ObamaCare, that did a better job of protecting people with uninsurable conditions than ObamaCare has.
It's just another reason why we need to repeal or replace ObamaCare.
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