Healthcare Reform Part II

In my previous write-up on this topic, I talked about inclusion of preventive services. Today, I’ll discuss including children with pre-existing conditions into the health-care system. According to a new report , there are 5 million children under the age of 18 who has pre-existing conditions. So far, insurance companies had been denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. The Affordable Care Act recognized the need for brining in all those children with pre-existing conditions into the system. So accordingly, health plans beginning on or after September 23, 2010 for new plans and existing group plans, “The new law includes new rules to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to children under the age of 19 due to a pre-existing condition.”


Now the law says that from this year no children should be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

This is a very good step to consumer protection. But there are some loopholes in this law. The law states that children cannot be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, but it did not say that all children need to be covered. So, insurance companies can stop offering coverage to these children till 2014, when everyone need to be offered insurance. Anticipating that the insurance companies would read through these fine prints, the Health and Human services announced a Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan that will “offer coverage to uninsured Americans who have been unable to obtain health coverage because of a pre-existing health condition”.

So will this provision of Health-Care Reform help the consumers?

The actual benefits will be delayed till 2014 for sure.

http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/newsroom/press-releases/2010-press-releases/pre-existing-national.html
http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/index.html
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/07/20100701a.html



by Roy Tutu


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Roy Tutu is the publisher of the blog, “ephemeralthinking.com” – a blog that covers topics related to economics, business, society and entertainment.

Roy is an economist with a passion for writing. According to Roy, “our informal conversations leap from one topic to another, transforming and reshaping our views and opinions. Ephemeralthinking.com is an avenue that brings in such informal discussions to curious readers.”

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