Day 9: Today's Important Thing to know about Health Care Reform

Today’s thing to know is that the Affordable Care Act made it illegal to deny an individual health insurance based on health conditions.  That means that people with pre-existing health conditions such as diabetes, heart conditions, cancer, etc. cannot be turned down for coverage starting in 2014.  Applications for ACA-compliant health insurance policies will not include any health questions.  In the insurance world, we call this “guaranteed issue” since you cannot be denied coverage.  This provision of the Affordable Care Act will be a great benefit to many people.  Being denied due to pre-existing conditions has prevented many people from purchasing health insurance.  Getting the coverage that they need is definitely a positive.  Now, for the negative.  Covering folks with pre-existing conditions raises the dollars paid out in claims.  This will necessitate increases in insurance premiums to everyone.  Most hard hit will be younger individuals who will have to help share the burden of higher claims costs.  If you are young and make a decent income, you may want to purchase coverage prior to the implementation of ACA-compliant policies to take advantage of lower premiums.