Posts Tagged - ‘pre-existing conditions’

Image: twbuckner under CC 3.0

Today is the official launch date of one of the most heavily hyped elements of affordable health insurance reform: the temporary pools for up to 350,000 uninsured people with pre-existing conditions. Only citizens or legal residents who have lacked insurance for over six months are eligible to sign up.

29 states will run their own health insurance pools, while 21 others have left the responsibility up to the federal government’s Department of Health and Human Services. Those living in the latter states can apply today for coverage that begins next month, while others must wait until later this summer. Many of the latter were leery of supplementing their existing high-risk pools with another one that met the new requirements (that rates charged are similar to the rest of the market, etc.) However, the rates charged in each state will vary widely, based on several factors–including age.

These pools are intended as temporary solutions for health coverage, until reforms take full effect in four years. By 2014, these stopgap solutions should no longer be necessary, since health insurers will no longer be allowed to deny coverage to high-risk patients.