You must have heard that pre-existing conditions are no longer a problem now that President Obama has signed The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Not everyone understands what this means, so this article will explain how pre-existing conditions and Obamacare are intertwined.
Before Obamacare
Before passage of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, insurance companies could sometimes deny coverage to an applicant who had a pre-existing condition. This means that if you had already been diagnosed with an illness, you could be determined to be uninsurable by insurance companies. In some cases, insurance companies would offer coverage to these individuals, but they would charge extremely high premiums.
After Obamacare
Now that Obamacare has passed, the entire health insurance industry is different. If you currently have an illness, you cannot be denied coverage because of it. The law takes this even further by specifying when you can be denied, and there is only one time: in the case of fraud. However, there are limits on when this can be done. With the passing of Obamacare, insurance companies cannot terminate your coverage because of a mistake on your application while you are undergoing treatment for a serious disease, such as cancer.
Another significant change is the fact that insurance companies cannot put any limits on how much they will pay for essential health benefits. Therefore, if you suspect that you have an illness and have been putting off a trip to your doctor, you can feel free to make an appointment. Because Obamacare has passed, you can apply for health insurance and not worry that you will be denied because of a pre-existing condition, and you can also be assured that you will not be denied treatment.
The mechanism how this is accomplished is simple. Before, you could buy insurance when you wanted and insurance companies had to worry about pre-existing conditions because they would be selected against( people would only buy coverage when they wanted to claim against it). Now, not only are all required to carry insurance, you can only buy a policy on January 1st of each year unless you have a qualifying life event( birth, death, marriage, divorce, change of job). The problem of being selected against has been eliminated for the insurance companies along with their pre-existing exclusions.