Re:Health Care Law Projected to Cut the Labor Force
by tptacek on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @05:31PM
(#7187327)
I believe you may be oversimplifying the continuous coverage rules.
Under HIPAA, continuous coverage ensures acceptance into group health care plans (for instance, employer-provided coverage) regardless of preexisting conditions.
Further, continuous coverage ensures acceptance into some form of individual coverage, of a kind determined by the specific state you're in.
I do not believe it is the case that continuous coverage guarantees acceptance into individual health care plans.
In 19 years of working, and (more relevantly) 15 years of marriage, I have never had a lapse of health care coverage for myself or my family. When we started Matasano, I had just previously left a full-time, full-benefits job at a larger company where I'd been working for 4 years. I elected COBRA when I left, and started shopping for individual coverage.
We were unable to get family coverage at any price in Illinois because of preexisting condition concerns for two members of my family. In both cases, the rejection cause was a total surprise, because the "condition" wasn't an ongoing health problem, but rather a piece of medical trivia that caused underwriters concern that there might have been more significant issues down the road.
I shopped for insurance myself, and then with a professional broker who I paid to deal with the problem, and who could not find a way around it.
We solved the problem first by my wife taking a full-time job outside Matasano, which got us group coverage, and then by starting group coverage at Matasano.
Under HIPAA, continuous coverage ensures acceptance into group health care plans (for instance, employer-provided coverage) regardless of preexisting conditions.
Further, continuous coverage ensures acceptance into some form of individual coverage, of a kind determined by the specific state you're in.
I do not believe it is the case that continuous coverage guarantees acceptance into individual health care plans.
In 19 years of working, and (more relevantly) 15 years of marriage, I have never had a lapse of health care coverage for myself or my family. When we started Matasano, I had just previously left a full-time, full-benefits job at a larger company where I'd been working for 4 years. I elected COBRA when I left, and started shopping for individual coverage.
We were unable to get family coverage at any price in Illinois because of preexisting condition concerns for two members of my family. In both cases, the rejection cause was a total surprise, because the "condition" wasn't an ongoing health problem, but rather a piece of medical trivia that caused underwriters concern that there might have been more significant issues down the road.
I shopped for insurance myself, and then with a professional broker who I paid to deal with the problem, and who could not find a way around it.
We solved the problem first by my wife taking a full-time job outside Matasano, which got us group coverage, and then by starting group coverage at Matasano.