What will health and auto insurance have in common in 2014?

Health Care Reform NewsBy far, the most sensitive element of the Affordable Care Act is that it requires the majority of Americans to obtain health insurance coverage. Making health insurance just like car insurance, mandatory and required by law, for most.

In response to this requirement, there are currently a total of 26 different federal lawsuits working to try to reverse the law. The very foundation of this battle is the “individual mandate”, around which there is significant debate as to whether or not it is constitutional.

That said, many experts are agreeing that whether you are pro or con for mandatory health insurance the legality and appropriateness of this factor written within the health care reform law, has an important financial and economic rationale to support it. The reason that this element was established was due to another aspect of the reform, which is that beginning in 2014, health insurers will no longer be permitted to refuse coverage to people because of a pre-existing medical condition.

Vice president Sara Collins of the Commonwealth Fund, a private healthcare foundation from New York City, said that one of the primary reasons that health insurance companies refuse coverage to people who have pre-existing medical conditions is because they are the ones who are most likely to purchase a policy on their own, as they are the ones who will actually use it.

Those individuals require more services and will therefore be more expensive to cover than people who do not have a pre-existing condition. According to Collins, this explains why when people who have health issues do obtain a policy, the insurance company will go out of its way to underwrite and to charge a higher rate.

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