The Obama administration is claiming that the Affordable Care Act had reached a milestone last week.
According to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, that nearly 50,000 people with pre-existing medical conditions have received health insurance through programs that were set up by the federal law. While this may be a significant accomplishment, many of the law’s critics claim that 50,000 is just a drop in the bucket, considering more than 25 million people with pre-existing conditions still do not have insurance of any kind.
Most people with pre-existing conditions are receiving insurance coverage…
are doing so through the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. When the plan was created shortly after the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the HHS expected that the average enrollment rate would be roughly 200,000 annually. The program has a budget of $5 billion, much of which is not being used due to low enrollment rates.
Ironically, the Affordable Care Act may be responsible for the low enrollment numbers.
The law banned insurance companies from rejecting consumers who had pre-existing medical conditions. Now, consumers can find coverage for their ailments, but are often subject to higher premiums than healthy individuals. Even so, many consumers have shown favor for insurance companies that they have had dealings with in the past.
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