Subtitle C – Quality Health Insurance Coverage for All Americans
Section 1201
Here is the part that prohibits both denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, and prohibiting discriminatory health insurance rates. Insurance companies are still allowed to charge different rates for individuals or families, by geographic area, by age, and tobacco use. But not by gender. Or health status. Or medical condition. Or past medical claims. Or evidence of insurability. Or disability. Or genetic information! Or receiving health care at all.
It also requires that health insurance plans accept all employers and individuals, if they offer insurance to any employer or individual, although imposing enrollment time periods for changes are still ok. This coverage must also be renewable.
You can also still offer discounts for participating in wellness programs, subject to certain requirements, even if those wellness programs encourage things that could be described under the terms medical condition (like weight loss, or decreasing BMI). Reimbursements for fitness centers, diagnostic tests, encouraging preventative care, smoking cessation programs, and attendance at health seminars, as long as they are offered to everyone, are not subject to the requirements of other wellness programs.
Health insurance plans can also not discriminate against health care providers.
Individual and small-group plans must provide certain minimum “essential coverage“. Cost-sharing is subject to limitations. They have to provide child-only plans, if they offer any plans at all. And you can’t make people wait more than 90days for coverage.
There are also protections for people engaging in clinical trials, allowing them to participate in those trials, prohibiting conditions or limits on routine costs of participation, and prohibiting discrimination if they participate in the trial. It does not require them to cover the cost of whatever the clinical trial is studying, or the costs of creating data. NIH – you are still in the business of paying for that.
Section 1251
You don’t have to terminate any health care you had when the Act went into effect. Whatever insurance you had, you keep. Some of the provisions of the Act will apply to these plans, however (reducing excessive waiting periods, rescission elimination, extension of dependent coverage, and annual limits). Adult children provisions only apply if the adult child is not eligible for other group health insurance.
Section 1252 – Rating Reforms Must Apply Uniformly to all Health Insurance Issuers and Group Health Plans. The title says it all.
Section 1253 – Reports shall be generated for self-insurance plans. Reports I say!
Section 1254 – Studies shall be done! Of Large Group Markets! And to see if these reforms will cause more employers to self-insure. And whether self-insured health plans lead to lower costs. And whether insurance plans offer fewer benefits in economic downturns. And conflicts of interest of self-insured companies. Reports! That no one will probably ever read.
Section 1255 – effective dates!
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