Before national health-care reform, it was perfectly legal for a health insurance company to turn down a customer for pre-existing conditions. Say you had diabetes: they (a) wouldn’t let you buy health coverage, (b) would sell you coverage for everything but diabetes or (c) could charge you an insanely high price.
Such health-care discrimination is now illegal. But patient advocates and Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler warn that such practices are still around.
Here’s the key part of the AP story:
With open enrollment for 2015 three months away, the Obama administration is being pressed to enforce the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination provisions. Some regulations have been issued; others are pending after more than four years. More than 300 patient advocacy groups recently wrote Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell to complain about insurer tactics that “are highly discriminatory against patients with chronic health conditions and may … violate the [law’s] nondiscrimination provisions.”
Among the groups were the AIDS Institute, the American Lung Association, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Kidney Foundation and United Cerebral Palsy.
Coverage of expensive drugs tops their concerns. The advocates also say they are disappointed by how difficult it’s proved for consumers to get a full picture of plans sold on the new insurance exchanges. Digging is often required to learn crucial details such as drugs covered, exact copayments and which doctors and hospitals are in the network.
Washington state’s insurance commissioner, Mike Kreidler, said “there is no question” that discrimination is creeping back. “The question is whether we are catching it or not,” added Kreidler, a Democrat.
Kansas’ commissioner, Sandy Praeger, a Republican, said the jury is out on whether some insurers are back to shunning the sick. Nonetheless, Praeger said the administration needs to take a strong stand. “They ought to make it very clear that if there is any kind of discrimination against people with chronic conditions, there will be enforcement action,” Praeger said. “The whole goal here was to use the private insurance market to create a system that provides health insurance for all Americans.”
Kreidler, patient advocates and experts cited in the story say health-care discrimination is now more subtle, moving to things like the price of prescription drugs.
For more information, check out the Office of the Insurance Commissioner’s web page for all things about consumers and health insurance.