There has been much talk over the years as to how the new health care reform will affect health insurance policies. With the many changes that will soon be coming through, insured individuals should be aware of how this new legislation may change the way they are currently insured.
For those who own individual health insurance plans, they will be allowed to make a choice between keeping their current policy or purchasing health insurance coverage through the new state-run exchanges beginning in the year 2014. Those who decide to keep their current plan will have some provisions that they should be aware of, including:
- Current health insurance policies will not be required to meet the higher benefit standards that will be required of new health insurance policies. However, due to the fact that insurance companies will be unable to add new benefits or enroll additional insureds into policies that are considered to be noncompliant, the current health insurance policies may not be viable for a very long period of time in the future.
- Shortly after the new health care reform takes effect, current health insurance policies in force will have to stop practices such as setting of annual limits on coverage and canceling the policies of insureds who become seriously ill.
- Current health insurance policies will also be required to keep the children of an insured covered on the policy until they turn age 26. In addition, health insurance policies that cover children will not be allowed to deny coverage for those who have preexisting conditions.
It should be noted that although the premiums for individual health insurance policies will probably be 10% to 12% higher by the year 2016, most insureds will likely be qualified for some type of premium-related subsidy. This means that these insureds will actually end up paying less for their health insurance coverage than they do today.