November 24, 2011

Health Education Powerpoint – Health

Within the borders of New York, there is a simple yet very distinct causation of guaranteed issue. What is a guarantee issue to the mass public? This is a law forbidding health insurance companies from deliberately rejecting coverage to those individuals who apply for the health insurance coverage. Now this pertains to the residents living and working within the border of New York. Just to set the record straight, the insurance industry does not deny an applicant the privilege of obtaining a comprehensive insurance policy. The individual applying for insurance coverage will have, depending on the plan, coverage for everything except the noted pre-condition. Individuals with pre-conditions have a rider attached to a waiting period of up to eighteen months.

However in most cases, when the individual can show they had conitnuous health insurance with another insurance company there usually is no waiting period with the new insurance policy. In this case with the guarantee issue most individuals will decide to remain without any insurance coverage. When the individual becomes ill, they will then search around for an individual health insurance.

Couple this with the community rating which requires health insurance companies to charge the same premium to everyone who participates and at the same monetary rate regardless of what came before a real disaster is on your hands. The one-size-fits-all approach is not the best idea and is causing more difficulties compounding the situation. An unfortunate example of this combination is evident in the annual affordable health insurance rates over a period of a few years that bring this difficulty into focus.

Single male at the age of 30 paid annually $1200.00 in March, 1993
Single male at the age of 30 paid annually $3240.00 in April, 1993
Single male at the age of 30 paid annually $4152.00 in July, 2003
Single female at the age of 30 paid annually $1800.00 in March, 1993
Single female at age 30 paid annually $3240.00 in April, 1993
Single female at age 30 paid annually $4152.00 in July, 2003

This unfortunately is what the community rating caused in a very short period of time causing much grief for many families living and working within the borders of New York. Therefore the unintended results of the rising costs of health care caused a rush of individuals and businesses to cancel their insurance policies. Now, the state of New York is going through great pains to adjust the guarantee issue and the community rating to fall back in line with what the legislature originally intended and not what this has become.