The Question Presidential Candidates Must Answer

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) seems to be a topic of discussion for Presidential candidates. Will the ACA still  stay intact once the next President is elected into office? What changes will be made to the ACA? The biggest question stated by an article on Bloomberg View is, “How would they (Presidential Candidates) protect people with pre-existing conditions? Left to their own devices, after all, insurers have an incentive to charge higher premiums to potential customers who already have chronic health conditions – or not to offer them coverage at all.”

What the ACA has done well is to ban the refusal of coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions. To protect the insurance providers the ACA has required ALL individuals and families to obtain coverage. This prevents those that are healthy from only enrolling in healthcare when something goes wrong, then dropping coverage once they are well again. Otherwise premium rates would skyrocket. It’s taking the good with the bad so that everybody is able to obtain coverage.

Several conservative plans offer a different option and still help people with pre-existing conditions as well as provide better options to healthy individuals. The proposal provides tax credits to help those who don’t have employer coverage, requires insurers to offer the same terms for sick and healthy as long as they are continually covered, and creates high-risk pools for anyone else. There are also ideas of rewarding those with continual coverage with protection from premium increases.

Many of the proposed options are trying to remove most of the federal spending and regulation. Bloomberg View states later in the article, “One could expect the need for the high-risk pools and the regulatory protections to diminish. They address problems that in large part result from the way federal and state policies have stunted the growth of the individual market.” All of the proposals on the table focus on allowing a more functional market to emerge. I’m looking forward to seeing the changes and how the ACA will develop with a new POTUS in office!

Read the full article on Bloomberg View HERE

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