ACHA House Vote - Repeal of ACA - Pre-existing conditions?

[Cat_Race]

Hi All, went to sleep last night concerned about the House approval of the ACHA and the fundamental lack of safeguards for pre-existing conditions.  We are not FIRE yet, but plan to be in our early 30's (before kids), and healthcare is the biggest unknown to me.

There are safeguards for continuous coverage, but not premium rates?  How would that work if say you were healthy then got cancer - your premiums would jump significantly, yeah? I guess my major fear is being on the hook for 500K+ in the event of something catastrophic.  Especially with kids planned for after FIRE, things can go very wrong. 

Those of you who know more about this than me, help me understand! 

[Spork]

Honestly: no one can answer that question.  At least, not yet.  Until the Senate has their say, it is just too early to tell.

[Cat_Race]

Fair enough.  Bonus: a good lesson in stoicism.

[Spiritual_Lobotomy]

From what I understand nothing will change IF you have insurance , but if you want to slide without insurance and THEN get sick and THEN want to buy insurance, you will have to buy in a high risk pool therefore paying a much higher premium.  So there is time... and if you are not insured now, you are best to look into it.

[Malloy]

From what I understand nothing will change IF you have insurance , but if you want to slide without insurance and THEN get sick and THEN want to buy insurance, you will have to buy in a high risk pool therefore paying a much higher premium.  So there is time... and if you are not insured now, you are best to look into it.

But also remember that high risk pools aren't required to take all comers.  In the past, the high risk pools had limited enrollment based on their funding, years long waiting lists, AND lifetime insurance spending caps.  It's estimated that the high risk pols in the AHCA, based on the funding set aside, won't cover a fraction of the need. Also, the AHCA removes the ban on lifetime spending caps, meaning that any spending beyond the caps won't be covered.  There are babies right now in NICUs that have gone beyond the old lifetime spending caps. It's a huge blow to early retirement, and the best thing we can do to fix this is elect Democrats up and down the ticket at every possible opportunity.  I get that stoicism demands that we don't waste outrage on things we can't control, but we can control who we vote for and how we present our politics to our friends and family to try to swing more votes towards the issues that dramatically impact FIRE.  If public pressure causes this to die in the Senate (crosses fingers), the only thing that will guarantee that the ACA survives until most of us reach Medicare age is to flip one or both of the House or Senate and then the Presidency.  What can you do?  Vote. Vote.Vote. 

I've got a big stash, but there's no stash that can protect against medical disaster in the environment of the AHCA.


   

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/03/news/economy/high-risk-pools-obamacare-pre-existing/