Do you or someone you know have anxiety, depression, cancer, asthma, diabetes, heart disease? These are some of the most common pre-existing conditions, which prior to 2014 insurance companies could refuse to cover. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), insurance companies can no longer deny someone coverage or charge them more because of their health status, but now those protections hang in the balance again due to a new lawsuit challenging the ACA, for which oral arguments began today in a Texas federal district court.
Since the 2012 Supreme Court ruling upholding the ACA, most people consider the ACA, and its many consumer protections, settled law. However, 18 state Attorneys General, including Wisconsin’s Attorney General Brad Schimel, are renewing their push to have the courts invalidate the health law. Their litigation threatens health care for millions in this country, whether they have insurance through the ACA Marketplace or private employers.
Aside from providing health insurance to more than 200,000 Wisconsinites through the ACA Marketplace, the ACA includes many other popular consumer protections that most Wisconsinites count on. Kids can stay on their parent’s insurance plan through age 26, women can’t be charged more for their insurance than men, and none of us can be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. In addition, thirty-four states, not including Wisconsin, have used the health law to expand coverage for many millions through Medicaid. The pending lawsuit threatens all aspects of the Affordable Care Act.
AG Schimel and the other plaintiffs are saying that since Congress zeroed out the penalty for not having insurance, the rest of the law is now unconstitutional, including coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and other popular consumer protections. In Wisconsin, about 1 in 4 adults under the age of 65 have a pre-existing condition; that’s 852,000 Wisconsinites—enough to fill each seat in Lambeau Field ten times over.
A court ruling striking down the ACA would not only impact people insured through the ACA Marketplace, but would also affect people who have insurance through their employers. It would take us back to the bad old days when even if you had employer-sponsored coverage, they could bar coverage for treatment of “pre-existing conditions” for a year or more. It would also bring back “job lock,” where people were forced to stay in jobs for fear that their health conditions might not be covered if they switched jobs or started a business.
The court case isn’t the only thing threatening coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. In our new Q&A, Kids Forward covers what’s at stake, who’s at risk, where the threats are coming from, and what some states are doing to help protect their residents.
Read and download the report, Q&A: Insurance Coverage for Pre-existing Conditions, here.
William Parke-Sutherland