Affordable Insurance For Those With a Pre-Existing Condition? Not Likely.

As someone who is about to be phased out of her parents’ insurance coverage and denied a handful of times from individual insurance providers because of a pre-existing condition, I was eagerly awaiting the new health care reform bill and how it could help with my situation. I was disappointed to learn I would be phased out of my parents’ plan before September, when the part of the law extending coverage to children to age 26 would go into effect. But I really began to worry when when I learned that the portion of the law banning companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions will not go into effect until 2014. I’ve been denied health insurance a handful of times because of my pre-existing condition.

The Obama Administration, however, just announced a special coverage program to help people in situations like mine. But it’ll cost. In some cases, probably more than the uninsured can afford. For example, under the new Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, the cost for a 50-year-old is estimated at $575 a month, with a $1,500 annual deductible and 15 percent co-insurance, according to the Associated Press. They note that in states with lower medical costs, the premiums could be around $400 per month.

"That's still quite a lot of money, so there will be some folks who struggle to afford that," says Marian Mulkey, health reform director for the California HealthCare Foundation, in an Associated Press story.

More than 13 million young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 go without insurance. With premiums like that, I don’t think the number of uninsured young people will change much because of this new plan.

Another major drawback to the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan is that people must go without insurance for six months before they are eligible. Although the objective of the health insurance reform process was to universally insure everyone, the actual law falls short of that objective, leaving many uninsured.

As The New York Times points out, the newly unemployed or those currently paying high premiums in a high risk pool can not simply switch over to this new high-risk pool. They instead will have to wait six months. “There’s an inherent unfairness there that’s going to be difficult to explain to consumers,” says Sandy Praeger, Kansas state insurance commissioner, in The New York Times.

Kristi Eaton is a staff writer for Campus Progress. She graduated from Arizone State University in 2008.