Health Insurance Blog

Judith Graham from the Chicago Tribune’s Triage blog has mentioned that the state of Illinois is now suffering from an epidemic of 50 to 64 year-olds without health insurance. These individuals are caught between a rock and a hard place–they often suffer from pre-existing conditions that preclude buying individual health coverage on the open market, but aren’t yet old enough to qualify for Medicare.

An AARP/Disability Advocates of Chicago report found that over 287,000 (13.3%) adults in the 50-64 age group are uninsured. 44% of poor adults in this age range lack health insurance.

Unfortunately, the current corruption scandal involving Ill. Governor Rod Blagojevich is distracting the state from its governing duties, including dealing with health care. Get the best Illinois health insurance quotes, regardless of your age.

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The UnitedHealth Group is now offering UnitedHealth Continuity, a policy for those that already have health insurance but are worried that they may lose it in the future. These people may be considering early retirement, or may fear unemployment and the resulting loss of health care coverage. Reed Abelson says in the New York Times that applicants must pass a medical review before being accepted. However, many individuals who have been unable to get insurance on their own are those with pre-existing conditions. The Continuity plan doesn’t seem to be helpful for them.

The UnitedHealth Continuity policy charges members 20% of the current health insurance premium to reserve the right to future coverage, and varies due to age, gender, location, and level of coverage selected. The monthly fee is also subject to increase in the future. There is also the danger of the plan becoming a costly high-risk pool that attracts people more likely to develop serious conditions.

Reed also speculates that proposed health care reforms from the incoming Obama administration include a requirement that private insurers offer individual health coverage to everyone, no matter the state of their health. That type of law would make the new UnitedHealth guarantee unnecessary. The president of UnitedHealth’s individual insurance unit, Richard A. Collins, claims that political wrangling and legislative delays make the Continuity plan viable, at least in the short term.

UnitedHealth Continuity is currently available in 25 states in which UnitedHealth already sells individual insurance. It believes that it will soon be able to offer the Continuity plan in 15 more states.

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To date, more than thirty states have set-up high-risk pools to address the issue of the those who go without health insurance coverage because they are deemed “uninsurable” by private health insurance companies.

For many of these “uninsurables” these high-risk pools are their only means for acquiring health insurance, because they don’t have access to an employer-sponsored health plan, and as mentioned above, private health insurers won’t cover them because of a pre-exisitng condition such as diabetes, depression, or high-blood pressure.  About 175,000 people nationally are covered under these high-risk pools and that number should grow as more states launch similar programs.

High-risk pools are generally similar to health plans offered by private health insurers, but in some cases may offer more limited benefits.  However, the costs for these health plans are pretty steep ( 1.5 to 2 times that of similar private health plans which is understandable due to the expensive nature of the customers medical conditions that drive people towards these plans to begin with.

Despite their high cost, these state run health plans are a very important instrument for individuals with health conditions and as a last resort, they should certainly be considered a favorable option to going without health insurance altogether.

If cost is a concern, you should first see if you qualify for individual health insurance from a private health insurer, and then look to high-risk pool as a last resort.

States that currently have high-risk pools include:  Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming.