I always joke around with my clients that having high blood pressure is a side-effect of living in Miami.
Between traffic, fast food, the 3 o’clock cafecito and lack of exercise it could be.
Did you know that something that seems like the norm of having high blood pressure is considered a pre-existing condition?
What is a pre-existing condition?
Many would venture and say that a pre-exisiting condition is something major. That could be anywhere from a heart attack, cancer or something else that is considered life-threatening. However, they’d be way off-base.
A pre-existing condition can be anything that leads to something else. Such as high-blood pressure that can lead to something more serious such as a stroke. It is a health issue that used to exist before you decided to get health insurance.
Why is this important?
Well one of the great things that the Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (PPACA) did was to not allow health insurers deny people coverage based on a pre-existing condition! This was great news for many people with things as simple as asthma.
Here is the definition from healthcare.gov :
“A health problem, like asthma, diabetes, or cancer, you had before the date that new health coverage starts. Insurance companies can’t refuse to cover treatment for your pre-existing condition or charge you more.”
Charge you more for a pre-existing condition?
If you’ve checked out our “About Us” section you will see that we’ve been doing health insurance for over 10 years. We’ve seen many things.
One of them was that carriers would charge people more, just for having a pre-existing condition.
Here’s an example to help you relate.
Once, I had a client with, you guessed it, high blood pressure. After he did his physical (yes, people had to do medical exams before getting coverage) they decided the following. Yes, they’ll give him coverage, however, if something major happens like a heart attack, they will not cover because it is due to the pre-existing condition of high blood pressure. Let that sink in.
Oh also, if you he wanted this coverage, it would cost about $200/month more than what I had originally quoted him.
As an insurance broker, I was flabbergasted and upset with these things. Not being able to provide coverage to those who needed it most.
With PPACA, all of this changed. I’ve so many thankful clients because they were finally able to get covered and take care of things that they needed. Others have said that if it wasn’t for this health insurance they would either be dead or still paying for insane bills.
While there are certain limitation as to what part of the year someone can enroll, give us a call or send us a message and we’ll add you to the waiting list to make sure you can get coverage when the time comes.
Also published on Medium.
