If you are wondering how the health care reform is going to affect health insurance quotes, you are not alone. There are many media and news reports that are tossing around ideas and suspicions regarding the effect the newly passed bill will have on health insurance quotes.
According to some studies, it is possible that the legislation will affect health insurance quotes for three particular groups. It is possible that group plans will have increases in health insurance quotes numbers. This is because the health care reform bill has possibly scared some insurance companies, and employer-sponsored plans are a higher financial risk for insurance companies. Therefore, they may increase the health insurance quotes for group plans. Also, reform may affect an insurance company’s ability to deny or approve members based on their current health, or pre-existing conditions, which is one way health insurance companies minimize their risk. For these reasons, it is possible that health insurance quotes for group plans will increase. Group plans, however, are often subsidized by the employer, so this higher premium may not trickle down to the employee immediately. However, it will be an additional expense to employers, who may need to compare health insurance quotes to find more competitive pricing.
A goal of the health care reform is for the elderly to have better access to health insurance benefits and coverage. This is, of course, a positive action step. However, this means that younger members enrolled in a plan will have to bear the cost of more elderly members of a group. This may result in an increase of health insurance quotes for younger, healthy individuals who are applying for individual insurance, not through a group plan. An insurance company estimates their financial output based on the health of its members, so the more unhealthy members that are members of an insurance company’s pool, the higher the health insurance quotes for everyone. And the risk is spread out among all of the members, so younger people may have to have higher health insurance quotes than older people, given their age and health conditions. Already, this age group has a difficult time affording health insurance, so this is very unfortunate.
Not every group is predicted to have higher health insurance quotes, however. Because the reform bill will limit gender discrepancies in pricing, women may end up having lower health insurance quotes in the future than they have in the past. Many companies have charged higher premiums of women, because there are more maternity benefits, or more recommended screenings and exams recommended for female patients. However, the reform may limit an insurance company’s ability to discriminate based on gender. Therefore, women’s health insurance quotes may become lower in order to reach parity with men’s health insurance quotes.
These are just theories currently being tossed around regarding how the health care reform bill will affect health insurance quotes. The truth is that we will all have to wait and see what happens. In the mean time, however, this is as good a time as any to apply and purchase an individual health insurance policy if you do not have one.
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