> It creates health insurance exchanges on which people can by individual insurance without being denied for pre-existing conditions
One could (and can) do this without the exchanges.
Yes, before ACA some pre-existing conditions would deny access to some policies from some insurers. This was to prevent a career smoker at age 75 from signing up for a new very large policy, and immediately get the benefits they haven't paid for.
We didn't need all of the baggage that came with ACA to accomplish this.
> meaning they don't need to be in a job offering a group plan in order to get insurance
> ACA has made it possible for people to buy individual plans who were not able to buy them
Before ACA, you did not need to belong to a group plan to get insurance. And to that endeavor, private individual insurance policies are about the same price now as they were then...
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Meanwhile... ACA didn't touch pharmaceutical companies - the true reason healthcare is so expensive ($700 salt water IV's anyone?).
> private individual insurance policies are about the same price
Not for `zrail: pre-ACA, insurers charged high-risk buyers like him/her much higher-than-average premiums based on their medical history. Now that's not allowed.
One could (and can) do this without the exchanges.
Yes, before ACA some pre-existing conditions would deny access to some policies from some insurers. This was to prevent a career smoker at age 75 from signing up for a new very large policy, and immediately get the benefits they haven't paid for.
We didn't need all of the baggage that came with ACA to accomplish this.
> meaning they don't need to be in a job offering a group plan in order to get insurance
> ACA has made it possible for people to buy individual plans who were not able to buy them
Before ACA, you did not need to belong to a group plan to get insurance. And to that endeavor, private individual insurance policies are about the same price now as they were then...
~~~~
Meanwhile... ACA didn't touch pharmaceutical companies - the true reason healthcare is so expensive ($700 salt water IV's anyone?).