Insurance Industry Proposes Plan To Expand Coverage

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), an insurance industry trade group, recently released a plan to expand coverage to uninsured Americans. According to the New York Times, this plan would place limits on insurer practices that deny coverage to individuals with preexisting health conditions. However, the industry stops short of requiring insurers to cover all individuals with preexisting conditions, asking instead that each state be responsible for the most expensive patients. The question of how to finance healthcare for the sickest and most costly individuals remains unresolved, as current state mechanisms for covering these individuals are not well funded and are too expensive for most consumers to afford.

AHIP also proposes to cap premium rates for individuals with preexisting conditions, to make it easier for them to afford coverage. AHIP would also limit an insurance company’s ability to cancel health insurance coverage to help individuals remain covered.