Health Insurance with Pre-existing Conditions: Understanding Your Options

Insurance can help people maintain good health or obtain treatment for a specific medical condition. However, if someone becomes uninsured and seeks a new health insurance policy, having a preexisting medical condition may create complications.

Preexisting Condition

• Health insurers consider a preexisting condition to be a recurring illness for which someone received treatment during a specific period of time; this time varies from one insurer to the next. Preexisting conditions can include cancer, a broken bone or prescription drugs.

Consequences

• If someone has a preexisting condition based on a health insurer's guidelines, that person may be denied coverage, offered a plan with higher premiums or given a waiting period until treatment related to the preexisting condition will be covered.

Tips

• Despite the difficulties, it is possible to get health insurance with a preexisting condition. Some tips include becoming a "group of one" to be considered a company instead of an individual, signing up for COBRA if you have been laid off, applying for new insurance within 63 days of leaving an employer-sponsored plan, joining a high-risk insurance pool specifically for people with preexisting conditions or seeking coverage via a professional organization of which you are a member.