We’ve had employer provided policies all along and the previous ones (not sure about now) definitely excluded pregnancies of dependent children.
Mr. R’s “policy” (and I use that term loosely) through his old job was canceled due to not being ACA compliant. We got notices starting months before and they sent info about the exchange along with it. IIRC (and it’s been over a year now) I thought that there was a line on it about them providing required info. I assumed that all companies were required to notify their customers about canceled policies.
Men get pregnant, that’s news to me.
It would also be big news if I ever had a prostate disorder. So shouldn’t I be allowed to exclude coverage for that?
A la carte health insurance doesn’t work. If people are allowed to pick and choose what conditions they want covered, that’s adverse selection again. The pools get smaller, and they contain people who are more likely to need care for those conditions, which of course sends premiums skyrocketing.
All I know is that getting through the ACA website is still a challenge. DD just back from overseas and very computer savvy was very frustrated with it. She ended up with the Silver plan but kept being informed that she had never submitted her documents. On the website, it said they had been submitted. She finally mailed and electronically submitted them again. Her boyfriend has had a worst time as he lives in a non expansion state (Indiana). It really shouldn’t be so hard.
Onward, I agree that using the ACA website is challenging. But it was not nearly as difficult as filling out an application for non-employer-sponsored health insurance pre-ACA.
Pre-ACA there would have been a very long health questionnaire to fill out, often a required doctor visit, and sometimes weeks to get an answer back from the agent as to whether the insurance company would accept the person.
That’s why my husband and I ended up with different health insurance policies & companies – he couldn’t qualify for the policy our agent recommended for me and the kids. It would have been cost-prohibitive for the whole family to go with the company that would accept him – so we split it all into separate policies. One for him with one company, and individual policies for me and the kids with the same company that I am still insured with.
Over the years his insurance costs were always double or triple what I was paying, and ultimately he lost coverage about a year or two before ACA went into effect because he got to he point where he just couldn’t pay the premiums. Before that time, however, he had borrowed money from the kids to try to keep the policy in force.
With ACA he has coverage, and has probably run up well over $100K with medical bills for surgery, hospitalization, and post-hospital stays in a rehab facility. I think at least some of those costs could have been avoided if he had been able have continuous care in the interim, rather than seeing his health deteriorate as far as it did.