By Deborah Huso
For Americans with pre-existing health conditions, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, epilepsy and cancer, finding affordable health coverage (or health coverage at all) can be a nightmare, but the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) may be able to change that … if it isn’t repealed before official implementation in 2014.
Under the PPACA, Americans living with pre-existing conditions are free from discrimination and cannot be refused health care coverage.
The U.S. House of Representatives planned to vote Wednesday on whether to repeal the health-care reform act.
“The Affordable Care Act is stopping insurance companies from discriminating against Americans with pre-existing conditions and is giving us all more freedom and control over our health-care decisions,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a press release. “And Americans living with pre-existing conditions are being freed from discrimination in order to get the health coverage they need.”
A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services reveals that up to 129 million non-elderly Americans could be denied health-care coverage without the new health reform law.
The analysis revealed that there are 50 to 129 million Americans (19 to 50 percent of the U.S. population) under the age of 65 that have a pre-existing condition with older Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 at a higher risk. In addition, 15 to 30 percent of healthy people under age 65 will likely develop a pre-existing condition within the next eight years.