One of the recent studies in the field of health insurance policies has revealed that most people in the country who purchase their own insurance policies without being dependent on the ones that are being offered by their employers have policies with lesser benefits that what is being stipulated by the new health care law in the United States which will come into effect from 2014.
A study that has been published in Health Affairs recently says that WellPoint Inc, UnitedHealth Group and other companies that are the participants of insurance exchanges that are compulsory according to the law have to enhance the benefits being offered to ensure their coverage covers the medical costs by up to 60 percent. This study was funded by a nonprofit group based in New York called Commonwealth Fund which supports the improved insurance coverage.
The study revealed that a little over half of the people (51 percent) with individual coverage should pay an average of $3,881 as deductibles. This amount is over five times the deductible the group plans by the employer pays. The researcher who headed this study, Jon Gable, said that in most of the policies, certain pre-existing health conditions are excluded and a majority of the individual insurance policies do not include maternity care in the absence of expensive riders.
In one of the telephonic interviews, Gabel who works out of Bethesda, Maryland said that it is important that the deductibles are brought down. In addition to this, he said that it would be nice if the coverage would include maternity as well, in addition to cost of treatment for substance abuse and mental health.
Commonwealth’s affordable health insurance’s vice president, Sara Collins, said that a little more than 62 percent of the consumers looking to purchase an individual insurance coverage are not able to do so because of the lack of affordable insurance policies. Hence, most of them who do purchase coverage end up buying the ones that do not offer adequate coverage.
The insurance coverage that will be sold during the exchange programs that are run by the government will be classified into categories such as platinum, gold, silver and bronze based on the benefits being offered by them. The new health care law that has been proposed removes the existing limits on the lifetime benefits and places an upper limit on the out-of-pocket expenses.
