New Hampshire has reinstated its state-sponsored high-risk health insurance pool for people with serious health conditions.
Insure.com Car Insurance - Official site. Compare auto insurance quotes, 200 companies, instant term life insurance quotes, life insurance quotes, health insurance quotes, medical insurance quotes, dental insurance, long-term care insurance, renter's insurance.
|
See the biggest insurance problems across the country
|
A high-risk health insurance
pool is considered a last resort for people who have been denied
insurance in the traditional marketplace because of health problems,
such as cancer, stroke, chronic depression, or heart disease.
State
regulations allow insurers to adjust individual health insurance
premiums for age, health status, and tobacco use. Lawmakers adopted
this measure to balance a 1994 law that guaranteed all New Hampshire
residents access to health insurance, regardless of their medical
history. The new rules also will override older state regulations that
restricted insurer's ability to adjust rates. Because of the 1994 law,
many health insurers fled the state. The insurers that remained balked
at not only having to guarantee access to their plans, but also at
having little flexibility to set rates.
Lawmakers hope that
the new legislation will bring insurers back to the New Hampshire
market and increase competition. In turn, they believe the competition
will lower escalating health insurance rates and encourage younger,
healthier people to purchase health insurance. When rates are high,
younger people tend to go without coverage while older, less healthy
individuals remain in the market, driving costs even higher.
The high-risk pool will be financed
through a 60-cent charge per month on all residents covered by health
insurance. For those who qualify for health insurance through the pool,
there will be rate caps that will not exceed more than 150 percent of
standard health insurance premiums in the state.
|
