Good evening good people,
I’m a 29-year-old woman in Maryland, unemployed with erratic freelance income, and I have a good credit score.
I had a few trial therapy sessions for anxiety during grad school, but I didn’t take any medication or formal tests. I had UHC coverage for two years at the time. Now, when I tried to buy it on my own, my coverage was rejected. What should I do?
This is so frustrating.
This is a double whammy of a scam—it’s not really health insurance and it’s medically underwritten, so anyone with any condition will be denied coverage.
It harks back to the old days before the ACA passed when getting health insurance with a pre-existing condition was nearly impossible.
People who didn’t deal with insurance back then don’t realize what a major benefit it is to be able to get health coverage regardless of health.
You couldn’t reach middle age without being either denied coverage or charged a huge amount, even for issues like controlled high blood pressure or cholesterol issues.
This isn’t real health insurance.
It seems that the policy you applied for is a fixed indemnity policy. The ACA doesn’t cover these policies, so UHC can decide to offer or deny coverage based on your past health conditions and claims history.
This is how insurance works: whether it’s health, car, home, or anything else, insurance companies look at your past claims. If they see you’ve had previous claims, they might be hesitant to cover you or charge you more because they expect similar issues to happen again.
This is why we need universal healthcare with a single payer system, not these greedy companies.
So you want the efficiency and control of government, but where is the money going to come from?
The money would come from the same place health insurance companies get their premiums and run their for-profit schemes.
It would be more efficient and much cheaper if we didn’t have to deal with for-profit companies and ask them to approve payments for necessary services.
I see. Thanks! Is there a drawback to using ACA-compliant insurance? I have some pre-existing conditions that I’m worried will not be covered 
You can only apply for ACA insurance outside of the enrollment window if you’ve had a qualifying life event, which you can easily find online. The main drawback is the price, but subsidies can help lower the cost. To find out exactly how much it will cost you, go to healthcare.gov and start your health insurance journey the right way this time. 
Thank you so muchhh! This was really helpful 