Payers, Policy

Survey: Employers overwhelmingly support pre-existing condition coverage requirements

The Affordable Care Act requires employer-sponsored group health plans to cover pre-existing conditions for all individuals regardless of prior coverage. 

As the Trump Administration ramps up its efforts to invalidate the Affordable Care Act and its associated patient protections, a survey shows employers overwhelmingly support rules that preserve coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions.

A survey of 600 employers of various sizes from healthcare consultancy Mercer, found that 95 percent were in favor of Congressional action to preserve protections for existing conditions in the case of an ACA repeal or negation.

The 2010 law requires employer-sponsored group health plans to cover pre-existing conditions for all individuals regardless of prior coverage.

Employer-sponsored insurance is the single largest category of healthcare coverage, outstripping government payer programs. More than 150 million individuals around the country are covered under employer-sponsored insurance.

Employer sentiment parallels larger public opinion on pre-existing condition protections. According to a 2018 poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 75 percent of Americans are against policies that make it possible to deny coverage based on a person’s medical history.

Mercer also pointed to a supplementary rationale behind employer support of the policy.

“In addition to believing, along with the majority of Americans, that protecting individuals with pre-existing conditions is the right thing to do, making it a universal requirement takes coverage availability off the table when people are making decisions to leave or stay in a job or look for a new one,” Mercer explained.

Of the policy options offered by Mercer’s survey, pre-existing coverage protections were the only choice to receive majority support.

Expansion of subsidies to help purchase ACA exchange plans, for example, was only supported by 45 percent of respondents. Increasing funding for health exchange enrollment was even less popular, with only 30 percent of survey respondents in favor of the proposal.

Last week, the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice came out in support of a ruling by a Texas judge which seeks to invalidate the ACA as unconstitutional. DOJ lawyers previously called for the pre-existing coverage protections under the law to be zeroed out.

Legal experts expect the case to be eventually brought up in front of the Supreme Court, which will be the third time the high court will take up the issue of the ACA. In two previous decisions in 2012 and 2015, the court upheld the law.

Picture: Rabbitti, Getty Images

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