Paul Ryan says preexisting conditions provision of PPACA must end

May 02, 2016 at 09:17 AM
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House Speaker Paul Ryan says that some of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's (PPACA) protections for the sick need to go.

The PPACA provision that forbids insurers from charging more for customers with preexisting conditions is one of the few aspects of the law that members of both parties are slow to criticize. The provision enjoys broad popularity among the public.

Ryan, however, contends that that provision is driving up the cost of coverage for everybody else. The most expensive customers, he said, should be moved to high-risk pools run by states.

"Let's fund risk pools at the state level to subsidize their coverage, so that they can get affordable coverage," he said during a talk at Georgetown University. "You dramatically lower the price for everybody else. You make health insurance so much more affordable, so much more competitive and open up competition."

Some are asking whether shifting to a subsidized risk pool system for people with health problems would simply shift the extra costs to patients, and taxpayers, from health insurers and health insurance premium payers, and whether the benefits from that shift would outweigh the increase in burdens on people with health problems.

Last week, when the Republican Study Committee proposed a return to risk pools, it suggested capping premiums for the risk pool enrollees at 200 percent of the average premium in a state.

   

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