Uninsurable at any price?
About 1 in 6 people shopping online for health insurance likely would be deemed uninsurable by most providers, a new study shows (via The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog).
The report (*.pdf)analyzed almost 450,000 people who requested a price or asked to be contacted by a sales representative. Those deemed uninsurable (or who might have to pay a prohibitively high price for insurance) typically had pre-existing conditions or were obese, according to the information they provided.
Two-thirds of those deemed uninsurable were women, with pregnancy or a prior c-section being major factors. But the significance of that figure is difficult to gauge because two-thirds of the online shoppers were women.
It is not clear how proposals to allow more people to shop for their own health insurance might be affected by this finding. It suggests, however, that any such plan, if it aims for universal coverage, will have to take into account the large number of people currently deemed uninsurable.
