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Epilepsy and Dealing With a Career
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The Kassebaum-Kennedy reform bill provides a start to changing healthcare as it stands. While it remains to be seen how insurance companies will respond, the bill will be valuable to already insured people who change or lose jobs.
Specifically, the bill:
- guarantees that an individual who has had insurance coverage for at least 12 months can go from one job to another without fear of losing coverage, even if the worker or a family member has a chronic illness. The person also cannot be charged a higher premium than a healthy employee. However, there is no guarantee of coverage for people who can't pay premiums.
- allows tax deductions for the cost of long-term care, at home or in a nursing home, for individuals with chronic or terminal illnesses. As with other medical bills, expenses exceeding 7.5% of income are deductible and penalty free IRA withdrawals are permitted. Employers can provide long-term care insurance as a tax-free benefit and a self-employed person can deduct long-term care premiums at the same rate as health insurance premiums.
- guarantees no waiting period for coverage of pre-existing conditions that haven't been treated in the last six months but were diagnosed previously. This means that even if you were diagnosed with TS, if you were not treated for anything related to TS in the last six months, there will be no waiting period fors insurance coverage.
- protects a child who has been covered under their parent's plan for at least 12 months from being denied coverage when moving to an individual plan.
- prohibits denying insurance coverage based on medical condition, including both physical and mental illnesses. Senate provisions that would have required equality between mental health coverage and physical health coverage were dropped in the compromise bill.
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