Health Care Reform: National Risk Pool

Do you know someone with a pre-existing medical condition who has been uninsured for six months or more? Now there is help.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), signed by President Obama on March 23, 2010, creates a temporary national high-risk pool to provide health coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions who have been uninsured for six months. This high-risk pool, officially known as the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, is being implemented relatively quickly and will provide temporary coverage until the broader coverage provisions take effect in January 2014. The health reform law establishes basic requirements for the high-risk pool program.

States can operate their own high-risk pool or have the federal government carry out the program. Washington State has chosen to operate a plan for the US Dept of Health and Human Services through a subsidiary of the Washington State Health Insurance Pool (WSHIP). You can get information at www.wship.org/PCIP-WA or call us.