I have a question for an Illinois health agent before obamacare was enacted.
If you were to get an individual plan( not group health) and have had breast cancer. Would you be uninsurable and if you were; how long until an Insurance company would even consider you?
They were high but doable if someone put a big value on their health insurance.
What Obamacare did was make it where everyone paid those high rates AND huge deductibles AND took away your choice not to buy.
Unless you were poor of course. Then the subsidies made it real nice.
It was a mess. The politicians did nothing right when designing Obamacare. And the new version doesn't look to be much better. They aren't going after it in an intelligent way.
I have never, never, never seen a high risk pool that worked for long - especially in the era of detailed underwriting.
Currently and perhaps for the next several years, individual health insurance will be about the best short term strategy however poor it is while looking for something different.