I had a phone call yesterday from a woman whose husband wants to change jobs, but the new employer doesn’t offer health insurance. I told her the safest route would be to apply for individual/family insurance before changing jobs so they’d be sure everyone in the family could get coverage before her husband quits his current job and loses his group plan.  Group plans are very different from individual or family health insurance plans.

I asked if everybody in the family is healthy and she said “yes”. We talked some more and she mentioned that her husband has Diabetes.  I said, “Whoa! Your husband is un-insurable with Diabetes!  No insurance company will take him.  Tell him he needs to keep his current job so he can keep his health insurance!”

The wife said, “But I thought the health care reform changed all that!” I told her that some of the health care and health insurance reforms have gone into effect already, but not that one. Her husband will have to wait until 2014 to be able to get individual health insurance with his pre-existing condition. I told her Republicans want to kill the bill and keep her husband from having more employment options.  Sounds like a “job-killing” plan to me!  I hope her husband doesn’t hate his current job.