The Federal Health Care Plan for Pre-Existing Conditions Available Now

For those who have been denied health insurance coverage due to a pre-existing condition, the threat of losing their homes and more looms as large as their illness. Hospitalization or complicated conditions requiring extended treatment can bankrupt an average family.

Often those who have been diagnosed with a serious or chronic condition do not qualify for standard insurance through their employers group plans or for prohibitively expensive private coverage. When coverage for pre-existing conditions is available, it can be as expensive as paying for the ongoing treatments that can be necessary to keep a person afflicted with cancer, kidney disease, or diabetes alive. (Type I Diabetes medications, supplies, and equipment can be hundreds of dollars a month not including life saving H1C screening tests, doctors visits, and emergency hospitalizations.)

Many people with pre-existing conditions like hepatitis, cancer, heart or kidney failure, or diabetes, spend thousands on treatments and are not eligible for standard insurance. Having been denied insurance by a major provider, they are often directed to the new federal insurance assistance program by denying services like Blue Cross/Blue Shield. For many people it is the only way they will ever read of the nearly year old program's existence.

Even though there has been a 50% increase in enrollment in the Federal; Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan many people still don't know what it is or how to apply for it.

The federally funded program which acts as a standard insurance program requires a premium and a yearly deductible and allows for general health and cancer screenings, mammograms, flu shots and required treatment.

Although it is a federal program, it is being distributed and managed by individual state programs. Where state organization is not available, the federal program, retains control. Information for individual states can be found at https://pcip.gov/StatePlans.html .You can apply at the site online from any computer with internet access.

Officials have estimated more than 300,000 people will have enrolled by 2014 but as of February 2011 12,000 have enrolled in the program's first year. As more information becomes available to more people those numbers are expected to climb.