A new immigrant with a pre-existing condition is often discouraged by the process of purchasing immigrant health insurance. That may even result in the immigrant not purchasing insurance of any kind. Needless to say, insurance is nearly a necessity in the United States -be it visitor medical insurance, international student health insurance, or immigrant insurance.
To ensure that people do not go without insurance, special plans called ‘
‘guaranteed issue’ plans are mandated by some state governments. Basically, it means that no applicant can be rejected on the basis of his/her health. However, applicants can be turned down for other reasons such as fraud.
Some plans accept those with pre-existing conditions, but have caveats that prevent true insurance. Check out the fine print. Typically, these guaranteed issue plans are also more expensive than regular health insurance plans. Remember that these plans are generally used as a last resort, and basically by people with several pre-existing conditions.
There are groups of people who strongly oppose the idea of guaranteed issue plans, alleging that the presence of these plans discourages people from getting health insurance when they are healthy, and a subsequent increase in premium for the healthy. Supporters of the idea argue that rendering a group of people uninsurable goes contrary to the idea of equality.
