The pre-existing condition thing is a touchy subject. On the one hand, as you’ve experienced, it’s a pain in the rear for consumers. But on the other hand, there are folks out there that would take advantage of a situation if there were no pre-existing clauses and only purchase insurance when needed, then cancel the policy when not needed. That would drive insurance costs way up.
I don’t think we’ll ever see pre-existing condition clauses disappear altogether. But they do need to be relaxed ... a lot.
I also think that this could be one separate issue.
I personally think there should be 1 bill for tort reform and 1 bill for competition between the states.
I like the idea of breaking down the issues instead of putting them all together in 1 massive bill that no one can read or understand.
One thought is to see if there are mechanisms in baseball freeagency to be learned here for health care. Many teams see the need to unload an expensive baseball player for one reason or another, and another team wants him. There is a mechanism here for team A (ie, the "previous" insurance company) to transfer a player (ie, patient) to team B (the "new" insurance company).
Check HIPAA - it deals with this very thing. If you are not an individual purchaser, then your insurance is - BY LAW - portable with up to 63 days of no coverage. You can go for 63 days without insurance, and the new policy CANNOT make any pre-existing condition exclusions.
What Congress SHOULD do is make HIPAA apply to all policies; as it is, it only applies to company policies. So if you are self-employed make sure you set up an LLC or C-Corp and have that entity buy your insurance (group policy for 1 person). Then you have full portability and no worries about pre-existing condition exclusions.