If you had prior credible coverage, you weren't going to be impacted by pre-existing exclusions.
#198 | Posted by eberly

That's BS.

I don't care about your personal anecdotes that cannot be verified.

If life was perfect you could keep your coverage. If not you were screwed. If you lost you job you lost your insurance. Of course there was Cobra. Which you cannot afford long without a job. Lose your job with pre-existing conditions was a death sentence for many.

Life is rarely perfect. Neither was the ACA. We all know that. It was a bandaid that a future Congress was supposed to make even better.

And we all see how that worked out for America.

If the ACA had been repealed the insurance companies would go right back to their scummy ways.

Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA), millions of Americans lost or couldn't get insurance due to pre-existing conditions; studies estimated around 27% (or 54 million) of adults under 65 had conditions like asthma, diabetes, or high blood pressure that led insurers to deny coverage, charge much higher premiums, or exclude coverage for those specific issues, creating major gaps in access, especially when changing jobs or life circumstances.
How it worked before the ACA:

Denial of Coverage: Insurers could outright refuse to sell you a policy.

Higher Premiums (Rating Up): You'd pay significantly more for the same coverage as a healthy person.

Exclusions: A specific health problem would be listed as "excluded," meaning no benefits for that condition.

Benefit Limits: Coverage could be limited for certain treatments or conditions.

Retroactive Cancellation: Policies could even be canceled after you got sick, leaving you with huge bills.

What counted as "declinable"?

Common conditions like asthma, diabetes, sleep apnea, anxiety, depression, and even acne or past injuries.

Even minor issues could trigger denial or higher costs.

There were many many ways the insurance companies could screw you. Acting like none of this happened and very few were affected is just ignorant. Apparently ~54 million Americans were affected. And we didn't even mention the effects of Medicare expansion under the ACA.

You are a fool if you don't think the ACA fundamentally stopped insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, a major shift from past practices, ensuring guaranteed issue and preventing higher premiums or coverage refusal due to health status, while also adding protections like essential health benefits and out-of-pocket limits for most plans.