The bill as it is written explicitly prohibits private insurers from issuing new policies to individuals starting the year in which the bill is put into law.
Yes.
Individual, non-group policies. This is to protect the new group policy marketplace. Right now, if you aren't eligible for group insurance, your only recourse is to buy individual coverage, which restricts pre-existing conditions, is deniable, and often very pricey, except for the few who are in perfect health, for whom it is generally marginally less expensive than a group plan. However, if everyone who can get it less expensively does, then you're left with only sick people in the group plan, so the rates will skyrocket. The reason that insurance companies make group plans is on the bet that there are a significant number of healthy people mixed in with the unhealthy ones. If they knew that everyone was unhealthy, they wouldn't be interested.
and group (i.e. via employer) private health-insurance schemes manage to co-exist in the UK (and alongside, of course, free health-care for all paid for from general taxation); I'm not sure how we avoid the trap you describe, but perhaps it's through tax incentives for employers to operate the group schemes?
All the UK companies I've worked for which were big enough to have group health-insurance schemes, were US-owned, which might have influenced how important they viewed the offering of health insurance as a perk. Several co-workers (possibly including me -- I can't even remember) opted not to take it up, though, because it's a benefit in kind but is subject to income tax in real money -- which means that, as an employee, even if you're getting it "for free", you're effectively still paying 40% of the price.
Peter
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