GAO: As many as 112 million adults have pre-existing conditions

Somewhere between 36 million and 112 million adults have pre-existing conditions, the Government Accountability Office says in a new report.

President Obama’s healthcare law requires insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. Insurers have historically been able to deny coverage to sick people or offer policies that don’t cover their pre-existing conditions.

The healthcare law also prohibits insurers from charging higher prices to people with pre-existing conditions.

Those protections will apply to as many as 112 million adults, according to GAO’s findings. The auditing office compared several recent studies that tried to determine how many U.S. adults have pre-existing conditions, based on the prevalence of certain common conditions.

Hypertension, mental health disorders and diabetes are the most common ailments that could lead insurers to deny coverage, GAO said.

The GAO report doesn’t say how many of those people are currently uninsured, but the insurance industry said that number could be relatively low. Most people get their insurance through an employer, and employer plans are already available irrespective of pre-existing conditions, America’s Health Insurance Plans noted.

The trade association also emphasized that requiring plans to cover everyone is closely linked to the individual mandate, which the Supreme Court could strike down this summer.

There is widespread agreement that the two policies must go hand-in-hand — the Obama administration told the Supreme Court that if it strikes down the mandate, it should also toss out the politically popular requirement to cover people with pre-existing conditions.

---