That isn't entirely correct. As I understood it, back in the days when I toiled for an insurance company, "Pre-existing conditions" meant that an individual had been treated for something in the past. There was an interval of 6 months before that individual could obtain a new policy, if that individual had stopped paying for health insurance, or otherwise had a break in coverage.
Maybe I'll finish reading the article later...
Some conditions effectively prevented one from getting private individual insurance almost for life. I was excluded from private insurance for 25 years because of a skin cancer that was potentially lethal but was removed and did not return. I was willing to have a high deductible, etc. but I couldn’t find any company that would insure me.
Many of the people considered to have “pre-existing conditions” actually do not have current, life-threatening or expensive conditions but simply have something in their medical history that might, statistically, possibly reappear in the future.
So there is work that needs to be done, but I think it lies with increasing the competitiveness of the insurance companies and not with giving the government more money to waste (even though the money is theoretically being held for a specific use). More and more people are self-employed now, and there is a growing pool of people who need to buy their own health insurance. But the insurers do not see this as a competitive chance and instead are busy excluding this group entirely.
Once upon a time, professional groups of the types of people likely to be self-employed (musicians, translators, writers, real-estate agents, various small business specialties, etc.) offered group insurance plans to their members, but this was killed off by the high costs of covering AIDS. But I think it’s an idea that should be revived.
After all, when uninsured people take a job with a company with a group plan, they are covered after a few months, regardless of their past insurance history (with some exceptions), so I don’t see why this couldn’t work for a voluntary professional organization.