Pretax health insurance premiums.

Under the new health care law, will there be caps & limits in place on how much insurance companies can charge customer in premiums?

• Because insurance companies must now cover everyone, will adults with sudden or on-going health issues &/or disabilities pay much higher insurance premiums than other customers? Will healthy people's premiums increase as well? (Somebody must financially cover this new, larger "pool" of insured - who?) If so, & people cannot afford these higher premiums, then they must pay the government over $1,000 a year in penalties thru higher taxes, correct? Confused.

• Answer:

  The Affordable Care Act creates new rules that will limit how much insurers can charge in premiums. The previous law allowed them to do so, based on factors such as health status, age, tobacco use and gender. The Health insurers can no longer place a lifetime limit on certain essential benefits, like hospitalization and each state determines the full list of essential benefits with guidance from federal officials. For more details, visit http://www.healthcarereform.ny.gov/summary/.