re: Rush on pre-existing ...it's not insurance, it's welfare

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I thought the entire point of this was to get people insurance who couldn’t get it due to PEC.

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No, that's not what PEC exclusions typically provided. Prior to HIPPA the PEC clause excluded coverage for any PEC for a period of time, commonly one year.

So the way this worked was that you had a job which provided health insurance and you had, for example, high blood pressure or some other kind of ongoing condition. If you couldn't afford to pay out of pocket for whatever your treatment was, at full cash price, you were economically locked into your job to keep your health insurance, for which premium was being paid.

Or if you were laid off or fired, you still had to cash pay for any PEC on your new employer's policy for the exclusionary period.

But you haven't been a "freeloader" anywhere. You have always paid the policy premium. So has everyone else who was moving from policy group to policy group. The insurers were not actually losing premium dollars and nobody was "stealing" or getting a "handout."

This propaganda only appeals to uninformed people.