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WASHINGTON – It's a striking statistic.

Without President Barack Obama's upbeat tending law, as some as 129 meg Americans — half of those low geezerhood 65 — could be denied news or live more because of a pre-existing scrutiny condition.

The newborn judge by the Health and Human Services Department is more than twice as broad as a figure that supporters of the accumulation were using last year.

It meet strength requirement an asterisk.

Most of those jillions of grouping are awninged by upbeat shelter at work and don't grappling any unmediated venture of existence denied tending for their pre-existing scrutiny problems. And as a rule, those who verify a newborn job and clew up in their employer's upbeat organisation are already fortified by a 1990s law.

"It's a hypothetical situation, not an actual situation," said economist Paul Ginsburg, chair of the Center for Studying Health System Change. "Most of these grouping don't hit a problem, with or without upbeat reform, because they intend their news through their employment, and employer news takes everybody." The edifice is a independent investigate organization.

The administration's judge was released Jan. 18, meet aweigh of a balloting to cancellation Obama's upbeat accumulation in the Republican-led House. Without the law, up to 129 meg grouping with upbeat conditions same heart disease, broad murder pressure, arthritis or cancer would be at venture of losing upbeat shelter when they requirement it most or existence denied news altogether, HHS said.

"It's same trying to judge hurricane fatalities by the sort of grouping living on the seashore," said Edmund Haislmaier, a upbeat contract proficient with the conservative Heritage Foundation. Most grouping in the line of a hurricane would evacuate, whatever would hunker down in reinforced homes; exclusive a cypher would grappling the poorest consequences, said Haislmaier.

"People are not feat to dead grappling losing news if you cancellation this law," he added. The Heritage Foundation supports repeal.

The Obama brass stands by the statistic.

It shows ground repealing the accumulation would be "a Brobdingnagian mistake," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters. Almost half the population could be discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition, she added.

The accumulation forbids upbeat insurers from turning down grouping with upbeat problems or charging them more. That indorse takes effect in 2014, along with federal subsidies and a Medicaid treatment that module provide shelter to more than 30 meg today absent it. To preclude healthy grouping from staying discover of the pool, most Americans would be required to carry coverage.

Yet grouping with job-based news are already fortified when they alter employers and upbeat plans. A 1990s accumulation limits inactivity periods for pre-existing conditions and requires the newborn employer to provide credit for news low the preceding plan, eliminating the move in some cases.

There's ease a momentous a notch in the safety net.

People who yield or lose jobs that become with upbeat shelter crapper be overturned down or live more if they are in poor upbeat and essay to acquire news as individuals.

"We undergo of some grouping who stay in the jobs they're in because of the upbeat shelter coverage," said Ginsburg.

An investigation by House Democrats last assemblage institute that from 2007 to 2009, the quaternary maximal for-profit insurers unloved more than 650,000 grouping supported on their scrutiny history.

The administration's judge actually used a range of 50 meg to 129 meg grouping with pre-existing conditions.

The modify sort is supported on a count of grouping with upbeat problems that would qualify them for news through land high-risk pools for those unloved by clannish insurers. It entireness discover to most 1 in 5 of those low geezerhood 65.

The higher sort includes grouping with common upbeat conditions such as asthma and obesity traded by insurers in their possess news guidelines as warranting higher premiums, exclusion of news for a portion sickness or denial, HHS said.

Last year, a assemble that strongly supports the upbeat tending accumulation licenced a investigate concern to judge the sort of grouping who could potentially benefit from the ban on denying news to those with pre-existing conditions.

The Families army think institute that a little more than 57 meg grouping low geezerhood 65 hit scrutiny problems that could lead to forgoing of news if they tried to acquire a organisation individually.

That's near to the modify end of the administration's estimate.

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