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HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) attempts to address some of the barriers to healthcare coverage and related job mobility impediments facing people with HIV as well as other vulnerable populations.
HIPAA has three main goals:
- Provides persons with group coverage new protections from discriminatory treatment
- Enables small groups (such as businesses with a small number of employees) to obtain and keep health insurance coverage more easily
- Gives persons losing/leaving group coverage new options for obtaining individual coverage
This law provides several protections important to people with HIV/AIDS:
- Limits (but does not wholly eliminate) the use of pre-existing condition exclusions
- Prohibits group health plans from discriminating by denying you coverage or charging additional fees for coverage based on an employee's family member's past or present poor health
- Guarantees certain small employers, and certain individuals who lose job-related coverage, the right to purchase individual health insurance
- Guarantees, in most cases, that employers or individuals who purchase health insurance can renew the coverage regardless of any health conditions of individuals covered under the insurance policy
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