Health Insurance - Jump ship or sink?

Factual Questions
1

I’m confused about how health insurance coverage works - does anyone have some advice?

I’m self-employed, my wife works with me and we have a high deductible health insurance policy with a large insurance company. We’re both US citizens living in Indiana btw. The premiums of course are skyrocketing and it’s time to get coverage from a new source. I’ve priced other policies and found some reasonable alternatives.

In general, do I have to worry about the dreaded “preexisting conditions” being excluded from coverage?
For example - The doctor recently discovered that my wife has a rare condition which might require major surgery 10 to 20 years hence. If surgery is required, and I’ve switched companies, can the new insurer refuse to pay based the fact that the earlier diagnosis was evidence of a preexisting condition and therefore not covered?

Or do I risk bankruptcy by paying the mortgage payment sized premiums to the current insurer just because they can’t ever claim that the rare disease is a pre-existing condition ?

2

I believe that federal law now requires pre-existing conditions to be covered as long as you had other insurance within the past X amount of time. I’m not sure how long X is, but I seem to recall it being in the range of 3-6 months.

3

You are probably covered, with respect to the pre-existing conditions, under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability of 1996. One of the provisions of this act is to prevent insurance companies from not insuring you due to PE conditions as long as you have had coverage within, I believe, the past 63 days. BUT I am not a lawyer or insurance expert. You should research this yourself and with your current and potential providers.

Also, you may want to check out group plans for self-employed and small businesses. For instance, many Chambers of Commerce offer group plans to employers of less than 10 people. You might qualify. I have no idea what the quality of the plans might be but it’s probably a lot cheaper than buying an individual policy.