Romney stand on health coverage clarified

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BOSTON, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- Mitt Romney's Boston staff clarified the presidential candidate's statements about where he stands on health coverage for pre-existing medical conditions.

"Well, I'm not getting rid of all of healthcare reform," the Republican challenger said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday. "Of course, there are a number of things that I like in healthcare reform that I'm going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage."

Later, Romney's campaign issued a statement to National Review Online that emphasized Romney would repeal the Afford Care Act and that "Romney would ensure that discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions who maintain continuous coverage is prohibited."

The campaign staff referred to a statement Romney made last June in which he said: "I also want to make sure that people can't get dropped if they have a pre-existing condition ... . So let's say someone has been continuously insured and they develop a serious condition and let's say they lose their job or they change jobs, they move and they go to a new place. I don't want them to be denied insurance because they've got some pre-existing condition."

Essentially, Romney supports the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, known as HIPPA, which said an employer cannot deny health insurance coverage to a new employee with a pre-existing condition, provided he or she had been continuously insured -- something not that controversial, The Washington Post noted.

However, what is at issue is what happens to those who have a gap in health insurance coverage because they were laid off, fired, became sick or changed jobs. Earlier this year, a study published in the Medical Care Research and Review said about 89 million people ages 4-64 were uninsured for at least one month during the period of 2004 to 2007.

Beginning in 2014, President Obama's Affordable Care Act will stipulate that uninsured people with a pre-existing condition can not be denied health insurance coverage, the Post said.