Romney Will Insure Pre-Existing Conditions, Aide Says

But only for people who already have coverage.

Image by Brian Snyder / Reuters

After Mitt Romney said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that there were certain parts of Obamacare that he liked, a campaign aide confirmed to BuzzFeed that one of the elements that a Romney health care overhaul would be a guarantee that people with pre-existing conditions can’t get kicked off their health insurance plans.

“Gov. Romney will ensure that discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions who maintain continuous coverage is prohibited,” the aide said.

But the 2010 health care law goes much further: It bars discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions who are applying for health care.

The new statement appears to amend a report in National Review Online earlier Sunday, which quoted an anonymous aide saying Romney would allow “the martketplace” to sort out coverage for such people.

The aide pointed to an occasion earlier this summer when Romney firmly staked out support for insuring people with pre-existing conditions in the context of a bill he says will “replace” ObamaCare.

“I also want to make sure that people can’t get dropped if they have a preexisting condition,” Romney said in a June speech. “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.”

The Romney campaign position, as it stands, appears to be repealing the sweeping ObamaCare protections for uninsured people with pre-existing conditions, and replacing them with a market-based plan. There are conservative alternatives for covering pre-existing conditions in circulation. One notable one would allow the uninsured with pre-existing conditions a one-time window to get into the health care system, or to accept the risk of going without care.

UPDATE: National Review has now updated its coverage with a similar statement.

(This post has been updated to clarify that the Romney aide’s comment refers to people who already have insurance.)