[zaroth]

California had guaranteed issue before the ACA. Any small business with at least 2 employees could get it. Premiums were reasonable as the "rating adjustment factor" was capped on these plans. A one time 6 month waiting period on pre-existing conditions is waived if you have prior credible coverage without more than a 62 day gap in coverage.

For example, a husband and wife working together in a sole proprietorship, would qualify.

I'm not sure the current state since ACA passed, but I depended on CA guaranteed issue myself for several years before ACA and it provided access to high quality expensive insurance (~$500 / person / month) with unlimited annual benefits, as well as somewhat cheaper HMO plans (~$350-400 / person / month).

Google 'AB 1672'.

[neltnerb]

Thanks, very helpful to know. Most of my family is in Ohio, and I'm a recent transplant to California.

This appears to be the updated version of AB 1672, which itself ended in 2013:

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?...

I'm not remotely capable of parsing all the stuff in there, but it does make me wonder what happens when a State passes a bill to bring itself into compliance with a Federal law and then the Federal law is repealed. I assume it's not automatic that the State bill ceases to function.

Is this even more of an uncertainty-laden mess than I thought? Will dozens of states find that changes to the ACA is interacting in crazy ways with state laws? Somehow I am guessing that we won't find out until it happens.