It will, in theory. In the past I would have been ridered or surcharged into oblivion had I applied for individual coverage. Expanding the pool, implementing some checks on costs, and properly operating an exchange would enable coverage for my condition and prevent me from being surcharged more than 25%? when compared with typical healthy person coverage.

That said, we're in an interesting part of the law's implementation. If you live in one of the 26-33(?) states who have currently declined to operate all or part of their own exchange (exchanges in these cases will be operated by the federal government) your state also lost some of the federal funding that was intended for use in spreading awareness and helping people to "navigate" the sign-up and purchasing process of the exchange. The worry thereafter is that if not enough people enroll through the exchanges they may not have enough leverage to keep costs down.

Add to this the idea that some state governments are actively dragging their feet with the implementation of anything exchange related (enrollment starts in October and my state has next to no information out there on the process yet) and we get the potential for messiness.

In my case, I still dream of single payer.

Disclaimer: Typing off the cuff, not a health insurance administrator, etc...

*For those interested in more about how the exchanges are progressing, I find the website of the Kaiser Family Foundation to be excellent:

http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/establishing-health...

http://kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/health-insuranc...