The new federal Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) program is hard to get into, too expensive for the typical uninsured individual with a chronic illness, and under-promoted, according to officials at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

John Dicken, a GAO director, writes about those findings in a summary of a PCIP study conducted at the request of Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Health policy watchers once predicted the federal PCIP risk pool program would attract more than 200,000 uninsured Americans with health problems, and that program managers would soon have to shut out many applicants.

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Allison Bell

Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.