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Should insurers have to cover people with pre-existing conditions?

Should insurers have to cover people with pre-existing conditions?

  • Total voters
    63
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Sure, I get that agreements have conditions but it's not like they have to list ALL of them.
They don't.
Look, the people who have experience with that nonsense from back in the old days are the folks who wound up having to actually USE their health insurance. Sick people, injured people, people who suddenly developed something.
If that's not you, it's hard to demonstrate just how insane it can get without you thinking the person talking to you is the insane one.

If you're one of the lucky people who maybe once broke a leg, and just had the ordinary normal health calls that everyone has, all of this sounds hard to believe. My wife and I encountered it first with HER MS, then later with our son's heart defects.
We got lucky with him, S-CHIP saved his life but my wife wasn't as lucky...and it was the VA who FINALLY actually DID SOMETHING to help her.
The free market system did nothing for her at all, except pass her around like a broken Fiat for seven years.
They made money off her but they didn't ever give her a clear diagnosis on anything.

They sure as Hell tried to deny her any treatment any way they could though.
It became clear to us that they did not WANT to give her an actual diagnosis because they knew they'd be on the hook for it.
Since the VA isn't trying to make a profit (esp a profit by denying health care) they wanted to FIX what was wrong, for a change.

Not all the free market doctors and clinics though:
They would keep telling her "We THINK you MIGHT have "this" or MIGHT have "that" or MIGHT have "something else" and of course they did finally say "We think you MIGHT have multiple sclerosis" but they flatly refused to take that stamp and make the final "BAM, it's official, you DO HAVE multiple sclerosis" diagnosis.
As long as they did not make it official, she couldn't GET any help, or treatment.
She couldn't even get her own damn WHEELCHAIR.

For the first seven years she was rolling around in a rusted out chair that her DEAD father had.

The VA had her official diagnosis in three MONTHS.
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What a rough road you had. Hugs.
 
The Romans already proved Government can solve all problems.

What objection can there be to the public sector, covering pre-existing conditions.

By specializing in that medical sector, the public sector can become more efficient through the law of large numbers, without introducing the "hellish conditions on Earth, by the general warfare and common offense."

Advances in those sectors could happen more quickly and could lower costs.
 
danielpalos said:
The Romans already proved Government can solve all problems.

What objection can there be to the public sector, covering pre-existing conditions.

By specializing in that medical sector, the public sector can become more efficient through the law of large numbers, without introducing the "hellish conditions on Earth, by the general warfare and common offense."

Advances in those sectors could happen more quickly and could lower costs.
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Didn't the Romans also make good use of the Colloseum?
 
Neomalthusian said:
It's not even just a fairness issue, it's a the-insurance-company-goes-out-of-business issue. It fundamentally cannot work. Unless perhaps...

...government mandates and subsidizes purchase of the insurance.

There are numerous reasons car insurance is only marginally analogous to health insurance. It's more useful as a point of contrast than a point of similarity. If car insurance were like health insurance, people would insist on driving their cars for 40 years or more, as long as technologically possible really, and expect their car insurance to cover the cost of everything required to make their cars run indefinitely. Including a lot of the basics like oil changes, windshield wipers, brakes, rotors, engine transplants, transmission transplants, and every other possible thing that would go wrong with a car being driven for decades upon decades.

With cars, insurance covers a much more limited number of events, and most people get to a point where they assess the cost of ongoing maintenance and say "hell with it, take it to the dump." Psychologically most people can handle tossing their car, but cannot handle suicide just because health care is getting to be expensive. They never get to a point where they say, "bah, my body's turning into a money pit, take me out back and shoot me."

We regard cars as disposable, and we don't insist car insurance cover everything our car will ever need. That keeps it affordable.
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The similarity that matters is expecting insurance to cover damage that occurred before you bought the policy.
 
Helix said:
no, it isn't. i can drive a dented car. i can pay a fine. i can get another car.
if i lived in a non-red state, i could take public transportation.
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Are you under the impression that public transportation does not exist in red states? I live in one of the reddest of red states, and public transportation is quite available unless you live way out in the boonies


but if i get sick, i have none of these options.
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Sorry. I don't buy it. I had two aunts who were diagnosed with breast cancer at just about the same time. One was wealthy, the other was on medicaid They were both treated and received chemo in the same clinic.

it is not a good analogy. health care is an essential service with inelastic demand in which geographical immediacy is a critical factor.
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And everyone who walks into an emergency room, by law, must be treated, irregardless of ability to pay. If you are indigent, you are billed based on ability to pay. Everyone gets treated.
 
Lovebug said:
What a rough road you had. Hugs.
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Me? No, I've had a blessed and charmed life and I'm lucky to be here considering what an idiot I was in my younger years. But I've not had the rough road, wifey has, but she's a tough lil chickie.

Karen is a badass, just like the picture says :)

2NxMK81lrLDCRPJPqaUTD8TgjGze0md_B4ylg8wLDyRt8ua7IYgIicM4YZnw_mMCdfAvLX7_b9kNagXkC7aUuTS7acH1G-dHLZerJdiZhBQUXqwKg0SVKW9NfEUcnIrPEx36zVcd7ywbnqX3FLHg3E4wWDB14RpcEI8S1XZ47c0qtJpIgHDqpsGfXpzhCYzQRcme_RkqEW_qKe0KP-GviozdWw6z94OsF1-AEWl-YfvTcxsmNNEjSLyRrMfZc-H9dqU96jbRNEeMlamHKoTL2qZ2TWTz0RI68dUZSeXcipNNbLTDmwXlCTl7Bt_P784Ez4IVeamTo5HrxVegMcg-yw5WEVLtIwhVo73x3-ZRYUuOYOb4x_1P7DzzIES9lHEXHK-dTRJC-zHvK9UqnkmSWmPQRrjafwtLx3EThT0Fhj4XHWPhUYKtyeCU3_OE4ycLiRRz3SQcoXQFUHTEAMPJu439BOlS4NE8SHWDclvKT-7GgjEKIL0En8Qgdf_Cm4PDI3y9jjV8Zt6W6HB_97xrWwCfD0EHWPzGMZ_sdpmQarPd1Qajjj4Fx4oax_4iI2mhD51TRj8u7NGeAaeKeE6MduYTr0ImQ2L_NEwPXXw=w640-h1069-no
 
ObamacareFail said:
The similarity that matters is expecting insurance to cover damage that occurred before you bought the policy.
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Nope, because I can get insurance for my 2007 Prius even if it has a smashed passenger side door which won't open anymore.
Next time I have an accident, unless they sent an adjuster to look at the car PRIOR to me getting coverage, I can get the whole car fixed, including the buckled hood, the shattered windshield, the broken headlight, the bent left front wheel AND that smashed passenger side door.

In fact, even IF an adjuster saw the car PRIOR to me getting insured, if I have an accident where that SAME passenger door gets hit AGAIN, and this time the window shatters, too, my collision policy will most likely cover getting the door replaced.

I've done it before, so have others.
I had a 66 Dodge Coronet with a dented right front fender which also buckled the front where the headlight was.
Someone backed into the grille, and I got covered to replace the grille, headlight assembly AND the new fender.
The deductible was't real sweet but the car got fixed and looked perfect.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
They don't understand that "having been pregnant once" is defined as having a disqualifying pre-existing condition, contracting multiple sclerosis is too, so is being born with heart defects, so is every other illness.
If you had mumps or chicken pox, they can cut you off.
The list is literally endless.
Think of it as being a lot like the 12 thousand or so "obscure and little known laws" that a cop can use to detain or arrest you for if they really want to.
Ask any cop, they will tell you that it is literally impossible to walk around or drive without violating some kind of obscure law.

It's the exact same playbook.
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The eventual result of health insurance being unusable is that people stop buying it and just blow off their hospital bills. Some people refer to this as "trailertrash health insurance".
 
ObamacareFail said:
And everyone who walks into an emergency room, by law, must be treated, irregardless of ability to pay. If you are indigent, you are billed based on ability to pay. Everyone gets treated.
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Wrong. They get stabilized.
 
ObamacareFail said:
Are you under the impression that public transportation does not exist in red states? I live in one of the reddest of red states, and public transportation is quite available unless you live way out in the boonies




Sorry. I don't buy it. I had two aunts who were diagnosed with breast cancer at just about the same time. One was wealthy, the other was on medicaid They were both treated and received chemo in the same clinic.



And everyone who walks into an emergency room, by law, must be treated, irregardless of ability to pay. If you are indigent, you are billed based on ability to pay. Everyone gets treated.
Click to expand...

health care is still not analogous to car insurance. as for public transportation in red states, it generally sucks, at least in my state. also, delivering universal health care via emergency rooms is a poor idea.
 
ObamacareFail said:
The similarity that matters is expecting insurance to cover damage that occurred before you bought the policy.
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It's not a similarity. That expectation reflects how people think about health care, which is that we shouldn't deprive people of it when they need it. If you don't insure your car and you total it, you're not guaranteed that someone, either an insurance company or a mechanic or the taxpayers, will either rebuild or replace your totaled car, the way we expect our lives to be saved if we're rushed to the hospital. We don't let people die. We do write off, depreciate, impair, dispose of and replace assets that we insure. We don't treat human lives like assets that are written off and disposed of when the cost to maintain or rebuild them gets excessive. Assets that we insure are disposable. Human lives are not regarded as disposable.

The pre-existing condition mandate is nonsensical in the context of the way private insurance is supposed to work. But that is a reflection of how nonsensical it is that we keep trying to maintain the functioning of a private insurance model within a broader context of health care that we regard as a public good. They're incompatible.
 
Greenbeard said:
One would think this question was answered in the affirmative nearly a decade ago, but the GOP and the Trump administration have been working for a year and a half to reverse this requirement (despite mealy-mouthed protestations to the contrary).

First last year through their widely reviled "reform" bills that went down in flames, despite Trump's Rose Garden party for the House bill.

Experts: Pre-existing coverage in House GOP bill would fall far short
How the Senate's Health-Care Bill Would Cause Financial Ruin for People With Preexisting Conditions

Having failed in Congress, Trump turned to the regulatory apparatus this year:

Trump’s quiet campaign to bring back preexisting conditions


And now this week they're urging the courts to do the deed for them.

Trump administration move could take away coverage for preexisting conditions


So apparently the question is back in the political conversation: should people with pre-existing conditions be protected?
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The federal government requiring private insurance companies to provide any kind of coverage is:

a. Unconstitutional
b. The surest way I know of to make insurance unaffordable for most.

The state regulations are the best way to ensure that insurance companies don't rip off the people, and, when those companies cross state lines, which would be ideal, then federal RICO and anti-trust laws could come into play which would be a good thing. And I favor laws that would make it difficult or illegal for an insurance company to drop somebody just because they developed an expensive condition.

But unless the insurance companies can tailor their products to what most people need, they can't offer the people coverage at a price most people can afford. People in their 50's and 60's shouldn't have to pay for expensive maternity coverage. People who do what is necessary to be physically fit and healthy should be rewarded with lower insurance premiums while those lower premiums would be unprofitable for the insurance companies to offer to the addict, the morbidly obese, those with pre-existing conditions, etc. It is like those of us in Albuquerque are not required to buy flood insurance or earthquake insurance that is advisable for those who live on the coast or on flood plains and/or earthquake zones and we pay less for wind and hail coverage than the folks a few hours east of us who do have a lot of wind and hail exposure.

Just as the government does with flood and earthquake insurance, it could provide special plans or assigned risk pools for the very poor or for those too unhealthy to pass an insurance physical and/or who have pre-existing conditions.

And we all should have the option to pay for routine checkups and maintenance out of pocket up to a certain deductible amount just as we do for our homes, automobiles, electronic equipment, appliances, etc. That and healthy competition would go further to lower insurance premiums than pretty much anything else.
 
jamesrage said:
Then shouldn't you try calling it something other than insurance? Because as far as I know I can't get in a car wreck and then buy insurance to cover it and its the same with other types of insurance.
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That's a silly comparison. People aren't born with a crashed car.
 
Fletch said:
It has nothing to do with empathy, and everything to do with how insurance works.
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Insurance 'works' by sharing risks among everybody.

So then you dont exclude the pre-existing conditions, their coverage (and in some cases such conditions require no further treatment or only basic meds) is spread to everyone.

That's how other aspects of the coverage are determined, so why not include that?
 
jamesrage said:
Pro-life is the opposition to legalized abortion.Not the life of everything else.So no its not hypocrisy. Just like pro-choicers IE abortionists are not hypocrites because many of them do not support our choice to buy a gun.
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Well the arguments that people use to support a pro-life position are indeed all focused on saving life. So your explanation is only true at the very surface.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I am 42 year old that has never smoked, eats a strict whole food diet and have for my entire life, strength train 4 days a week and have my entire adult life, run 30 miles a week and have my entire adult life, have a vo2 max of a college athlete, a resting heart rate in the low 40s, zero preexisting conditions, and high income. .
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Hi there....

*bats eyes*
 
I want to say they should, but I know that isn't how the insurance system works. When I had cancer, my medical bills for that year were $365,000. Chemo, surgeries, etc. I pay $750 a month for insurance with a $7,500 a year deductible, plus co-pays. It resulted in having to take a second job to pay off the medical bills. I know if I lose this insurance, I'm basically screwed.
 
I voted "No" , but upon reflection, would have liked a third choice. "Pre-existing condition" is probably misunderstood, rather like "Comprehensive Immigration Reform". It does not mean the same thing to everyone. Why is it PRE- existing? What is the difference between EXISTING and Pre-existing? Why (rhetorically speaking) do pre-existing conditions exist? It is an injustice if a person loses their job, and therefore loses their health insurance, and therefore has a "pre-existing condition". On the other hand, if a person refuses to buy health insurance until they are sick, they should not be treated as sympathetically as someone born with a condition. With Medicare/Medicare-Advantage or Medigap, if a person choses not to purchase coverage when they become eligible, they save money in the short term, but buying the extra coverage later will cost them more for the rest of their life. That seems fair. Perhaps for the unborn, there ought to be a health insurance plan modeled on the inexpensive Gerber Grow Up plan that parents or grandparents could buy during the pregnancy.
 
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