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Insurance is a service to protect you from things that might happen. What you are doing, essentially, is betting that the bad thing you are getting coverage for will occur, while the insurance provider is betting that it will not; the odds of those events happening to you are calculated and set the payouts for the bet. The more likely the event and the more insurance coverage, the more you have to pay in premiums. This isn't any more evil than sports betting; it's the exact same process, and it's how insurance works.
A pre-existing condition is not something that might happen. A pre-existing condition is something that has already happened and will continue to happen. Insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions is fundamentally asking a bookie-- a very smart, professional bookie with a team of actuaries-- to bet against a guaranteed outcome. It breaks the way insurance works, which means that companies that sell insurance don't profit, and if they don't profit they cannot continue to provide insurance.
The problem with healthcare in this country is not that people cannot get insurance. The problem with healthcare in this country is that people can't afford it without insurance.
Nice post.
It seems that, with health care, the supply/demand curve is broken. It's not something that a person can do without, so they have no option to refuse and limited means to shop around (often enforced by the insurance company). Nor is care refused. But the cost can be overwhelming.
Often, the bills just don't get paid. Charity care and union-contracted pensions pushed a hospital system near me into bankruptcy last year. They had one hospital turning a healthy profit, and another in a poorer area burning through it plus some. In effect, lack of access to insurance made everyone poorer. Pensions, pay and benefits were trimmed for hundreds in both communities -- at least among those who weren't laid off.