Is covering preexisting conditions enough?

[Jay59]

I retired in 2002 and the company I worked for paid my insurance for a year after retirement. I then applied for insurance and found out because I used both a blood pressure medication and a cholesterol medication, both the lowest doses possible, I was considered to have a preexisting condition and could not get any health care insurance company to cover me. I had to take a part time job that had insurance until I was 65. So you figure out for yourself what is considered a preexisting condition.

Those are what is normally referred to as preexisting conditions. They are indicators that you will likely have heart issues, which makes the risk much higher for the insurance company. The situation is not unlike trying to get car insurance after an accident. Either the premium would be double or triple, or they decline coverage. With medical insurance, double or triple premiums is often not an option.

The good news is that this type of thing can be handled with changes to the law. It's very different from someone that has had a heart attack, actual cancer or AIDS.

 

[Dittohead not!]

You should look at those other countries - they're in deep financial problems with their HC.

So you say.

 

[Dittohead not!]

I suspect the US has a much higher entitlement expense than other nations. The US has a much higher military budget than other nations. The US has a higher costly illegal immigrant entitlement expense, and so forth. The US spends more money in foreign aid, and all these additional costs make government welfare healthcare too heavy a burden to bear without raising everyone's taxes, like Obamacare did in a big way.

Obama kept the Bush tax cuts and made cuts of his own. You do realize that a large part of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts?

 

[Casper]

It makes no difference whether democrats or republicans support universal government healthcare. Such universal coverage will either bankrupt our nation or our families, pure and simple.

Didn't bankrupt the rest of the world with single payer coverages.

 

[Greenbeard]

Trump says that he will get the GOP to pass a bill which will insure the coverage of preexisting conditions once the GOP controlled courts have killed the ACA.

The GOP passed dozens and dozens of repeals of the pre-existing condition protections over the past decade. None of those pieces of legislation reinstated protections.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me dozens and dozens of times, shame on me.

Trump and the GOP have zero plan for what happens if they succeed in getting the courts to bring back pre-existing condition exclusions.

 

[Deuce]

First define pre-existing condition. It used to mean things like smoking and diabetes. Lately it means 4th stage cancer.

What exactly are we talking about?

No, lately it means "you didn't tell us you had acne as a teenager. Plan canceled, despite you paying us premiums for decades. Good luck with that cancer."

Free market at work.

 

[Individual]

Are you suggesting that a baby born with a heart defect could have prevented it somehow? Before the ACA, Americans could be denied health insurance if they had one of several of common health conditions like diabetes, asthma and even acne. Obamacare generally stopped that practice. The law, in most cases, made it illegal for insurers to deny coverage or to charge people more because they'd been sick.

Your premise that simply because we're born and ultimately will die qualifies as a pre-existing condition, is just ridiculous.

I was born with a heart defect, and my parents had no insurance, no medicaid. Government has only increased the costs of health care.

 

[marke]

Obama kept the Bush tax cuts and made cuts of his own. You do realize that a large part of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts?

Congress can raise taxes or cut taxes as they think best, but if they are failing to pay down the dangerously high US debt then they are fiscally failing the American people.

 

[Dittohead not!]

Congress can raise taxes or cut taxes as they think best, but if they are failing to pay down the dangerously high US debt then they are fiscally failing the American people.

Finally, you make a post that makes sense. Yes, the growing debt is a serious problem, one that the Congress has not as yet addressed. They just passed tax cuts that added to that debt in fact.

 

[Jay59]

No, lately it means "you didn't tell us you had acne as a teenager. Plan canceled, despite you paying us premiums for decades. Good luck with that cancer." Free market at work.

Humor. I like it.

If you define a list of preexisting conditions, arrangements can be made. Anything, but not everything. You cannot cover everything.

It's an ugly reality that most medical bills accumulate in the last year of life. Half the money we spend on medicine is not to save a life for years, but for weeks.

 

[Jay59]

Finally, you make a post that makes sense. Yes, the growing debt is a serious problem, one that the Congress has not as yet addressed. They just passed tax cuts that added to that debt in fact.

Not in fact. It's a common opinion but results are not in yet.

 

[HumblePi]

I was born with a heart defect, and my parents had no insurance, no medicaid. Government has only increased the costs of health care.

What if your parents had no money or no help to pay for your surgery? What if you were an orphan. What if.... there's a whole host of situations that you cannot fathom that would preclude a baby born with a physical condition from getting medical treatment without bankrupting parents. Obviously you had the medical help, but what if your father was unable to work, or you didn't even have a father? Where would you be without health care if without surgery you would die? Answer, you'd be dead.

 

[Middle_Ground]

I retired in 2002 and the company I worked for paid my insurance for a year after retirement. I then applied for insurance and found out because I used both a blood pressure medication and a cholesterol medication, both the lowest doses possible, I was considered to have a preexisting condition and could not get any health care insurance company to cover me. I had to take a part time job that had insurance until I was 65. So you figure out for yourself what is considered a preexisting condition.

This is exactly why healthcare should not be tied to work.
We keep confusing healthcare with insurance. Someday Americans will wake up, probably not in my lifetime, the health of human beings should not be tied to profit and markets.
Get rid of the top profit motive of these companies freeing up billions of dollars for doctors, nurses and research.

This market approach to the health of actual humans is disgusting.

 

[Deuce]

This is exactly why healthcare should not be tied to work.
We keep confusing healthcare with insurance. Someday Americans will wake up, probably not in my lifetime, the health of human beings should not be tied to profit and markets.
Get rid of the top profit motive of these companies freeing up billions of dollars for doctors, nurses and research.

This market approach to the health of actual humans is disgusting.

It boggles the mind that people don't even take the time to apply a few minutes worth of critical thinking regarding whether or not healthcare can really function as a "free market."

A bunch of conservatives just read that sentence and interpreted it to mean I said "free markets are bad, because I'm a liberal socialist communist!" These people can't be helped.

 

[Individual]

What if your parents had no money or no help to pay for your surgery? What if you were an orphan. What if.... there's a whole host of situations that you cannot fathom that would preclude a baby born with a physical condition from getting medical treatment without bankrupting parents. Obviously you had the medical help, but what if your father was unable to work, or you didn't even have a father? Where would you be without health care if without surgery you would die? Answer, you'd be dead.

People might just willingly provide some assistance. Wouldn't you?

 

[Deuce]

People might just willingly provide some assistance. Wouldn't you?

If that were sufficient to have the healthcare needs of the public taken care of, we'd have never had a medicare/medicaid system to begin with.

 

[Grand Mal]

This. Insurance companies effectively act as your representative to the healthcare industry. They negotiate price and level of service on your behalf. But they have no incentive at all to act in your best interest and every incentive to act in their own.

Insurance companies are a major reason why the healthcare market is not a free market and why trying treating healthcare as after market has been so disastrous.

I read an article from a few years ago in a Miami paper that said malpractice insurance for a surgeon in Miami cost over $200,000, many times what it cost in Canada. That's a lot of money to have to make before you start paying office rent and putting anything in your own pocket.
Between lawyers and insurance companies the system is being raped by non-producers.

 

[Individual]

If that were sufficient to have the healthcare needs of the public taken care of, we'd have never had a medicare/medicaid system to begin with.

Or massive government debts, poverty, inflation, AGW, etc., etc., etc.

 

[Deuce]

Or massive government debts, poverty, inflation, AGW, etc., etc., etc.

What position is this post in support of?

 

[marke]

Obama kept the Bush tax cuts and made cuts of his own. You do realize that a large part of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts?

Cuts or hikes, makes no difference to me if our government is never going to devise a plan to pay its debt.

 

[marke]

Didn't bankrupt the rest of the world with single payer coverages.

The rest of the world does not have the huge expenses America has already burdened itself down with.

 

[Casper]

The rest of the world does not have the huge expenses America has already burdened itself down with.

Then we need to reduce those expenses.

 

[Birdzeye]

Trump says that he will get the GOP to pass a bill which will insure the coverage of preexisting conditions once the GOP controlled courts have killed the ACA. Is that enough? the end of the ACA will bring with it also the end of expanded Medicaid. With the death of those programs we could have over 70 million Americans with no insurance coverage. That includes the present 20 million that have no insurance, the 30 million who will lose their insurance with the end of the ACA and finally another 20 million who gained insurance through expanded Medicaid. That will mean that one in five Americans will be without health insurance. So is just covering preexisting enough?

Why can’t, or won’t, trump and the GOP try to come up a replacement proposal - NOW, not after they’ve killed ACA? All I’ve seen from them are efforts to repeal, with promises to replace afterwards. They made the same promise when they killed Hillarycare, but never kept that promise. Why should I expect any different from them now?

 

[marke]

Then we need to reduce those expenses.

Exactly. But any cut to the budget will elicit screams from groups of Americans who will likely be impacted by those cuts. That is why cutting spending is so hard for politicians to do when unhappy voters are a threat to their political careers. So we see preservation of political careers taking precedence over the health of the US economy.

 

[Casper]

Exactly. But any cut to the budget will elicit screams from groups of Americans who will likely be impacted by those cuts. That is why cutting spending is so hard for politicians to do when unhappy voters are a threat to their political careers. So we see preservation of political careers taking precedence over the health of the US economy.

Depends on the cuts, most would not have an issue cutting down dramatically aide to other countries, illegals should not be getting government assistance, and holding all government agencies, including the DOD, accountable for their spending and all could reduce their waste. The American People should always come First. Thing is both sides are unwilling to address the issue so continue to fail.