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Is covering preexisting conditions enough?

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independentusa

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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?
 
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?
 
Wasn't expanded Medicaid shifting more towards states handling the load. Even before O-care Medicaid was poorly subscribed - only around 60% of those entitled actually enrolled. Second point is that how many people ONLY buy insurance to avoid the penalty. Your numbers on how many will "lose" their insurance is specious - insurance companies will still be there accepting applications - of course those of us about ACA guideline will no longer be subsidizing them AND paying inflated premiums, deductibles and co-pays.

IMHO, finding a fair way to cover pre-existing conditions is important. I've seen several proposals that will do that. Emphasis, of course, on FAIR. Someone enrolling with a life-long malady that demands thousands of dollars a month shouldn't expect to pay same premium as a young, healthy stud.
 
Jay59 said:
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?
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It means whatever the insurance company says it means.
My sister had a trip to Hawaii booked and bought cancelation insurance. Our mother was diagnosed with advanced cancer and she had to cancel her travel plans and was told that her insurance was invalid because the cancer pre-existed the begining of the policy.
Insurance is the biggest, most lucrative scam since the turn of the last century and the companies are long overdue for being regulated up the ying-yang. Buncha predatory bastards.
 

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.
 
It sounds so easy, it is not. Sure, the GOP says they will protect people with pre-existing conditions and that sounds great. But look deeper into how they're going to manage to do that and still make health care affordable. They will likely do something that technically preserves it, but practically destroys it.

The Republicans will protect pre-existing conditions in that insurance companies will have to offer insurance to everyone. The insurance companies may, however, charge more for it, with life time limits, and a lot of deductibles. In such a scenario, no one would be denied health insurance even with a pre-existing condition but allows the insurance company the ability to price it so high that very few other than the financially well-to-do upper middle class will be able to afford it. This way, they can tell the inattentive public they kept their promise, while serving the insurance industry in lining their wallets. It’s a win win! (and lose, for those who are ill).

One republican plan is to keep raising the cost of medicare (plan B), according to milestones of age, so that by the time a person reaches 80 years old, plan B (taken out of the social security benefit). will cost more than the “entitlement” being received. That will force people who can’t afford it any more, to have everything they own confiscated to cover their insurance, and tax debts. Then they will become “wards of the state,” not the federal government.

As I've said, it's simplifying a deeply complex problem on how to provide health care for everyone, and not exclude people with long term illness or pre-existing conditions. Whenever government 'gives' something, there's something else that gets taken away.
 

No, Not at all. You have to get rid of the high deductibles, and the price of medicines has to be regulated.
 
We're all born with a pre-existing condition, death. Accept it as a scientific proven fact, and do what you can to avoid it while you can.
 

Not only is it not enough, we can't trust the Trump Administration to follow through. They just want to kill the ACA because it has Democratic cooties on it. They have no plan of their own.
 
marke said:
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.
Click to expand...

1. The thread is not about universal government healthcare.
2. No one is sure just what "universal government healthcare" means, probably including you.
3. having a universal medical insurance that covers everyone has not bankrupted any other modern nation, and they all have it in one form or another.
 
You should look at those other countries - they're in deep financial problems with their HC.
 
Obviously not, since we are talking about legislation.

However, you raise a valid point. A condition that exists at the time the policy is purchased is not what is generally meant in the industry, particularly if it is not disclosed. The opposite is true in the general public. Hence the need for definitions.

In the case of known but undisclosed cancer, attempting to get a policy is dangerously close to fraud. It's harsh, but no one can buy insurance for something that has already happened, even if the bills keep coming.
 
Bullseye said:
You should look at those other countries - they're in deep financial problems with their HC.
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Not particularly, asides from the UK, and that's specifically because their right wing parties decided to defund the healthcare system. Most nations of note handle keeping their citizens alive perfectly fine. Not that any system is perfect, mind you.
 
Jesse Booth said:
Not particularly, asides from the UK, and that's specifically because their right wing parties decided to defund the healthcare system. Most nations of note handle keeping their citizens alive perfectly fine. Not that any system is perfect, mind you.
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Look again.
 
Truthfully its too much.
Its way too broad of a term to start with and it addresses tje wrong issue. Instead of.look8ng at ways to be able to wfford the.high prices rhey should be looking at ways to bring the cost down. Subsidizing something is very different tjan lowering its cost.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

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.
 

In other words you're just guessing, just like everyone else.
 

The devil is in the details. It works in Switzerland, and it's a miserable failure in England. And that's because the Swiss politicians are actually pretty smart, and they really want to know how their healthcare system works. Whereas the American and British politicians are way too stupid (and corrupt) to understand anything that complicated.
 

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.
 
Individual said:
We're all born with a pre-existing condition, death. Accept it as a scientific proven fact, and do what you can to avoid it while you can.
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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.
 
Jay59 said:
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?
Click to expand...

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.
 
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