I just started looking at the pre-ACA link of exclusions in post #411. Whoa, they have height and weight tables and weights where they increase or deny coverage. And they have them for children! And increases of coverage for acne that is treated a certain way. I hope we don’t go back to those days.
I looked at the chart in #411 and was declined for at least 3 different things… and that was just for things starting with “A”!
“It is just wrong for older people to expect the young to pay more for insurance so they can pay less.”
Keep in mind that a lot of our systems are set up this way. Is it wrong to expect people with no school age children to pay property taxes to support the local K-12 schools? Some deal for public college. Isn’t it wrong to expect someone to support a school by paying state taxes that they don’t attend just so someone else can pay less? Should people without cars be expected to pay federal taxes that supports roads? The concept generally is that there are some things that benefit the greater society that can only be paid for by spending the cost around. While you may think that health care is different, in many ways it’s not. Without insurance, many will be unable to get basic care and the small problems will become bigger problems that will end up in the ER or hospital. The cost of that care if the patient can’t pay gets pass to those can in the form of higher rates. Isn’t it better to consider a system that tries to reduce the overall true cost to society? One example I mentioned before is that NYC did a study that showed that it would be cheaper to give free medical care to asthmatics due to the resulting fewer ER and hospital visits by uninsured untreated asthmatics.
But what the young forget is that one day they will be old! Is it fair that the younger people do subsidize the old? Hard to say but the reality is that without that system only the truly wealthy will be able to afford health insurance or medical care. For most, a hospital stay at any age is unaffordable without insurance. As we have seen in ACA exchange that without the younger people in the pool, the whole thing collapses under its own weight. There is a reason that a lot of the major players pulled out of the exchanges. So the real question is not if it is fair but do we want affordable insurance or even available insurance when we reach the age when we need it.
@ucbalumnus , I like the table in your post 440, but I don’t see how it responds to my comment about $11,500 a year being a heck of a lot of money. That is my insurance premium for 2017. I have a Silver plan, not any super duper gold-pressed latinum plan. If insurers were allowed to charge the oldest subscribers five times as much as the 21-year-olds, I’d pay more.
The average costs in the table you cite are for the whole country. Health care costs vary dramatically by area.
If the goal is to get younger (healthier) people into the system, the prices have to be made more affordable for them. Right now, the prices are skewed so that there is not enough difference between the costs between younger and older people. (I wish the chart above showed more age groups as far as the cost of healthcare).
I’m young and happily pay taxes for schools even though I may never have children. I’d like to live in an educated society just as I’d like to live in one where people aren’t losing everything because they dared to get sick.
"“It is just wrong for older people to expect the young to pay more for insurance so they can pay less.”
In addition to the wonderful points made by @noname87 in post #443, remember that in employer sponsored group plans, there is no differentiation by age for health insurance. All employees pay the same amount for the same plan.
MILD asthma, even when well-controlled and NOT taking any medications and never hospitalized is a pre-existing condition per Kaiser HMO and you’re denied coverage, even if young and healthy, pre-ACA. They rejected S when we applied in 2010.
We were able to get him a Cobra-like extension on our BCBS for several months, until he was covered again under our family plan because of ACA until he aged out at age 26. That was one of the very few plans that would accept him and only because they had covered him without gaps since birth.
Our D has chronic health issues and is unable to work. Have no idea how we’d get her insured if we hadn’t been able to get her declared a disabled dependent so she can remain on our family policy. I have chronic health issues since my earliest memories and wouldn’t be able to get insurance except thru H’s former employer’s family plan with BCBS.
Medical expenses can be very scary high and none of our health conditions are due to any lifestyle issues.
Count me in as another person very nervous about the pre existing conditions. Prior to getting to Medicare age, I paid over $1200, which covered nothing, not mammograms nor colonoscopies. My sister, with asthma, finally was able to get health insurance. Most of my friends developed some condition in their 50’s.
It’s not hard to see why people with conditions like ACA. That’s probably why the price is increasing rapidly. The only way to lesson the effect of that is enlarging the pool. You can’t dump 5 million sick people in the pool of 11 million and expect it will work. It won’t. You can’t let people sign up for the insurance after they get sick, either. Can you sign up for homeowner’s insurance after your house catches a fire or an auto insurance after an accident? It was oxymoron. And 26 years is too old to still be under parents’ plan. If that provision is costly, they should lower the age.
I consider health coverage different from paying school tax. We need educated population. Democracy will not work without. Economy will suffer. It is a survival issue imo. It affects everyone of us not just people with school age kids. Sorry to be cruel but sick people doesn’t affect the general population except in crowding ER. Taking care of the sick is humane thing to do but not a survival issue. Now you can roast me on a stick for saying this; the society may even benefit to let them die.
Aspects of this thread are surreal. I don’t mean just the medical conditions and any challenges from insurers, but the attitude freely displayed by some.
Noname makes an excellent point I’ve long agreed with: we all contribute to the costs of the whole.
And the talk of the wealthy somehow deserving a bye flabbergasts. (As does the notion that, as a class, they are evil.) Good people do good things, try to, and try to continue. Small or large. It underscores our belief systems, at the least.
I think the point about correlation was the idea someone “set” financially could dismiss the real issues others face. “Not my problem.” Let them eat cake.
Like it or not, these are our problems, as a society or a country. Health, the welfare of our people, education, opportunity, safety, and more. The values we believe in. Or say we do.
…at least this thread has heightened my empathy and determination. Choose well, friends.
LF, I don’t know if you are talking about my post. I was just trying to point out the differeing dynamics for health insurance and as such we have to adapt a different approach.
Igloo remember the uproar about death panels
If anyone publically took your stance imagine the outcry
First the sick next the elderly.
Next, the Soylent Green.
tom, I know. You can’t talk about cost-benefit analysis.
Igloo, I hadn’t seen your post.
But I’d count the health of our people as important as education. I’m as annoyed as anyone over the wastes and the well-meaning but futile efforts. And the costs. We aren’t getting an “educated population” any more than we’re getting folks to be proactive with their health. But our own individual attitudes can matter. It’s something I’ve always believed and learned in my family. In an unexpected way, the recent events have made me even more aware of my own values and connected me to my mother and grandparents. I told my kids this week, spread the good you can. Have a concern for others. Not just “me and mine.” Nope, not always easy.
My family’s values were influenced by the Great Depression and WPA. They were fine, but used that stability to reach out and do for others. Actively. That’s the legacy I want to pass on. And it can be as small as kindness.
As for ER, yes it’s a problem. No, I do not believe in some Herculean efforts, just because the technology exists. (I vol at hospice, so see an alternative.) But I think we either commit to what I’ll call goodness, per our ethics, or not. I’m not sure we get to pick and choose or say, “I’m done.”
Remarkably…none of the three preexisting conditions in this family are on the list! But I can tell you…when getting new insurance both of my kids had to go through underwriting to get insurance (glaucoma and joint replacement).
This is purely market-driven. The government has to offer better benefits to employees because the wages are very low compared to general industry. Government salaries go a little higher for the lowest-level employee, but for mid- and higher levels of government, the pay is unbelievably low. In our state, a cabinet-level employee makes between $141,00-150,000. How many people do you know who head up an entire department responsible for billions of dollars or thousands amd thousands of employees, and make $150,000 a year? With no stock grants.
Pre-ACA. smokers paid more for health insurance. (I know that technically they could be charged more under ACA but apparently a lot of states thought it would be too much trouble).
Pre-ACA, the obese were charged more.
These two preventable disease-causing conditions are a major reason why health costs are so high.
In any new health care law, these issues need to be addressed.
Massachusetts has the right idea. All should have healthcare. Period.