@awcntdb You keep forgetting those deemed uninsurable due to preexisting conditions.
^ EXACTLY !
before ACA , insurance was affordable for those who could GET it . And UNAVAILABLE at ANY price for those who the insurance companies did NOT want to insure - such as those who had preexisting conditions .
We have not always had the income we have now, but we have always had life insurance and homeowner’s insurance.
You hope you don’t have to use those, but you need to have them.
Do you want to pay health insurance based on what you use? So if you have a claim, you then you have to pay more in premium?
Only for healthy (low usage) customers who were allowed to buy in at the lowest rates.
In addition to being able to deny insurance entirely for pre-existing conditions, insurers could use medical information & history to rate the buyer and charge them higher rates – and they also could write policies that specifically excluded coverage for whatever conditions their customers had.
So I could be paying $375/month for coverage - and maybe someone with asthma pays $800/month for the same policy (if they could afford it)
I did not forget, the policies beforehand did not cover preexisting conditions. (Will get to solving that in a second)
If you are without insurance, can you buy insurance for your house after it burns down or for your car after you crash it? Of course not. Exactly why should someone with a preexisting condition be able to have the same rates and costs as someone else who is already paying into the system and not sick? Under such a scheme, it would mean there is no reason for people to even get an ACA policy and just wait till one gets sick, since one cannot be turned down.
The above said, preexisting conditions can be covered, but it would be a separate insurance and cost more. A structure similar to Lloyds of London specialty insurance would charge premium rates commiserate with having a preexisting condition. Not hard to do and such specialty insurance structures already exist.
The error of the ACA is that it assumes and places that preexisting cost on everyone whether one needs or not, thus driving up premiums for everyone. And the fiscal error of ACA is that it assumes that people who need more services should not pay higher premiums which is just opposite of how a market can function and be solvent. By definition, given its structure, ACA can only be insolvent. There is no way to make the math work when services and costs are not aligned with what is actually being provided.
I just went onto Anthem website off the exchange and searched for new 2017 plans. They are the exact same cost as my exchange premium. The benefit of going through exchange is my income fluctuates wildly so I can benefit with a subsidy some years
@awcntdb so…you are saying that my kid who is self employed…and happens to have glaucoma…through no fault of his own…and has never had ONE day lapse in insirance coverage…should pay a lot more in premiums?
I don’t agree.
@coralbrook you are lucky. In my kid’s state, there is only ONE choice of individual policy on the exchange. So…we are having the kid look OFF exchange for something with a higher deductible, and lower possibly premiums.
We get it, awc. Diabetics, asthmatics and people with cancer deserve to die if they don’t have money. People who are lucky enough to have good health bear no responsibility to people who aren’t so lucky. Everyone for themselves. We understand your idea of fairness. I don’t exactly get how it’s someone’s personal responsibility not to be born with lupus, but there it is; some people, including you, have that belief.
Taxes are not a choice.
My post specifically says that one does not CHOOSE to buy things one does not use, want or need.
Additionally, I guarantee you that people paying for private school and people who take the subway and do not have a car would gladly not pay those taxes if given the choice etc…
Actually, you said this: “Not if one is forced to pay for services one cannot even use, want, or need. That is legalized robbery at that point - being forced to hand over money for something and absolutely getting nothing in return”
So, FORCED to pay taxes is legalized robbery according to you.
My choice would be universal healthcare where everyone is FORCED to participate in one large healthcare pool, because I feel access to decent healthcare should be a human right, especially in a country many like to profess is the “leader of the free world” and others wish to “make great again” as much as other items we pay taxes for like education, infrastructure and defense.
there are countless products where you cannot pick and choose only what you want or need. You can’t order cable tv a la carte, or even the number of hot dogs and an equal amount of hot dog buns.
The cost to create, market and administer an endless number of insurance bundles would be mind boggling.
And is not the focus of this thread.
awcntdb - #164
The above said, preexisting conditions can be covered, but it would be a separate insurance and cost more. A structure similar to Lloyds of London specialty insurance would charge premium rates commiserate with having a preexisting condition. Not hard to do and such specialty insurance structures already exist.
You are describing the High Risk Pools that existed for those deemed uninsurable prior to the ACA. Obviously because the risk was spread over only high cost enrollees, the premiums for these policies were financially out of reach for all but the wealthiest people with pre-existing conditions. The rest couldn’t afford it and effectively minimized/eliminated treatment thus cutting their lives shorter than they would have been had they been insured/received medical treatment.
The High Risk Pool approach essentially puts us back to using wealth to decide who can live or not if they are unlucky enough to develop something that qualifies as a pre-existing condition. Is that how we want to run our society?
(sorry, I haven’t gotten the hang of correctly posting quoted passages of previous comments)
There used to be a high risk pool in CA. It was subsidized by the state.
^ yes some states subsidized those pools. Varied substantially by state. Kinda like Medicaid expansion has been done in some states, not in others. There’s speculation that high risk pool subsidies would follow a path similar to that expansion. So in some states you MIGHT be able to afford coverage, in others - likely not.
The high risk pool in California had a yearly benefit cap of $75,000. https://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2013/01/8041.pdf
I’ve got better coverage than that on my dog.
So for me that’s 6 months worth of infusions… with absolutely nothing else covered.
But hey, I’ve already been told at least once on this thread that people like me should just go die.
Wow–I guess the 10% of the US population who has asthma is out of luck! One hospitalization can easily cost well over $75K. Many have asthma due to heredity and other unknown factors. Diabetes type 1 also occurs from infancy or childhood with no notice.
Most of my extended family has some pre-existing condition that they were diagnosed with at some point in their lives. Some of us were grade school or younger. Some of us were older. The idea of all of us being unable to acquire reasonable insurance is terrifying!
High risk pools in the US pre-ACA typically had some combination of waiting times (because hey, no problem waiting six months to treat that tumor), waiting lists (leukemia? sorry, come back three years from now when somebody currently in the pool dies) and yearly benefit caps (you can have the retrovirals to treat your HIV for January, February and half of March, but not the rest of the year, how does that sound?).
In other words, they were woefully underfunded. They were a way for people to pretend they were solving the problem, without actually coming up with the money to solve it. Insurance companies don’t want to insure high-risk people because they cost a lot of money. States don’t want to pay for them either.
People who advocate high risk pools in this thread either don’t know they don’t work, or don’t care. In any event, high risk pools don’t work in practice. Anyone who wants to smugly grandstand should continue to bring them up. Anyone who wants real solutions should look elsewhere.