How "Pre-Existing Conditions" Killed Our Health Care System
It's just shocking to hear that we overturned our entire health care system to help those people who can't buy insurance because of "pre-existing" conditions -- only to see very few of them actually avail themselves of it.
John C. Goodman writes in the WSJ:
The Affordable Care Act established a federally funded risk pool--the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan--that allows individuals with such disqualifying conditions to buy a policy for the same premium a healthy person would pay. About 82,000 people have signed up as of July 31, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's statehealthfacts.org.That is not a misprint. Out of a population of more than 300 million, some 82,000 have the problem that was cited as the principal reason for spending $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years and in the process turning the entire health-care system upside down.
The risk pool surely comes as welcome relief to those who need it. A lot of them are really sick and are running up expensive medical bills. But the three-year cost is about $5 billion, as budgeted in the Affordable Care Act--a tiny fraction of the law's overall burden. Nevertheless, the federal risk pool will be closed down in 2014, when ObamaCare will begin prohibiting insurance companies from charging premiums based on the health conditions of applicants.
...When insurers are forced to charge the same premium to all applicants, regardless of expected health-care costs, prices will be wrong for everyone--and both buyers and sellers of health-care policies will have perverse incentives.
On the buyer's side, healthy people who are overcharged will underinsure, buying less coverage than they otherwise would. They may even decide to go without insurance, since the ObamaCare penalties for being uninsured are weak and people can always buy a policy after they get sick. People with expensive health problems will overinsure, buying more generous coverage than they otherwise would.
Where does this all lead?
In a few years ... the brokers will likely leave the market altogether and many employers will drop their coverage. Along the way, the federal government will put enormous pressure on insurers to keep their costs down. Then you will be on your own, facing a system that has no interest in spending money on you.
Obama isnt stupid, he is for a one payer system. Obamacare is following the cloward piven strategy of OVERLOADING the system to bankrupt it. That has been Obama's plan all along. Throwing in "free" stuff, preventive medicine, allowing "children" up to age 26 to be on a parent's health care policy, making insurance companies accept those with pre existing conditions as well as prohibiting life time maximums will surely bankrupt the insurance industry. It is like making cadillac add all these frills and options to a car and the government telling cadillac you cant charge more for it. It doesnt add up and it will not work. The system will collapse and Obama will get his wish to have a one payer system
Dragonslayer666 at October 16, 2012 10:53 PM
Gotta point out a huge hole in the program -- the one that has kept folks like me with exorbitant premiums and potentially fatal pre-existing conditions from enrolling: You have to be without insurance for 6 months to qualify. Can't risk that, and what it would do to me or my family if I got sick in, say, month 4. So we eke by and cut every corner imaginable in order for me to stay (poorly) covered. Pisses me off every time I hear of some person with tendonitis or some such that went without insurance and has now got great coverage at low cost thanks to Obamacare.
elementary at October 16, 2012 10:55 PM
Do not misuse the word "insurance." This is not insurance, this is a mandate to cover medical expenses.
Let's cut out the middle-man and just enslave all the physicians. We can take over the drug companies and hospitals while we are at it.
It should take us six months to get to third world status, with no health care at all available within the US, except for cash payment to black market providers.
What could possibly go wrong?
MarkD at October 17, 2012 5:24 AM
Exactly right - kill the insurance companies and the sheeple will clamor for the government to "do something."
ParatrooperJJ at October 17, 2012 6:12 AM
We just did our employer benefit elections for next year. Surprise surprise, our copay doubled and our contribution to premiums went up. I was reading through all the changes, and it was sooo blatantly gender discrimination that if I were a man I'd sue on basis of that. "Free" EVERYTHING for women. Nothing new for men.
momof4 at October 17, 2012 8:03 AM
Bullshit. As a provider the big problem is those fucker DON'T pay. So fewer providers so higher cost. What? Market doesn't count here?
Try starting a doctors office or any medical practice. No one wants to do it. You can't borrow to cover payroll because banks won't lend. Banks won't lend because they know you will NOT become solvent. The debt will spiral and the business will collapse. The bank will be left holding a big fat wad of debt, which they obviously don't want to do. Manufactures at least have some tangible assets for a recoup. Machines, IP, stock etc. A doctors' office has nothing, can't even resell the disposables that haven't expired.
I don't support Obama care but those dick heads started listing birth defects as a preexisting condition. So they don't cover neonatal care. Plus we are fatter and sicker then we have ever been (due to really shitty USDA dietary guide lines) yet they are making record profits. They do this by not paying providers. No one has remotely addressed this. Even the insurance mandate they have 30 days to respond. With which they automatically respond with a denied. Round 2 another 30 days they respond with a denied because. Round 3,4 or 5 after numerous calls confirmations and bullshit they pay maybe. You get stuck with payroll for 2 to 5 months. Plus you have to pay that person that calls the insurance company. All of this you have to cover out of a $120 per patient visit.
So why haven't we shut down the practice? We can't. We are equal partners and both need to sign off on a corporate desolation. Even if I convince her to dump we can't. She will get her license pulled and we WILL get sued. Why; because you can't just dump a patient you need to transfer them to alternate care. We can't do that because the two major providers collapsed when their executives fled the country after embezzling millions by not paying employees. Probably because they figured out there is no profit to be had. We are one of the too few groups picking up the cases and the employees that hadn't been paid in months. Luckily we aren't on the hook for back pay, in some industries we would be. However the insurance companies get to clear the unpaid claims since the originator of the claims is gone.
The government insurance will destroy healthcare? Maybe, but it hasn't on the small scale. Mass has the public options, signed by Slick Mitt. Some cost went up some went down. As a former EMT I was required to provide transport and care regardless of pay long before slick Mitt put in "free" healthcare. Someone had to pay the costs. It's always been the tax payer now it's just more visible.
vlad at October 17, 2012 8:54 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/10/how-pre-existin.html#comment-3385540">comment from vladI have friends who are doctors who no longer practice, but practiced pretty recently, and they stopped taking insurance because it was too huge and expensive a headache.
Amy Alkon
at October 17, 2012 9:12 AM
I have a relative with a pre-existing condition who was able to get insurance under Obamacare (paid for by her parents). She has failed to avail herself of some very necessary care.
Stunningly, you can not turn people into responsible citizens by giving them things.
Hal 10000 at October 17, 2012 11:01 AM
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