Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization, has released a report that explores the internal underwriting guidelines of several health insurance companies, and you won’t believe some of the “conditions” that make people “uninsurable,” such as being an expectant father, or taking prescription drugs for allergies, heartburn, or toenail fungus.
I looked a little closer into one plan that Consumer Watchdog highlighted: PacifiCare, a California insurance company. Their list of conditions requiring automatic rejection includes received therapy or counseling within the last 6 months, or being disabled. You can see the full, very extensive list of “preexisting conditions” here.
Whatever ultimately happens with health care reform, we at least need to end this nonsense. Without health insurance, millions of Americans are unable to afford proper medical treatment. So how could it make any sense to deny access to insurance just because a prospective client has heartburn?
Reading the list could cause heartburn when I think that prospective parenthood is classified as a pre-existing condition. Sheesh. Thanks for posting this.
You’re absolutely right. This is the kind of nonsense we should be focusing on. We’ve allowed our states to make the pool of insurers so small that a company like pacificare can continue to stay in business after providing such lousy care.
What consumer in their right mind would Choose that kind of policy? That policy is written for the employers, not the insured and the sooner we take out the middlement and get the people buying their own insurance, the sooner that crap will stop.
Get the states out of the way, get the employers out of the way and make those sons a bitches live by the same rules small businesses have to live by: a fierce competition that will resul in better service, and lower prices. Absent monopoly this is the natural order, remove the state protection and any insurer that considers parenthood a preexisting condition will be out of business in a matter of weeks.
THese policies are written by the insurers for their own benefits. If the states got out of the way, there would be no restraint on excluding pre-existing conditions or hazardous occupations.
Why? Because people with pre-existing conditions or dangerous workplaces tend to make claims, and paying claims is not how insurers make money (in fact, employees at health insurers are rewarded for denying more claims and disciplined if they pay too many). Unregulated insurers will cherry-pick the healthiest customers, since they are the ones least likely to make claims and drive down profits.
Yes, certainly this is true, but there would be other insurers running hard against the insureres that did this. How much ad money would it really take to destroy the reputation of any such insurer should someone want to steal their customers. Are you telling me that Dennis Freakin Hasbert couldn’t convince someone that they’d be in better hands with Allstate than with Pacifica? Oh ye of little faith. There are people that would leave those companies just on GP.
Randy -
I think a better analogy, from an insurer’s standpoint, is that they would never issue a policy to someone who called them saying that a hurricane was bearing down on their home. Why would they insure someone already sick?
Not advocating their position, just saying that is the thought process. But I acknowledge health has a different priority than property. That is really the conundrum in this whole debate — how much is healthcare a right, a limited right, or a priveledge.
DtM, is potable water a right or a privilege? Are navigable roads a right or a privilege? Is a reliable postal service a right or a privilege? Is a education a right or a privilege?
Randy, you could also phrase that as “healthy people are the ones least likely to make claims and drive up costs on everyone else in the group”. Within a Group, all the premiums and employer contributions get pooled together, and a person with a pre-existing condition or a chronic condition’s a lot more likely to pull more out of the pool than they put in. Needs of the many vs. needs of the few and all that, and it makes some sense to keep out the sick person who’s going to make everybody else’s healthcare cost more.
Richard, all those things are privileges that we enjoy. Surely you know the difference between rights and privileges?
Were we endowed by our creator with roads and potable water? Is there something inherhent to our being that entitles us to a postal system? Do you believe then that we in the civilized world are the only ones with rights; that the uneducated and impoverished have no rights and can be ruled like chattle?
I don’t believe what we have has any impact on our rights. Our rights are at once immutable and ethereal. Our rights are metaphysical and cannot be defined in terms of quantity or quality. We are in command of our rights because a right cannot be granted it can only be exercised.
I’d say the things you are listed are not inherent rights. But they are things we have collectively chosen to spend our money on, because we all want them.
You and I want potable water and a postal service. Because enough other people have also wanted those things over time, we are taxed a small amount of our income to provide them. No problem.
Here is the rub: Along with the things you listed, I believe there is another right that trumps so many things, except for the right to freedom and life and the proverbial pursuit of happiness: The right to keep what you earn.
It may sound like it is just about money. It is not. Earning something, anything — from the settler building his own sod house, to a trapper trading enough beaver pelts for a winters supply of food, to a farmer selling his corn crop for cash, to a white collar worker bring home a salary — is as inate to humans as very few things. The right to keep those things which we work for is one of the natural laws.
That is the rub. This isn’t about “is healthcare for all a good idea.” Of course it is. If we only had to look at half of the equation.
Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, there is a second, balancing, critical part of the equation that also needs to be examined.
Lloyd, there is a situation something like this with motor vehicle insurance. The bad, high risk drivers can’t get coverage except through the most expensive insurers. There is plenty of competition between companies for the good drivers, but the bad drivers — who are most likely to need insurance — are priced out of the market (I know it’s an imperfect analogy. What analogy isn’t?).
Steve — isn’t the point of health insurance to cover the medical costs of sick people? Driving them out of the market may be good business and efficient actuarial policy, but it does ntohing to help the people who need it most.
Randy, I don’t think the point of health insurance is to cover sick people. I’ve always understood its point to be enabling healthy people to hedge against going broke due to temporary illness or injury. The auto insurance analogy is better than you give it credit for being, in that regard.
Steve is right. The auto insurance analogy is far far better than you realize. Bad drivers aren’t forced out of the market, they enter into a different market. Niche insurers exists for the lousy driver just like law firms and bail-bondsmen do. They are still in the market and there are still people competing for their dollars.
But let’s assume that your point that “Bad Drivers would be priced out of the market” is correct. Isn’t the price associated with being a bad driver then prohibitive to becoming a bad driver? The point being, market forces that the consumer is directly aware of shape his decisions. Contrast that with a thought on what would happen if there were no cost implications to being a bad driver. Would there be anything preventing us from wrecking our cars everytime we wanted a new one?
This is a problem with our system. Thanks for posting it.
Jeff - there is very little opposition to this plan. Why don’t the Democrats just pass this provision and then fight about the other stuff? Why hold this provision hostage in hopes of ramming through the public option?…Reminder…the public option is dead.
Keep telling yourself that. Remember to take your anti-hypertensives religiously, though.
Lojasmo - why hold this provision hostage? Why not just pass it?
“The right to keep what you earn.”
I think every libertarian must have failed economics, history, and civics. You don’t keep what you earn. You turn around and exchange at least some of that for other goods and services. You know, food, clothes, car payment, etc. Even trappers didn’t sit on a big pile of beaver pelts all the time. They exchanged those for other goods and services, too. So the government takes some of what you earn as taxes and in exchange you get roads, drinkable water, fire services, etc. Guess what? You live in a society as part of that society. You’re not a trapper living in the uncharted wilderness.
Not to mention that the whole idea that clean drinking water is a privilege but protecting your hoard is a “natural law” (A natural law? Seriously? Says who?) is unbelievably selfish and completely lacking in empathy. Even monkeys and apes share food and responsibilities, because those are behaviors that keep the group together and safe. I’d like to think that anything a monkey can do, we can do better. Conservatives seem bent on proving me wrong.
So Chayanov says you should not be able to keep the things you earn.
We’ve established two different viewpoints. Curious what others think.
Of course what Dan is saying isn’t that one “keeps” what they earn but that one does have the right to utilize…spend…save…share…the majority of their earnings as they see fit and take responsibility for those choices.
It is not selfish to want to have autonomy over what is rightfully yours and to work to keep an increasingly ravenous federal government from expanding a national entitlement mentality under the guise of rights and empathy. Remember, government doesn’t have any real wealth. It does not generate any real wealth.
“Government-funded” is…well, a lie.
We have identified the need for some health insurance reforms. Pre-existing medical conditions…a problem. Unfair tax benefits to employee-funded health insurance. Some low-life insurance companies. Too many state mandates driving up costs. Okay…what can be done? Do we go straight to massive federal legislation and generate another massive and costly federal bureaucracy or can we solve concerns with a lighter touch closer to home?
Wanting something does not make it a right. Even needing something does not make it a right. Yes, there are fellow citizens who need assistance in various areas of life. Good people find ways to help. Sometimes through reputable and effective charitable organizations. Sometimes banding together as communities or counties or at a state level and giving these levels of government limited power to act for the collective in a targeted way.
The goal is always to support a system that allows most people to PERSONALLY achieve what they need and want. The purpose of government is to facilitate such a system. With a few constitutional exceptions, the purpose of government is not “to do for” but “to allow to achieve for oneself”.
It is not the function of the FEDERAL government to oversee the confiscation and re-distribution of everyone’s wealth under the guise of creating a perfect world. When we are told that only Washington is big enough to handle a problem…well, THAT’S a problem in and of itself.
That’s the message that a million people (on their own dime) came to Washington last weekend to deliver. STOP. ENOUGH. Many, many Americans are waking up to the realization that they neither need nor want increasing federal intervention in their lives. They’ve seen how well Washington manages what they’ve already created and are not impressed.
Why the need to lie about how many people attended the tea-bagger party in Washington? Not a single credible source has used the million figure. And from everything I saw reported there was not a single message amongst this group other than “I’m pissed off.” didn’t see a lot of solutions to national problems just more whining.
Getting off the medical question for now, there is a huge problem with the concept of people keeping everything that they earn as well as with the statement that government does not create wealth.
Money earned by a worker in America results from the benefits of living and working in America. Our infrastructure (including highways, airports and riverways), education, legal system (including what regulation there is of business), land and history all combine to allow individual Americans to use their talents and efforts to earn a good living. Wages earned in the U.S. are based in no small part on the overall environment created by the operation of good government. U.S. citizens, the beneficiaries of good government, should be obliged to support the continuation of good government through a fair level of taxation. The attitude that “I earned this by myself and should keep every penny” is a repudiation of the American way of life that originated long before Benjamin Franklin observed that “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Back to health care. It is far and away the biggest boat anchor on American entrepreneurship and global competitiveness. It is a pervasive problem that affects every American. To deny that the federal government should have a role in the solution naive at best and pure meanness at worst.
The topic of government not creating wealth is an interesting one. In America, the government is the people. This is critical point missed by the tea party crowd. The tea partiers seem to believe that every man is an island and that there is a need to rebel against government simply because “they” take money and do this and that, things which no tea party protester likes. The government is the collective will of the people. It is not separate. America has the strength and flexibility in its government to reflect and execute the will of the people. Not every citizen will be in complete agreement. What concerns me about the tea party movement is that government is “other,” not “us;” and rebelling against it is collectively shooting ourselves in the foot. What will replace our government if the rebellion is successful? In economics, wealth is created through land, labor and capitol. The ultimate owner of land is the government (on behalf of all of us). It is critical in the wealth creation process. Further, government supports the free-market systems that create wealth by setting and enforcing a legal structure. This was recognized by George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, the founders of our federal system.
Right now in the U.S. there is general acknowledgement that our health care financing and delivery system is broken and is in critical need of reform. While I’m not a fan of the current proposals, they do represent government’s attempts to reflect the will of the people; and I’ll admit that they are a whole lot better than doing nothing. Federal medical reform is not an increasing federal intervention in citizens’ lives. It is an attempt to keep the already invasive, perverted and devastating influence of medical insurance companies out of citizens’ lives.
Estimates were that between 30,000 and 70,000 were in attendance in DC.
You are either ignorant, or a liar.
Perhaps you were thinking of Obama’s inauguration. Millions did indeed attend that.
No, estimates put the 9/12 rallies at about 500,000. No where near a million but far from insignificant either.
We see a common thread here, in many of the bigger government naysayers, that there is a distrust that the federal government will spend our money responsibly. That is the core issue that needs to be addressed, I believe.
If Obama does what he said he would do during the roman column / Mile High Stadium speech: “But I will also go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less”
If Obama would do that. And I mean Really do that with the passion that he said it in that speech… I think a few more of us would be a little more willing to let him add more government to our lives.
He has. Look at the missile defense changes, and his threat to veto the military appropriations bill if unrequested funds for obsolete programs were contained in it.
Or don’t. I don’t care.
I was there. Conservatively speaking…no pun intended…a million. Re-direct your inquisitiveness with regard to “lying” to the lap-dog MSM outlets. I’m curious, too.
I know no conservative who ever says that we should keep every penny we earn so please don’t be disingenuous.
“Fair taxation”…there’s the rub. Who decides what is fair? I guess I’ve never heard anyone who favors more government “this and that” mention on this blog how much extra they send in every year because they think they are not paying their fair share. I believe you can do that.
I’m happy to pay taxes to support the continuation of good government. Conservatives are not, after all, anarchists…or mostly, not even libertarians. They understand the Constitutional functions of government. (If only our representatives did.)
I want the smallest, most non-intrusive government possible. One that “allows individual Americans(the freedom…my addition) to use their talents and efforts to earn a good living.” A framework that allows people to do for themselves as much as possible. One that understands that we cannot afford a government solution to every human problem.
What we have created over the past decades is a bloated monstrosity with an insatiable appetite for more. Both parties have helped get us to this point. We can see the abyss from here.
Actually, government, by any measure, grew through the nixon, ford, Reagan, and Bush one, declined slightly under Clinton, then skyrocketed under Bush. And yes, Obama is spending a bunch of money to fix Bush’s blunders. It’s necessary, based upon historical fact.
Nice try, though.
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2007/whose_big_government_5433
Ummm being that you just announced another conspiracy about the numbers of attendees you are not the most reliable source. Not a single source, including the organizers, is pushing the “million” number. In fact for a while a fake photo from an entirely different event was being circulated to make it look like a mass movement was taking place. This group, the tea-bagging folks, are a minor movement at best. If they could all actually agree on something they might actually have an effect but as is they are just the cat’s paws of Beck and Fox News.
Interesting that all of a sudden in an unsuccessful effort to sound less radical it becomes a discussion about “fair taxation” instead of “taxes are theft.” Which tune do you whistle to which audience? You’ll need to signal which is which to the rest of the mob.
Is it unreasonable in your mind for someone to believe that taxes truly are theft yet some taxation is necessary? I ask this because it seems that you’d have them forget their first principle of “taxes are theft” in order to remove all the limitations that principle puts on your plans for government.
Kathy, you’re a brave girl. You laid it all out there for them beautifully but they completely missed the point again. Let’s look at what their responses tell us about them.
You said you wanted a fair and limited government. Lojasamo responds “Actually, government, by any measure, grew through the nixon, ford, Reagan, and Bush one, declined slightly under Clinton, then skyrocketed under Bush. And yes, Obama is spending a bunch of money to fix Bush’s blunders. It’s necessary, based upon historical fact.”
What this tells us about lojasamo is that he thinks you want to defend Bush’s record on spending. My guess is that you know more about all the crap Bush shouldn’t have spent money on than most anyone on the left. When folks like lojasamo think of Bush’s spending they think about Iraq. We both know that money Bush spent on new or expanded entitlements dwarfs the money spent in Iraq or Afghanistan but lojasamo will have none of that. The problem for people like this is that because they will blindly follow anyone delivering the perfect message, they believe that you who are equally ideological would do the same. We see this in the rest of his post where he tries to use Bush’s spending and an unspecified historical fact to justify Obama’s spending.
Amuseinc’s response shows a more committed leftist at work. He might as well be saying “serenity now” to himself with that blather about tea bagging and cat’s paws. He wants the Tea Party movement to be trivial because the thought of an actual groundswell of public oposition to all the things he wanted Obama to do would be too jarring to take.
And I, for one, am waiting breathlessly and with all the hope I can muster to see how that spending and fixing works out for us.
Your right, Lloyd, and thanks. There IS a certain futility to showing up here. It almost doesn’t matter what we say. (Or even what we saw…) The few themes with only slight variations of leftist rhetoric and response is repetitively stultifying. And sometimes silly.
And after this past weekend of endless talk, we can include the President in that assessment.
“That’s NOT a tax, George.”
Expectant FATHER? I could understand expectant MOTHER, from a cheap-arse, immoral insurance-shark point of view, but fathers!? What health problems could expectant fathers have, lightheadedness from helping their wives practice lamaze? How ridiculous, and ACNE? Seriously? Zits? Jeez.