Posted on 08/27/2019 3:36:15 PM PDT by The Houston Courant
I don't know the answer. But I'm pretty sure enabling the current situation only makes it worse.
I wonder about what happens when children, five or younger, come down with a serious illness and then go into remission. Perhaps that illness recurs in adulthood. That is a pre-existing condition which is out if that individual’s control, because even if you do everything you’re told to do by your doctors to prevent the illness from returning, it happens. It will with me.
I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder at 16, one which killed my kidneys and put me on dialysis by 21, but that was caused by a genetic defect in my DNA; it existed in me from birth. I should have been diagnosed over ten years earlier, but my pediatrician missed it.
I’ve been transplanted, but the loss of my kidneys caused a domino effect. My heart, bones, muscles, my brain, joints; everything was affected. It has rendered me unable to work for the time being. If I am eventually able to work and leave Medicare, I’m out of luck when I’m no longer in remission, because the transplant isn’t a cure. It was simply the treatment of a symptom of the underlying problem, for which there is no cure.
What do you propose I do when my new kidney fails? It will eventually. Dialysis for me, at cost, would have been more than $120k annually in a clinic. The medications? $8k without insurance. I did the math when I was still on hemo. PD is not an option for me.
For someone who is too busy vomiting to work, it becomes an issue. My family is not wealthy, and neither are my husband and I. At that point, what are my options, aside from ritual suicide?
It’s not insurance, it’s a pre-existing claim.
...
Not necessarily. A person who has a heart attack may not have another one with proper care.
A person with diabetes may cure it by losing weight.
And there's a whole lotta food nazi's here on FR..Must be 1/2 dozen PHD's in diet and health here..
FYI .. Obesity isn't an eating problem, Eating is a symtom, its a mental health issue.
Could the taxfree dollars be in the form of a write off for those the insurer verifies as covered? There’s an enforcement and public policy issue if not.
There are more obese people today than I have EVER seen in my lifetime, yes there are quite a few people running and riding bikes ect. HOWEVER obesity in this country is out of control!!!
If you get to buy the insurance after you have the wreck it’s not insurance, it’s welfare.
Until the ACA, most states had such programs. The ACA did away with them.
One of a great many wrecking balls the ACA did to the healthcare system.
I’ll take “having personal responsibility” for $500, Alex...
They’re a separate category with their own entitlement funding.
and perhaps offer large tax incentives to employers who can get their employees into health and weight loss programs, and track the outcomes.
None of the things you have mentioned were ever considered for underwriting as “pre-existing conditions”. Health insurance worked fine for decades & decades before 2008. Read the last paragraph of the article...same tax breaks proposed for individuals as businesses get. That way individuals can have their own policies that follow them. Stay insured = no pre-exiting conditions.
For those that have a persistent diagnosis - such as diabetes - why wouldn’t “continuous coverage” count? If we pay for coverage, why not apply it to the next account?
That, I believe, is the core issue.
I was self employed my entire life and paid cash for my healthcare I also found that paying cash was much cheaper than what insurance companies were being billed!! When I reached the age of 60 I got a part time job at a major grocery chain for health insurance, I have been very blessed as far as my health is concerned I attribute that to working very hard and ALWAYS being active!! To many people today are severely over weight which creates health problems throughout the body, the insurance companies should not make healthy people pay higher premiums for people who sit on the couch stuffing twinkies down their throat on a regular basis!!!
Yep. What we have here is an issue that primarily affected those who lost employer provided coverage that the Democrats magnified, then turned into an entitlement to buy insurance only when you have a claim. Now that new entitlement with the old name has become a political issue, as does every entitlement.
This one’s slightly unusual because the government managed to stick somebody else with the cost.
No. It isn't. Not generally anyway. Sure there may be some cases where mental issues manifest in eating habits. Like anorexia. But no, obesity generally is not a mental health issue. It is a physical issue caused by eating the wrong kinds of food.
That’s largely what the Kennedy-Kassebaum act tried to address in ‘98.
You are right-and it isn’t just pharma-the stupid upside down dietary recommendations promoted for the last 60 plus years that insist that a grain based and veggie diet low on fats and meat is healthy is just driving the obesity epidemic, along with a lot of other ailments-carbs may be a source of instant energy, but protein is the healthy fuel that does not make you fat and maintains your muscle tone and brain function. I may be a naturalist/fresh food freak, but it has always worked for my whole family-I have lived drug-free all my life, and have never been overweight or unable to do a physical job...
I’m well liked by my insurer, too because I don’t think one size fits all...
One of the biggest problems with health insurance is that for most people, they don’t own their policy. When they change jobs, they lose the old because it’s not theirs. A whole host of other problems arise from that.
As just one issue, constantly changing plans makes the costs more uncertain for insurance companies, and people pay for risk. People hop on with no record, no history of paying in.
They have no long-term relations with an insurance company - which became exponentially worse with the ACA being designed to cause people to be kicked off of policies, such as outlawing policies which had very good coverage, or had returns which were not between 10x +/-2% (bronze 58-62, silver 68-72, gold 78-82, or Platinum 88-92%) of medical expenses. Your plan averages a payout of 73%? No longer grandfathered, and in many cases no longer permitted. New plan.
That issue alone makes it very difficult to go back even to what was.
They’re a separate category with their own entitlement funding.
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