“Doesn’t it seem reasonable to you that an insurance company isn’t going to start covering someone who, say, got cancer a month before?”
People can’t help life events like unplanned job changes that force insurance changes. There needs to be a mechanism to handle that for folks caught in the pre-existing condition trap. I don’t know for sure what is driving insurance rates up, but I would think it is more the companies being nickel-ed and dime-ed to death rather than the one off pre-existing condition person.
There already was, at least in the state I'm in.
If you switched plans for any reason but didn't have a gap in coverage, then pre-existing conditions were covered in the new plan. COBRA existed so you had time to get new coverage if you lost yours abruptly.
“People can’t help life events like unplanned job changes that force insurance changes.
That fact doesn’t alter the original fact that people can’t wait until they are sick to get insurance.
There are two choices: (1) make all voluntarily insured people pay for those who don’t have insurance when they get sick, and (2) make everyone get and pay for health insurance.
My impression is that a lot of people, especially young people, could get health insurance but choose not to because they want to use their money for other things. Should the rest of us bail these people out?