Quote:
Originally Posted by Burning Down
The one thing I never understood about the current system you have is that insurance companies won't cover you if you have a pre existing condition. I'm guess the only reason for that is because you'd be a liability, but still it's ****ed up. If Obamacare actually does eliminate that, it's a giant step forward.
It's about time that the US government steps up and makes sure it's citizens are cared for and looked after. Even if it means just making sure that insurance policies are affordable and available to everyone, and to keep the money grubbing insurance corporations under control.
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The pre-existing condition is, for the most part, just a misused loophole. What its supposed to prevent is you, having cancer, jumping on a plan and scooping up all the reserves of a given HMO without having contributed. That might seem callous, but you'd be able to HMO hop wihtout that.
In practice, however, it was being used by the HMO's as a liability-dump where in paying customers, who could have paid into a system for 20 to 30 years, were being dropped overnight so as to not incur the costs of caring for that persons medical ailment. For obvious reasons, people were pissed.
This wasn't just cancer. It was being used as a get out of jail free card - acne and pregnancy were being cited as "pre-existing conditions" so you can't imagine how its going over.
This might be viewed as good management - we can't save this person, and its going to jack-up the costs for all the remaining payers. But HMO's were continuing to raise rates WHILE dropping people. In otherwords, they were maximizing revenue while maintaining low costs. It was nothing short of a scam. Meanwhile, 5 major companies occupy 75% of the market - creating a de facto monopoly.
As to DJ's question of why the republicans hate it - its because their ideologies lead them to believe an embrace of the ACA will reanimate Stalin.
They can gin up any political tap dance they want, here are the facts:
1. They created this system as the free-market alternative in the late 90's to counter clinton's attempt at single-payer.
2. Its still utilizes a private system, it just mandates that have insurance. This is because costs are greatly off-set when healthy people buy in. They'd call this a ponzi-scheme, I'd call it Generation A off-setting the costs for Generation B, who will ultimately have their costs off-set by the generation that follows them.
3. Its a monopoly and operates as such, its entirely not free-market as it currently stands. They should be against this.
4. No one who pays into a joint-risk venture should be dropped when the risk manifests itself - that's the point of paying in. And its joint risk because the costs of medical treatment are too high to afford alone, and the risk itself is too sporadic to require individualized payment. (i.e. not everyone's going to get lung cancer at 37).
This flock of republicans are a bunch of tantrum-throwing crybabies who care more about their ideology than they do the country they're supposed to lead.