Insurance companies will continue to deny coverage to those with pre-existing medical conditions

[Better Believe It]

A Few Questions About The Health Insurance Bill
March 18, 2010


Question 4. Is the bill going to stop insurance companies from denying coverage to those with previously existing medical conditions?

No, not right away and maybe not at all.

The bill allows insurance companies to keep denying coverage to sick children like they do presently for 6 months after enactment. The bill also gives the insurance companies an additional 4 years of denying adults coverage or dropping them due to previous conditions before they have to stop that immoral practice. Once the regulations take effect, insurance companies will face a paltry $100/day fine if they violate the rule. With fines that low it is quite likely insurance companies will choose to pay the fines as opposed to the more expensive medical care they should provide. It only makes sense for them to do so. After all, they aren't in the healthcare business. Insurance companies are in the profit business. If given a choice between increasing their profits or not, is it reasonable or prudent to expect the insurance companies to lower their profits and cover those who need expensive treatments out of the goodness of their hearts?

Read all of the questions and answers at:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/o/l/oleeb/2010/03/a-few-questions-about-the-heal.php?ref=recdc

[Ardent15]

1. Kick. Recommended.

Anyone who seriously think this bill will help anyone besides insurance executives is a fool.

[Lorien]

10. Unfortunately blind partisanship turns a lot of people into fools. nt

[sandnsea]

2. There will be a transitional insurance pool

How many times have you had this answered? Do you keep any kind of tally? Is there a breaking point, some magic number when you move on to some other talking point? Just so I have a kind of ballpark so I know when to look for something new from you.

[eridani]

5. My state already has a pool like that

They sell utterly useless garbage to the handfull of people who are sick enough and rich enough to be able to buy it, and to nobody else.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. Yeah but but but but but but ......

The GoTeam crowd thinks that high risk pool is the king's nutz, dontcha know? They're all citing it when reason prevails and people realize this bill is pure crap in the preexisting conditions department.

The high risk pool will sell crap unsurance for three times the cost otherwise.

Nice racket. Brought to you by the RepubliDems.

[Better Believe It]

6. So you think a $100 a day fine will make the insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions ....

without jacking up their insurance rates?

Why do you place so much trust in the private health insurance industry?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

3. Who is the person that you linked to?

Why are their answers more valid than any other blogger's answers?

[Better Believe It]

7. So you're unable to challenge the bloggers point. OK. Fair enough.

If you can refute the bloggers point on pre-existing conditions please do.

I'm listening.

[nebenaube]

4. Didn't Nixon freeze wage and prices once?

There better be one hell of a signing statement accompanied by several executive orders that better be issued. I faced down way too much racism canvasing for Obama, I even shook his hand after he told us he supported single-payor here before about 280 people. One term. History.

Edited to fix the name of another REPUBLICAN WAR CRIMINAL.

[depakid]

8. The more one looks at this- the more Kafkaesque it gets...

The biggest irony of course is that the purported reformers (including those who'd actually prefer much more popular and effective provisions in the bill) will now be blamed right alongside the health insurers for all of the preventable abuses and excesses that are bound to occur.

Leaving them without credibility to enact future reforms- and open to attacks by Republicans who will coopt the issues while saying "we told you so."

[lonestarnot]

9. Well what would you expect from evil?

[OhioChick]

11. Disgusting. n/t

[gulfcoastliberal]

12. Someone on another thread said that once this monster passes, the media will open up on the dems by

publicizing all the ugly details hidden away in the legislation that we haven't heard of yet... I think that hypothesis is correct. Who knows what other kinds of outrages the bill imposes that we have yet to hear about?

[Egnever]

13. Way better than what we have now

By a long shot.

[Xithras]

14. It's very simple really. Corporations exist to make a profit. They will take the cheapest option.

They have no choice. Under U.S. law, coporations exist for the sole purpose of generating profit for their shareholders. If a CEO runs the company in a way that causes it to bypass profit, the shareholders can sue, and the CEO will be fired. If the mismanagement is serious enough to cost the company considerable sums of money, the CEO can actually be criminally charged and imprisoned.

So, it becomes a matter of math. If the cost of caring for a customer exceeds $36,500 per year, providing continuing coverage REDUCES profit, violating the law and placing the very jobs of the corporations leaders at risk. At a minimum, they will be sued by their shareholders. Once you reach that $36,500 per year threshold, it becomes cheaper to simply pay the fine and write the customer off their books.

If a prospective customer wants coverage and has a pre-existing condition where they KNOW that treatment costs will exceed $36,500 per year, the response is a no-brainer. Deny coverage and take the fine.

[Cleobulus]

16. I have a question, what's to stop an insurance company for refusing a claim due to...

it being "experimental", or "not medically necessary", or simply not giving a reason at all?

[berni_mccoy]

17. FUCK. A Repost of FDL BULLSHIT ON a TPM READER BLOG. MUST BE FACTS!!!1!

What a bunch of regurgitated bullshit.

[Vinca]

18. File the $100 fine under "Cost of Doing Business."

Apparently, things are going to have to get a whole lot worse before single-payer is even considered.