If government will require insurance companies to ignore prior history, how can they be insurance companies?
You are “insuring” against treatment for expensive conditions. Rates are determined by your history of health.
Insurance companies are not just banks that pay for everything. They play the odds which allows healthier people to pay smaller amounts than unhealthier people do.
If insurance companies have to pay for everything, regardless of the person, they will go out of business immediately.
Why don’t people understand this very simple concept?
It’s almost as if the government was going to require that every slot machine at a casino would produce a winning hand. Sure, it would be fun at the casino for a few hours, but by midnight it would be bankrupt and closed forever.
Tags: Companies, Government, history, ignore, Insurance, prior, require, They
I think most people understand this. I think the presidents idea was that with everyone insured and paying insurance companies would have so much more income coming in from healthy people that maybe they would be able to afford to cover the losses of the not so healthy. will it work i have no clue they may have to pay higher rates with help by the government or turn to government run health care. what i have a problem with is insurance companies trying to get out of covering sick patients because of ridiculous reasons for example if you report a rape to your doctor you can be dropped for “engaging unnecessary risk” that could hurt you health …so if your raped and go to your doctor your dropped if you dont go you risk getting stds even HIV so just dont get raped…. and theres tons of stupid little cracks made up just like this one by the insurance companies.
Your approach is entirely incorrect. Insurers won’t go out of business. Their risk management concept will change, since the risk levels will be higher, if required to accept pre existing conditions. The obvious solution to their new risk levels is an increase in premiums for everyone. Yes, that means that the healthy will pay MORE than they now pay.
Here is my question to you? Why do you have health insurance? To protect you from catastrophic events. ie; cancer, stroke, heart attack etc. Many times healthy people get these thu no fault of their own.
In employer based (group) insurance is the same way. Your premium is based on healthy/sick people to pay for claims that arise, be it for expensive conditions or just minor.
Private health insurance on the other hand in most states may exclude someone with a pre-existing condition, thus they only insure the healthy and hope they never get anything that is costly to pay. Or could have insurance for years, get cancer and then go back thu their records and then claim it was pre-existing and deny payment.
Insurance is based on the law of large numbers. You take a large group and calculate the amount to charge so that you cover everyone. It applies in homeowners and auto and most states they are mandatory that you have insurance. So in health insurance, if they are required to insure everyone, they will have to calculate the right amount to cover everyone so that they do not go bankrupt.
I am guessing you are healthy and expect that you will never need expensive treatment, so you don’t want your rates to go up if they are required to insure all. But we will all die someday and the most expensive treatment we will receive will most likely be the last 2 years of our life.
good luck
True, AND, if they’re forced to cover everyone without regard to health then why would anyone get insurance prior to it being needed? That’s what is happening in New York and that’s why New York is the most expensive state in the union for insurance. Why would someone expect it would be different elsewhere. All of the unhealthy sign up for insurance because they can and the healthy can go without until it’s needed. You need SOME kind of protection for the foolish folks who can take of themselves but choose not to. You can’t allow them to jump on the coverage when they need it.
That’s why you get “I’m pregnant and not insurance, please help” questions once a day on Yahoo. She didn’t want coverage last month, but now that she’s pregnant she does and blames the ‘greedy insurance companies’ for not giving her a hand out.
Maryland already has the solution to the problem because Maryland has a state plan that’s affordable and it’s means based so if you make under a certain level you can get insurance with low deductibles from $100-$200 per month that covers pre-existing conditions. AND, if you’ve been without continuous coverage for a period of time you pay more. That’s the way it should be. You should not be allowed to sit on the sideline without some sort of ramifications. If you’re healthy you stay in the free market system and get world class health care, and if you need gov’t assistance then it’s there.
Just keep in mind insurance prices won’t go down until the cost of care goes down. That’s the problem with the debate in DC. Talk about lowering the costs of medications, liability insurance for doctors, etc…
People don’t WANT to understand the concept of ‘adverse selection’. They have no desire to understand WHY health insurance rates cost what they cost.
They don’t want to bother to understand where health insurance companies make the profits. And they’re incredibly dull, to be taking everything the politicians say at face value – because they’re lying about what they said yesterday, and that’s JUST FINE by the people!