Assignment Desk
2009 July 9
I’m going to be away from my computer for more time than I’d like today, so I won’t really have a chance to sift through the interwebs for stuff to blog. So, if you – the readers – have something you’d like to see me tackle, leave it in the comments or shoot me an email at jamelle dot bouie at gmail dot com. I’ll get to it as soon as I get a chance.
I’d like to see someone really dig into the idea of people being denied health care due to pre-existing conditions. Apparently the health care reform in the works would tackle this, but unless it prevents insurance companies from tacking on fees (Daily Kos), it would effectively be a useless protection in practice.
What is the language of said protection? Does it have the necessary teeth? Do you think it will remain a part of the final bill? What can we do to ensure it is?
It is a useless protection. The point of insurance is insuring against something that may or may not happen. A pre-existing condition has, by definition, already happened, which means that the medical expenditures associated with it are (more) certain. From a business standpoint, it makes as much sense to deny insurance coverage for pre-existing health conditions as it does to deny auto insurance coverage for accidents predating the insurance policy. If insurance companies are required to cover pre-existing conditions, then it is not necessarily clear which is fairer: asking individual policyholders to pay extra fees (defeating the risk-pooling goal of insurance but reflecting the fact that these policyholders already have whichever condition), or raising insurance prices across the board (making insurance less affordable for everyone).
I do not mean to say that I would like to see people go without health care for any of their ailments, but if you’re going to have a system in which health care is financed by privately operated health insurance, this is the trade-off that must be made.