Ken’s Take: In a prior post, I noted that if insurance companies are forced to take folks with previously disqualifying known medical “pre-conditions” into their coverage pools, then premiums are virtually certain to go up for the presumed healthier people in the pool. Its simple insurance economics.
Stossel (a classmate of mine at Princeton) raises an interesting philosophical point.
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Excerted from RCP: Impossible Promise, John Stossel, August 5, 2009
The New York Times describes a key part of the House bill: “Lawmakers of both parties agree on the need to rein in private insurance companies by banning underwriting practices that have prevented millions of Americans from obtaining affordable insurance.
Insurers would, for example, have to accept all applicants and could not charge higher premiums because of a person’s medical history or current illness”.
No more evil “cherry-picking.”
No more “discrimination against the sick.
But that’s not insurance. Insurance is the pooling of resources to cover the cost of a possible but by no means certain misfortune befalling a given individual.
Government-subsidized coverage for people already sick is welfare.
We can debate whether this is good, but let’s discuss it honestly.
Calling welfare “insurance” muddies thinking.
Full article:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/05/impossible_promises_97774.html
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Ken’s Take II: Somehow, somewhere, folks with pre-existing medical conditions should get coverage for their healthcare. But the who and the where sure aren’t obvious to me.
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The Homa Files 
August 14, 2009 at 11:09 am |
Strossel’s comments are dumb.
August 14, 2009 at 11:38 am |
I believe this is why there is discussion of a mandate that all people, including healthy young people, purchase insurance. Then everybody is already in the pool and nothing is “pre-existing” because there is no “pre.”
August 15, 2009 at 11:38 am |
Amen Mark Davenport.
If I hear one more moron suggest that “young, healthy people” should be allowed to opt out I will scream. These people have NO IDEA how much it will cost if they are forced to spend a single night in a hospital.
It would also help if people had any idea what their employer offered healtchcare was actually “worth”. The wealth gab between the rich and the poor is grossly under estimated because the rich enjoy benefits that are never accounted for.
No, I’m not a socialist. I am a realist. poor people will continue to vote for higher taxes if rich people in this country don’t learn to share. DUH!