I do not think it means what you think it means
"Parts of the law appear to be here to stay. One such provision, now widely accepted, says that insurers cannot deny coverage because of a person’s medical condition or history."
How can a paper write such a sentence? It's not insurance, then. It's something else. By definition, insurance does not work on certainties; it works on epidemiology, the distribution of incidents in a population.
Call it welfare, call it confiscation, call it fascism, call it the prohibition of insurance, call it what you like, but don't call it insurance.
posted by ColumbusGuy @ 3:00 AM
5 Comments:
It's insurance.
That's all I'm trying to say. It begs the question to even ask.
Insurance companies have two ways to conduct a profitable business. They can either only insure people who as a group will need less insurance payouts than the premiums collected, or they can charge higher premiums to the groups that are likelyto require more payouts (like smokers and the sickly). No law can change this fundamental truth.
Now, if Obamacare wants to bar refusing service to certain groups of insured, then it has to allow the insurance companies to charge what they have to charge. The gov't can then subsidize the higher cost of insuring the high cost groups. If the gov't refuses to do that, then the insurance industry colapses (witness today's article in the WSJ re: Tenn. exchange on virge of collapse).
The answer should be obvious - rather than endless bureaucratic wrangling between the gov't and insurance companies, let the insurance companies insure whom they wish atthe prices the market will bear, and the government can provide medical services directly to thoe who are essentially uninsurable. As for those who are insurable, but choose not to carry insurance, they should be eligible to receive government medical services, but pay a stiff fine (as well as the actual cost of service) for not haveing bought their own insurance.
Boy, are you slow on the uptake. The answer is obvious. Single payer will change all that math stuff you're babbling on about.
(And I'm not sure your solution to the moral hazard problem makes any sense. These people as a class are not going to be able to pay the uninsured cost of service. That's a hard one to solve. I think the best thing to do is put them in a queue for a government agency that will pay for them from voluntary checkoffs on income tax returns from people who believe in big government.)
There is no easy answer. There are questions of efficiency, which are tricky enough, but the question as to how much its worth to spend on health, and who should spend it, is beyond tricky. Though I can see the government offering minimal care for those who can't pay. It's those who insist the government make sure everyone gets the same level or care that make it difficult.
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