The fine print differs from the larger political message. If a company sells insurance, it will have to cover pre-existing conditions for children covered by the policy. But it does not have to sell to somebody with a pre-existing condition. And the insurer could increase premiums to cover the additional cost.If they screwed up something that important, what else did they screw up? Or do you think they deliberately gave the insurance companies that loophole, in which case, the question is what other surprises are tucked away in the 1000s of pages of fine print?
ADDED: This suggests an answer to mystery — discussed yesterday — of why the insurance companies didn't barrage us with "Harry and Louise"-type ads this time. They lobbied behind the scenes and got the language they wanted in the bill. Who put that language in? Who wrote the statute? We know the members of Congress who voted for it probably didn't even read much of it. They went on assurances and assertions about what was in it. And there was that outrageous idea — said with a straight-face by Nancy Pelosi — that they had to pass the bill to find out what's in it.
Now, maybe the idea was to set up the insurance companies. They'd read the text and see they could do something and shock the people by saying no to the extremely sympathetic people who have sick children and who were so trusting and happy when they saw the bill pass.
Whether that was planned or not, it is the spin now. From the first link, above:
Congressional Democrats were furious when they learned that some insurers disagreed with their interpretation of the law.Oh! Bad corporations! Evil, greedy, selfish corporations! We'll hear that old refrain once again, with melodramatic new feeling. What a great opportunity to soften everyone up for the next big reform, when the government takes over everything. Down with the child-killing insurance companies!
“The concept that insurance companies would even seek to deny children coverage exemplifies why we fought for this reform,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the Senate commerce committee, said: “The ink has not yet dried on the health care reform bill, and already some deplorable health insurance companies are trying to duck away from covering children with pre-existing conditions. This is outrageous.”
Posts
102 comments:
This is the consequence of rushing through a MASSIVE and sweeping law on a 100% PARTISAN basis without any due diligence. Without reading the damned thing.
Reading be damned....ram the thing through for political expediency. To HELL with the people and the consequences.
I expect, as you said, that millions of people will be freaking out when they realize the financial consequences. They will begin freaking out when they realize that contrary to being able to "get" more health care....they will be getting less in quantity and lesser in quality.
" Or do you think they deliberately gave the insurance companies that loophole..."
I absolutely do.
If it's deliberate (and it might have been), then Obama is the either biggest liar or biggest dope ever.
"Away from the fog of the controversy..."
what other surprises are tucked away in the 1000s of pages of fine print?
Oh I'm sure we'll find out over the course of the next couple of years.
Sounds like one of Althouse's fanbase got through to C-SPAN.
Nothing racist about that.
The democrats don't care.
The whole thing is about instituting huge tax increases.
Earth to Alpha, earth to Alpha.
So, instead of having an insurance company provide a policy that covers everything except for the pre-existing condition, now the company will simply refuse to sell any policy at all. Is that the gist of it?
Instead of incomplete coverage, now these folks will have no coverage period.
Look, the only thing guaranteed by this monstrosity is that it is guaranteed to screw things up and make life harder and more oppressive.
Obama is the either biggest liar or biggest dope ever.
Why is this as an either/or proposition. You can make a good argument for both.
Remember please, that any criticism of this groundbreaking civil rights law is RACIST.
Any criticism, even thoughts, are RACIST.
AL
So what are your thoughts on the coverage issue?
"If they screwed up something that important, what else did they screw up?"
They didn't screw anything up, Ann. A lot of time and effort behind closed doors in secret went into the precise language of this bill.
Congressmen were bribed with campaign donation promises to include precisely that language in the bill, to provide the insurance companies with this exact loophole.
Why do you think the insurance companies didn't run any ads urging Americans to oppose the health care reform bill, Ann?
Oh, lemme get this straight ... you believe Barack Obama when he says things?
Is that it?
After everything, after all the blatant lies, you still believe Barack Obama when he speaks?
Fool me once, shame on me.
Fool me twice ...
Oh, look more threats of right wing violence.
How long until Althouse makes excuses for that?
"Look, the only thing guaranteed by this monstrosity is that it is guaranteed to screw things up and make life harder and more oppressive."
Funny how that always applies to liberal/progressive ideas on governance.
Funny that.
Keep scrolling, Alphie:
Late Update: It's worth remembering that there's been plenty of suspicion about potential C-Span prank callers in the past. In December, the blogosphere was abuzz with a caller to C-Span who was quite alarmed while speaking to Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), wondering if his prayers to strike Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd dead had instead hurt Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, who'd missed a morning procedural vote on hearlth care reform. We found evidence at the time that the call could be a prank. While there's no evidence yet that this morning's call is related, it's worth remembering that C-Span may have been pranked in the past.
ps: I like that typo: "hearlth." I think I'll steal it and tweak: Hurlth Care Reform
"How long until Althouse makes excuses for that?"
A better question is how long before the war starts? And which side is better armed and trained?
I think you should go into hiding AlphaLibera.
They're coming for you.
BOO!
You know, Tennessee has a constituational provision that laws can only apply to one subject. No hidden provisions, no lost promises, no "didn't have time to read the bill", no kickbacks.
Can you imagine if the feds had such a rule?
- Lyssa
A transition period is not a "screw up".
And how did Republicans propose making health care available to children with pre-existing conditions? Oh, wait, they didn't.
Those John Mackey proposals in his WSJ piece, for instance – did the Republicans say "hey these are great ideas... let's put them forth as an alternative to ObamaCare to the American people"??? No. No. No. The Republicans proposed nothing. Nada. Nilch. Zippo.
ObamaCare ain't perfect. But it is better than nothing, which all that the Republicans offered in the many years when they had the ball and could have run with it.
Somebody has a pre-existing condition.
I'm listening to Bill Bennett from this morning.
Doing my deep breathing before he gets into a conversation about what is really in the bill with James Pethokoukis.
Suckers. T
he Dem representatives who voted for this are the suckers -- who abuse their constituents. We are the suckers if we re-elect One.Single.HCR_Yes_Voter.
The taxes in this bill are homongous. "Not one dime increase for the middle class" hahah haha haha haha haha hahh hahh ha ah ha ahaha haa .. . . .. .
The answer to avwh is: Biggest Liar.
Tosaguy, my thoughts on the coverage issue are that Ann Althouse is the last person I'd look to for a fair and rationale explanation of the issue.
She's rabidly anti-Obama and a Rush Limbaugh follower. That disqualifies her from providing useful or valid information.
Not to mention she has a twisted world view where she thinks it's wrong for people who have been threatened with, and subjected to, violence to say anything.
She's Around the Bend Annie.
What a great opportunity to soften everyone up for the next big reform, when the government takes over everything. Down with the child-killing insurance companies!
Death Panels!
What the law apparently does it make it illegal to sell coverage of the child for only other things he might want to be covered for than his preexisting condition.
It's sort of like the minimum wage. It makes it illegal to work for less than the legal wage, which means that the real minimum wage is zero.
Somebody's rag is too tight on the head.
She's rabidly anti-Obama and a Rush Limbaugh follower. That disqualifies her from providing useful or valid information.
While you're rabidly pro-Obama and echo Olberman talking points ad nauseum thus disqualifying you from providing any useful or valid information.
Wow! Look how easy that is!
Julius Hoffman:
And how did Republicans propose making health care available to children with pre-existing conditions? Oh, wait, they didn't. .
Yes, indeed. What's more, this bill had to be constantly watered down under obstinate opposition from Republicans, conservative Democrats and their patrons in the health insurance industry.
So after they water down the bill they come out complaining about the results of their watering down.
That's a special kind of mendacity.
Instead of incomplete coverage, now these folks will have no coverage period.
Bingo.
The idiot ratfuck democrats who voted for this bill just made it worse for these families. Not better. And look at the article... when the insurance industry actually points out what the law they wrote and passed actually says, its the Democrat congressmen that get outraged.
I'm outraged at their ignorance, carelessness and stupidity in passing this idiotic, destructive legislation.
What the drooling, ignorant economic illiterates in the Democrat party have NEVER grasped is that you CANNOT insure a "preexisting condition." If you try, it's not insurance, because insurance, by definition, is the transfer of risk.
The only thing an insurance company can do is adjust the premium to cover (somewhat more than) the expected costs of treatment, and then use their bargaining power to negotiate a discount with care providers.
But there is no such thing as insuring a preexisting condition, because certainty != risk.
I've seen and priced guaranteed issue policies in the workplace, in the life insurance market. They are expensive as hell and provide very limited benefits.
Get ready for the same thing in health insurance.
Thanks, libtards!!
"ObamaCare ain't perfect. "
As was the intel on Unka saddam's WMDs. You lefties gave a shit then about acucracy, so much you put a boob like Joe Wilson on your shoulders like some sort of imbecilic football coach and paraded him around.
You have no credibility.
Hoosier Daddy, I have actually criticized Obama here and elsewhere. So that's a fricken lie.
Fact is that he has a huge job on his hands cleaning up after Bush-Cheney and the wreckage of their ideological war on the government.
So I feel for the guy. The idea that the same people who did so much damage to our country are also engaging in unprecedented obstructionism, blocking appointments, filibustering anything that moves and constantly lying to the American people is enough for me to want to support the President.
But we do have our policy differences.
... Ann Althouse is the last person I'd look to for a fair and rationale explanation of the issue."
Then why do you come here demanding such in paranoid comment after paranoid comment? You're showing remarkable signs of being a paranoid schizophrenic and I seriously hope with health care reform that you get the medical attention you so clearly require.
This isn't a news site.
It's an opinion blog.
Nobody is coming to get you AlphaLiberal. And your attempts at meme creation are woefully inadequate. There are no right wing terrorists. Only left-wing terrorists such as Amy Bishop are killing people.
We're going to literally tear your Democrat Party a new asshole in the next elections. We're going to physically eject your members from their seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
We are going to spit on them and boo them and scream at them when they walk in parades this summer. We may even throw pies at them (an idea we got from you liberals).
That's called free speech and free elections.
Get used to it fuckhead. Because we're not going to sit down and we're not going to shut up.
And you're fired.
Oh, brother!
The WMD intel was distorted to suit the war aims of Bush and Cheney. The inspectors who said their conclusions were not supported by the data were attacked by the right wing (remember Hans Blix?)
You're detached from reality.
Alpha Liberal's Mental Process: I can't argue with the proposition that AA stated, but I've got to say something negative, so I'll just point to some news stories that are completely unrelated to the matter at hand, one of which might just be a prank and the other of which involves local issues, and pretend that that refutes what Althouse said.
I'm just hopeing that they'll stop doctors from amputating our legs, just to get filthy rich!
WV: rechm
Rechm! It almost killed him!
Some of the taxes are not indexed to inflation.
So for a family that makes $250,000 -- which would be $225,000 -- will have taxes on dividends go from 15% to 44%.
So the "upper" middle class will be clobbered. And get what in return? Get to pay someone else's mortgage, fill up their gas tank and pay for their abortions.
Shorter AlphaLiberal:
"Oh look over there, it's another Democrat Party created distraction!"
Gotta give it to him ... he earns his keep posting whatever they pay him to post.
Unfortunately, it's backfiring. Now, people have identified him as a tool he's less than useful to the Party apparatus.
Hoosier Daddy, I have actually criticized Obama here and elsewhere.
For what? Not surrendering to Al Qaeda? Not instituting complete socialism?
NewHam, WTF? You are now projecting paranoia. I never said anyone was coming to get me and that's just a bizarre post.
Instead, I continued conversations that have occurred here on this site for months, where I have documented rising right wing violence.
Given this violence has been done under the pretense of a the health care bill, it's relevant.
It's an opinion blog. .
No shit, Sherlock. That's why I have the right to express my opinions and to disagree with the right wing hostess and her shock troops.
Who writes this stuff! A Rockefeller demonizing capitalist corporations! It's too far-fetched even for a longtime Beltway poobah like good old boy and West Virginny Mointaineer Jay Rockefeller. Go Eers!
AL: You're detached from reality.
And the reality of the "health care """"reform""" bill" is ....
AL: "squirreellll!!!"
Well, life is too short to debate stubborn cretins.
"Oh, brother! The WMD intel was distorted to suit the war aims of Bush and Cheney."
Still mindlessly obsessive-compulsing on Bush, eh Alpha?
Dude, along with your paranoid schizophrenia, I would diagnose you with attention deficit disorder and bi-polar disorder.
Bush is no longer the President. Everything he did is in the past. Obama has sent more troops into battle than Bush ever did. Obama is murdering brown and black people with drones in Yemen and Somalia.
Let it go, man. For your health, let the hatred go. Redirect your hatred onto the current murderer in the White House.
Do you want the referral to a psychiatrist, or are you still in denial?
Well, life is too short to debate stubborn cretins.
I agree. That's why I try to avoid liberals.
Yes it is. Get lost, cretin.
"Well, life is too short to debate stubborn cretins."
Dude, you just started a rant about a President who has been out of office for over a year.
And you want to talk about stubborn?
Let the hate go, dude.
It's consuming you. It has clouded your judgment. You are in the fog of hatred, dude.
Let it go.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.
Admit it.
GM -- I think I mentioned I just got back from the UK.
The rationing continues with the NHS.
18 week waiting lists for medical procedures .... Death Panels?
Reality sucks.
Captain Renault is shocked, shocked to discover a loophole in this bill that enables the Democratic Party to continue demagoguing the insurance companies.
If their legislation doesn't do what they wanted it to, whose fault is that?
“The concept that insurance companies would even seek to deny children coverage exemplifies why we fought for this reform,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Gee. How about the concept that you actually write the law to contain the language of the law that implements what you effing said it would implement.
I love it. The Democraps can't ever take responsibility for their own actions and their own incompetence. They have to blame someone else for following the laws that they blindly passed.
THEY wrote the law. THEY passed the law. THEY didn't read the law.
THEY can fucking eat it.
I have friends with pre-existing conditions (a heart attack before the age of 40 even!) and it's not that they couldn't get insurance. Their state offered insurance for them so they could get it for sure... it just cost what it would actually cost.
It's not as though states haven't already done things to solve this problem. So why is it a Federal problem?
The problem is that states know they have to pay the bills somehow.
And the Feds can pretend they won't.
Look at who contributes to the Democrats- the evil insurance companies and health care alliances.
This is perfect set up for repeal and replace.
The media deception machine have an excuse and a lie waiting, sprinkled with some *major ignore*.
Swallow it whole America.
Instead of incomplete coverage, now these folks will have no coverage period.
Bingo.
Isn't the whole point of this 'reform' to cover those who cannot get or afford coverage, and to grease the way for the federal government to finally grab control?
Rancid smell is just another political bully tactic.
"THEY wrote the law. THEY passed the law. THEY didn't read the law."
The simplest explanation is that, behind closed doors where this bill was written by Democrats and insurance company lobbyists, they knew that this language was written this way and wrote it specifically to make sure the insurance companies would not run ads against health care reform.
As Darth Vader once said: "Democrats are altering the deal. Pray they don't alter it further."
The thing about Democrats is that you can buy them ... but they don't stay bought.
Thieves is thieves. You pays your money, you takes your chances.
Alphaliberal:
"Everyone is racist except me."
"Rightwingers are all killers and assassins."
"Rightwing violence, Rightwing this, that and the other."
"Blah, blah, lies, lies, blah, blah, more lies, more lies, blah blah, blah."
Just another preening Purple Shirted,jackbooted, peacock astroturfer spewing the Obama/SEIU propaganda.
"Alpha: Do you think the language in the bill pertaining to providing insurance to children with pre-existing conditions is clear and that the insurance companies are wrong/lying?"
AlphaLiberal is off chasing mythical terroristic unicorns now.
He will return tomorrow with more Democrat Party talking points and fake racist phone calls to C-SPAN made by liberals posing as Republicans.
"The ink has not dried on the health bill and someone has read it." Horrors.
Actually, I imagine they pretty much knew what it says.
They are liars, after all.
AlphaLiberal = Lord HawHaw
Can someone answer this?
If you have a pre-existing condition, an insurance company may issue you a policy BUT it will not cover the pre-existing condition for a limited time [two years or so?]? Is that how it works?
Liberals sound increasingly like Sean Penn and Hugo Chavez.
Leftwing liberals dream their fantasies for you to "shut up" were backed with some sort of anti-free speech force.
For now, anyone who doesn't tow the left-wing blind-faith group think, is "disqualified" from the conversation.
Behold: The left-lib brain
"Well, life is too short to debate stubborn cretins."
Yours has been long enough for most.
Always and everywhere, fascism emanates from the fevered minds and fetid pools of the left.
What a legacy. Death and destruction in your wake, everywhere you go...
How can you try a serious argument using TPM as your source and feel like you have accomplished something after doing it?
I would like to know how is it that you turn common sense off. When does your intellectual curiosity goes to stand-by mode? When do you start accepting ideology-driven accusations as incorruptible facts?
Do you seriously think that the main driver in opposition to the left's ideology is skin color? Do you think that if it were Hillary, everyone would just accept it happily? Or would it then be genitalia-ism?
And one last question... in this controversy of the N word being yelled at a black congressman: would it have been OK if the person yelling was him/herself a black person?
Looks like AlphaLiberal is trying to hijack the thread to avoid discussing the shortcomings of the legislation.
AA: The legislation as written doesn't cover children with preexisting conditions as promised.
AlphaLiberal: "Hey, look: SQUIRREL!!"
If you have a pre-existing condition, an insurance company may issue you a policy BUT it will not cover the pre-existing condition for a limited time [two years or so?]? Is that how it works?
Yes, generally that's how it works. You may still obtain coverage with a pre-existing condition with that condition being excluded from coverage.
Life insurance is similar in that it has a 2 year contestability provision which means if you die within 2 years of the policy issue, the company can withhold payment pending an investigation. Example: Say you die of lung cancer 1 year after your policy was issued and you claimed you were not a tobacco user, the company can contest death benefit by claiming intentional misrepresentation of the policy application.
Same with P&C coverage. Say your roof is 25 years old and in need of repair or replacement. A new insurer may exclude the roof from coverage.
This is how insurance works.
Gee. How about the concept that you actually write the law to contain the language of the law that implements what you effing said it would implement.
Damn straight. Maybe you should read the bill you just passed, assholes.
I swear to god these people are so fucking useless. How can you call yourself a journalist and not call them on this shit!
Oh, shit, my house is on fire.
And me without home owner's insurance.
Well, I can buy some now, while it's burning, right? And those insurance companies won't charge me higher premiums than they do someone whose house isn't ablaze, will they? They shouldn't be able to discriminate against me based on this pre-existing condition.
Greedy bastards.
AA: The legislation as written doesn't cover children with preexisting conditions as promised.
That's right. And, the legislation is a TAX.
Problems with the bill can be fixed later, with more taxes.
Punitive taxation.
How do you make sure children with pre-existing conditions get coverage? Tax.
AL said:
"Tosaguy, my thoughts on the coverage issue are that Ann Althouse is the last person I'd look to for a fair and rationale explanation of the issue."
That is your opinion of the person who puts up a blog that you voluntarily read and post comments on at no cost to you.
Again, what are your thoughts specific to the coverage of children with pre-existing conditions in the new HCR law?
Hoosier:
Thanks - on average, in a health insurance policy, is the pre-existing condition excluded forever?
Thanks - on average, in a health insurance policy, is the pre-existing condition excluded forever?
Depends on the policy and your state's insurance laws. It also depends if you are switching coverage from one plan to another. HIPAA provides for portability from one plan to another so the pre-existing exclusion period can be shortened or eliminated altogether. If you switch from one plan to another, you need to get a certificate of credible coverage from the plan you're leaving so you can show the new plan there was no break in coverage.
Remember the definition of a camel? A horse designed by a committee.
This mess was written by the staffers of the various committees responsible (more ways than one) for health care, taxes, etc. Not only did the Honorables not know what was in it, the different committees really had no idea what the others' specifics were, so you have the SPECTRE (Soros is Dr Evil, after all) of having to nail this thing together at the last second.
Which is why Pelosi Galore said what she did.
Meade said...
"Away from the fog of the controversy..."
Precisely.
" Or do you think they deliberately gave the insurance companies that loophole..."
I absolutely do.
I have to disagree. The Zero and Company regard all private enterprise as the "enemy" (His word). As with Big Pharma, any deal is going to have an expiration date, if not an outright doublecross.
AlphaLiberal said...
The WMD intel was distorted to suit the war aims of Bush and Cheney. The inspectors who said their conclusions were not supported by the data were attacked by the right wing (remember Hans Blix?)
Remember George Tenet? The same stuff Willie saw, Dubya saw. Facts sting, don't they?
Honestly this is a losing issue for Republicans. Nobody wants to hear about children being denied medical care.
I'd like to know what lefties plan to do about this:
And the insurer could increase premiums to cover the additional cost.
Are you gonna just ban insurance companies from existing? Institute price controls? I triple dog dare ye.
Alex: No one is talking about denying children medical care. They are reading the bill just passed and concluding that it does not provide for children with preexisitng conditions to be able to buy health insurance covering said conditions. The Dems may have intended this to happen but apparently were careless and/or stupid and/or cunning and wrote language that didn't conform to their intentions. Always good intentions, those Dems, but sometimes mean ole reality interferes.
Related picture parody: Democrat Henry Waxman Holds Hearings on Free Market Infiltration into U.S. http://optoons.blogspot.com/2010/03/democrat-henry-waxman-holds-hearings-on.html
Michael - the point is the framing is "Republicans support denying children medical care". I can already see the campaign ads.
What most people do not understand, especially Congress, is that there really is NO health industry anymore. Hence the lack of "Harry and Louise" ads...
Since the Clinton years, the vast majority of decent insurance companies = MetLife, Prudential, AXA/Equitable, New York Life, Mass Mutual, New England, Hancock, etc. - have all left the medical insurance business. Why, you may ask? Well, companies don't get out of a business because it's wildly profitable; and they don't stay in a business when the government is always making it harder and harder to know where that line of business may be headed.
It is worse than irony that it is actually the fools governing us that have created the insurance monster everyone keeps screaming about....No competition means trouble for everyone.
Ann's blog entry "Oh! Bad corporations! Evil, greedy, selfish corporations! We'll hear that old refrain once again, with melodramatic new feeling. ...... Down with the child-killing insurance companies!"
Ann, I have a suggestion for one of your famous poll questions....I am sure you will be able to refine it and punch it up a bit but here goes:
Given the choice would you prefer healthcare run by
a. The heartless, murderous federal government and their death panels?
or
b. Evil, greedy, child-killing corporations?
I'd prefer it run by WalMart
Honestly this is a losing issue for Republicans. Nobody wants to hear about children being denied medical care.
Then the Democrats who wrote the law should have made sure that the cheeelldreeen were covered.
They wrote it....they get to eat it.
Comrade X casts his/her vote with those baby killing corporations.
That's the unique splendor of the American economic and political system if you listen to all the partisan pundits and politicians...
What a great country.....here in the US, citizens at least get a CHOICE between those evil baby killing corporations and those messianic murderous feds when it comes to healthcare. What other sovreign nation on this planet can say that?
@DBQ, as usual the Dems are expecting the "Daddy Party" to come in and clean up the mess they made. What's new?
Biden: "this is a big fucking deal"
Sure, sure Joe.
Michael - the point is the framing is "Republicans support denying children medical care". I can already see the campaign ads.
How bout, “the idiot democrats rammed through legislation (on a party line vote) that DENIES CHILDREN MEDICAL CARE under the guise of fixing health care”. Then claimed that it was an accident, because they didn’t read the bill.
That would be more accurate, wouldn’t it?
"Congressional Democrats were furious when they learned that some insurers disagreed with their interpretation of the law."
Well, don't they act that way when anyone disagrees with them about anything?
Trey
" Or do you think they deliberately gave the insurance companies that loophole..."
I work in the business and I doubt it.
About 21% of the uninsured are children (0-18 years), they are under-represented (as compared to the general population (32%))
And given that pre-existing condition is primarily a phenomenom of the individual health insurance market (a small percentage of the total market) I just can't imagine spending a lot of lobbying time on this small subset. (FYI, The largest book of business for them (medium and large employers) have no pre-existing conditions exemptions.)
A year ago Health Insurance plans (via AHIP) agreed with BO to do away with pre-existing conditions. They were clear that they wanted an individual mandate to get "all in" but they wanted a higher penalty than is presently in the law.
Having said that I assume that Health Insurers will continue to be the useful bad guy to assign all ills within the system.
Frankly, I bet they simply didn't do their legal homework.
Honestly this is a losing issue for Republicans.
Have there been Republican office holders or candidates taking about this? I haven't heard any.
Of course, if I was a Republican running my only question would be:
So what else is in this montstrous bill that the Democrats either didn't read or didn't understand?
I'm kind of mixed about this whole notion of forcing companies to take on people with pre-existing conditions. I want to support it because it seems wrong that sick people can't get health care, but at the same time I understand the point of the health care insurers.
When you force a company to take on a guaranteed loss like that, it ceases to be insurance. It's just a subsidy at that point, something for nothing. Imagine going to GEICO right after you've totaled your car: "I, um, I'd like to purchase some insurance from you. No, the car's already wrecked. Can I send you the $150 premium so you can pay for the $10,000 repair bill?"
"had to pass the bill to find out what's in it."
Kinda like: Had to buy the house to see if we could afford the mortgage.
Who me? Responsible for what?
I just wonder how many people will drop their insurance, thinking health care is free from the gummint now, and they die uninsured as a consequence.
Obama lied. People died.
I never recall hearing in any discussions of eliminating rescission, any mention of forbidding the insurance underwriting to adjust the cost of the policy.
Very few people buy policies as individuals.
Groups already take all comers. If you're an employee or member, you're in, and your kids are too. No problem with pre-existing conditions if you kept the HIPAA rules in mind. Remember the P in HIPAA is for portability. No rescission in a group.
So, like, five people are affected?
What's the BFD?
Agree w/Blue.
Wouldn't it benefit everyone if there were a list of diseases and conditions so severe and expensive that a person can't work, and can't afford care, and can't buy health insurance, and burdens any spouse's group they sneak into.
Wait, that would be Medicare's list of 63 diseases and conditions automatically covered.
That existed before PORcare.
(Pelosi Obama Reid--I like saying it out loud. Poor care.)
Honestly this is a losing issue for Republicans.
I don't see how. Democrats are promising that the costs of their law will be worth the benefits. The fact that one of the key benefits is missing (but the costs sure aren't) can't help but hurt the people who supported the law. None of whom are Republicans.
In addition to thinking they can outsmart hundreds of years of economic thought, study and theory, now the liberal assholes also think they can do away with the concept of fucking INSURANCE.
They are completely out of control, their stupidity is gonna get this country in a shit load of trouble.
oh but Obama is such a smart man, with his distinguished career doing that stuff he did, such a smart man. If anyone can create an entirely new economics, he can.
I have heard people expressing this desire, for Barry to create a new economics.
I blame the teacher's unions.
So, like, five people are affected?
What's the BFD?
One of those five fits the profile of his mother 15 years ago. I'm surprised he hasn't brought it up yet, but that is what this whole thing was about.
Quick summary:
Help! I’ve Been Taxed and I Can’t Get Up
Expanding the public sector:
Health Care Reform 2010: The Bureaucracy You Probably Didn’t Bargain For
The are not denying treatment, they are denying insurance coverage. You can still get all the treatment you want for a condition, you simply have to pay for it yourself instead of having someone else pay for you.
The idea of insurance is to pool together to spread risk prior to an event. Demanding the pool accept financial responsibility after the event is welfare, not insurance.
Obama "misoverestimated" his favorite legislation? Maybe it _is_ Bush's fault!
Thanks Harry Mitchell & other POP's (pals of Pelosi) for giving us such a fundamentally flawed POS (do I need to spell that one out?)
Ann,
Rumor has it that you live in Madison at least part of the year.
I'm sure you have at least heard of Chicago. You might have even visited it from time to time.
Are you unaware that obama is a Chicago politician? Are you unaware of what that means? Are you unaware of the criminal record of the Chicago City Council?
I mean really - you visit New York. I've seen the pictures. You can't possibly be as big a rube as you come across in your blog. OTOH you claim to have voted for obama.
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