Those are mutually exclusive objectives. Assuming the law will similarly prohibit charging a higher price for people with pre-existing conditions, an insurer can only accept pre-existing conditions and not go bankrupt by charging everyone according to the average risk, rather than the risk the individual faces. For anyone who faces below-average risk (i.e. those who don’t have pre-existing conditions), this means being charged more than the service is worth.
Accepting someone with a pre-existing condition is not the same thing as charging everyone the same price for insurance. It’s just like car insurance where you pay more if you have a bad record.
Part of the problem with pre-existing conditions is that people are often refused insurance without any form of negotiation.
But pre-existing conditions are not a matter of choice, in the way bad driving records and smoking are.
If the premium for a pre-existing condition is unregulated, insurers can effectively deny coverage to anyone with a pre-existing condition through pricing. Since any company who accepts them would become uncompetitive, they’d still be excluded.
In the short term the insurers will have to handle the additional risk - but if they all do equally, it should not affect much. In the long term, with everyone covered, company X getting a person with a pre-existing condition means company Y loses one, so it should be stable. My daughter just went off our insurance, and we got a letter from the company certifying that she was on ours, and so must be taken by a new company even if there was a pre-existing condition. I don’t know if this is California law or federal law - I must admit I was unaware this was the case.
Are they not still cheaper than FedEx & UPS?
I think you can tell what I think. If a healthy society is enough a public good that we mandate insurance, it’s enough a public good that we index the amount a citizen pays into the system to his income.
Maybe that was true when all civil service positions were patronage jobs; but we have a professional civil service now, & there are actually strict requirements for some of those jobs–and they aren’t simply fired by a governor at will, either.
One in seven persons is not significant?
when?
So why aren’t you trying to abolish FICA? 
Useful personally, but I’m having trouble seeing its application to national policy.
Longer patents? Yeesh! Our patents already run longer than Canada’s. Let some competition in!
And the NIH already helps cover some research costs. Why, if we put more public money in, would we strengthen patent for what would just be a glorified manufacturer?
Would you prefer to have the government mandate an Individual Retirement Account & an Individual Health Savings Account for you–telling you how to spend your money, without any additional benefit, nor membership in a larger risk pool?
Because that’s the kind of “innovative policy idea” the right was been coming up with for 20 years. It seems like they say “freedom” but offer less freedom in the name of more individualism.
I don’t mean to make a straw man; but of the two, I’ll take the welfare program.
It’s not a singular solution, it’s one of many examples of how to save money on health care. Applied on a national level means focusing on generic drug cost efficiencies, health insurance instead of HMO’s and the direct involvement of patient and doctor.
Canadian corporations are free to compete in drug development. I have no idea which country leads the world in the advancement of medicine but I imagine the United States is well represented.
It’s a trade of lower prices on newer drugs. It allows for greater risk in the development of new drugs. There is a relationship between innovation and the ability to recoup the investment. As an example, If you personally spend $100,000 to certify something and it is re-engineered the following week in China then your entire investment is gone. Negotiating a longer patent in return for lower costs is a way of bringing down the cost of new drugs.
Recouping development costs can take many forms. If the cost of certification is transfered to the publlic then risk is reduced and the price of the product can be lowered. I personally know of a simple plastic airplane part that was developed at private expense to the tune of $100,000. Virtually all of the money was in the certification process. The part was $1 worth of molded plastic. It sells for $90. To break even the person has to sell over 1100. In an industry where planes are sold in small quantities that is a risky venture.
It’s not significant enough to screw the other 85% with a one-size-fits-all NHS system. That is the context I meant that statement. It doesn’t mean you don’t address the 15%, it just means you don’t do it at the expense of everyone else.
Insurance is a service that lets people pay a premium to receive a greater value of mitigated risk in return. With real insurance, everyone is made better off, because risk mitigation is not a zero-sum game. But once you’ve decided you can charge people more than the service is worth, by force, it is no longer the same product. Once you are forcing part of your customer base to make themselves worse off by buying your product, you are not selling insurance, you’re selling welfare, and it is incredibly dishonest to try to claim you’re still helping everyone when you’re just ripping off Peter to pay Paul.
“ripping off Peter to pay Paul.”
What I’m sorely tempted to say:
What I should say:
So what happens to the pay to pay check people who can’t afford insurance or government fines? They get their stuff confiscated, then jail time?
Nah what screws everyone else is horrid effects the idiotic current system has on the economy.
Including taxes to support healthcare, which company is burdened with greatest hardship. The UK one, or the American one?
Isn’t it great? Thank you, Republican Plan!