In theory, I’m OK with our representatives occasionally voting against the direct wishes of their constituents, in service of a greater good, long-term, right-thing-to-do goal. Profiles in Courage stuff.
But this was just Profiles in Malicious Stupidity.
Someone posted a list of pre-existing conditions:
A list of pre-existing conditions lost under #Trumpcare:
AIDS/HIV, acid reflux, acne, ADD, addiction, Alzheimer’s/dementia, anemia, aneurysm, angioplasty, anorexia, anxiety, arrhythmia, arthritis, asthma, atrial fibrillation, autism, bariatric surgery, basal cell carcinoma, bipolar disorder, blood clot, breast cancer, bulimia, bypass surgery, celiac disease, cerebral aneurysm, cerebral embolism, cerebral palsy, cerebral thrombosis, cervical cancer, colon cancer, colon polyps, congestive heart failure, COPD, Crohn’s disease, cystic fibrosis, DMD, depression, diabetes, disabilities, Down syndrome, eating disorder, enlarged prostate, epilepsy, glaucoma, gout, heart disease, heart murmur, heartburn, hemophilia, hepatitis C, herpes, high cholesterol, hypertension, hysterectomy, kidney disease, kidney stones, kidney transplant, leukemia, lung cancer, lupus, lymphoma, mental health issues, migraines, MS, muscular dystrophy, narcolepsy, nasal polyps, obesity, OCD, organ transplant, osteoporosis, pacemaker, panic disorder, paralysis, paraplegia, Parkinson’s disease, pregnancy, restless leg syndrome, schizophrenia, seasonal affective disorder, seizures, sickle cell disease, skin cancer, sleep apnea, sleep disorders, stent, stroke, thyroid issues, tooth disease, tuberculosis, ulcers. Sexual assault, cataracts, cardiac bypass, pancreatitis, thyroid disease, any kind of tumor.
And then there’s this.
Even if one buys the idea of denying people health insurance based on pre-existing conditions (which I don’t), what’s the logic behind considering having been raped to be one such condition? What’s the method to this particular facet of Republican madness.
Because if you just view insurance as a business, they’re charging people based on their expected costs. Insurers have tables of anticipated future costs based on current health issues. So if you come in having condition X and they know that means it will likely cost $Y in future treatments, they’ll charge you $Y more for coverage. As for rape, there could be physical as well as emotional issues that could lead to increased cost.
I can’t fault the insurance companies for that policy. Unless there’s regulation prohibiting it, they have to do it that way. If one insurance company ignored preexisting conditions and charged the same premium for everyone, other insurance companies would charge less for healthier people and get all those clients. There has to be government regulation to force all insurance companies to ignore preexisting conditions or else it won’t work.
Sounds appalling. I’m not exactly sure why a business lowering its prices to attract customers is a bad thing, but mostly I’m just appalled.
Depends on how you lower prices. Hormel may come out with a hot dog that is thirty percent sawdust, and call them Thrifty Dogs.
“Chicken by-products, beef derived substances, pork offal, armadillo, and other natural ingredients, monosodium malignite, calcium carcinomate, ascorbic acid added to retard…”
The reason it’s bad for insurance is that the premiums are based on the health costs of the people in the group. If a group has only healthy people, the costs will be low and the premiums will be low. A group with all sick people will have higher costs and need to charge higher premiums. A group with both sick and healthy people will be in the middle. To ignore preexisting conditions, you want a mix of sick and healthy people so that the costs offset. But if only one insurance company plays by those rules, the other companies will charge healthy people less and the poach all the healthy people away. The other insurance company will only be left with the sick people, and they’ll need to raise their rates.
Holy Crap!
Nobody stays healthy. Everyone goes to the doctor for one reason or another. Or would if they could afford to, in the US’s case. Someone’s always ill or injured. I do not believe in the pool of perpetually healthy clients. Nor do I feel a lot of sympathy for a company that says “we have to do this to you so we make more money than them!” But thanks for the information. It had slipped my mind that Republicans represent corporate interests and not those of people.
The thing is, it’s not evenly distributed at all. About half of the population spends either nothing or a nominal amount on care, and the 5% sickest people are responsible for 50% of the spending. So you don’t need to have a pool of perpetually healthy people, you just have to try to avoid having as many of those 5% of heavy users in your pool if you can.
There’s a pretty amazing example of this outlier effect in Iowa. There’s one single individual in the state who personally has medical expenses of $1 million per month and has singlehandedly disrupted the insurance market there.
Yeah, that person puts fear into the hearts of every insurer and policy person I’ve run across. Because, seriously, what the heck do you do when someone is that expensive?
Donald will go and pull her plug. As he leans over the bed, he will whisper “Its Obama’s fault…”
I’ve seen this list all over the Internet, but I haven’t seen a source for it. Does anybody have a source?
Doesn’t sound on the up-and-up to me. Acne? Heartburn? Pregnancy? Those three alone disqualifies about 90% of the population. Fuck, acne alone would probably take care of more than half.
From this link: “An estimated 80 percent of all people between the ages of 11 and 30 have acne outbreaks at some point. Some people in their forties and fifties still get acne.”
it might be the list that Senator Sherrod Brown Tweeted yesterday.
No idea how to like to a Tweet but here is an article.
[quote=“quimper, post:733, topic:781625”]
[/QUOTE]A rail? Pfft. It’s time for guillotines.
Well, I misunderstood. Those conditions won’t kick people off rolls, but it looks like about 80% of people who are acne sufferers are at least in for higher premiums.
IIRC, the “original” acne case was a woman with aggressive breast cancer, needed surgery at once. She had consulted a dermatologist about her acne but had failed to disclose it, thereby violating her agreement by hiding it. Acne not being relevant wasn’t the point, she did not disclose it, so she loses. Don’t forget, Big Health has employees who got bonuses for that kind of shit.
In fact, in the move The Incredibles, that’s the hero’s soul-killing job.
Here’s one, that appears to be a combination of things that were actually used to deny coverage and a further list from the ever-popular “experts have noted.”
Senator Sherrod Brown may be the author of the List Of Doom.
