I didn’t mean to disagree with you totally Ridgerunner. Surprisingly, you have posted quite a bit I found agreement with with my statements and questions.
Am I mistaken in thinking that ‘preexisting’ conditions are no longer an excuse for refusing coverage? Or is it a future plan?
It appears there are some genuine agreements with the idea of a universal health care, but it’s evident that there are some who oppose the idea wholly. For those who agree with a universal health care, it’s the implementation we’re not sure of how it should go. I’m not an expert and think that if we start with a plan, irregardless of which political party institutes it, that plan can be modified as we see what works and what doesn’t. The wrong, in my opinion, is to do nothing, or work against it.
It is my understanding that under Obamacare, as fully implemented, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions. They have to take the applicant, period. That started already with children and as a result, childrens’ policies have increased dramatically in cost. It will apply to everyone later.
It is also my understanding that, prior to obamacare, employment-based ERISA-qualified plans would allow non-coverage of a particular preexisting condition for a period not to exceed one year. Now, granted, that is a one-year exclusion, and no exclusions at all would be better, and, of course, such plans depend a bit on the “well worker effect”. But still, we turn the world upside down and make health insurance greatly more expensive (and pay for abortions and accept utter control of medical care by someone like Sebelius) and impose huge debts on future generations for the sake of a year? And, of course, if the person went from one employer-based plan to another, there isn’t even that year. I just don’t see the proportion in that.
Yes, there would be those who, by reason of health, can’t access employment at all. Some few of those few would be ineligible for Medicaid because their resources exceed Medicaid’s limits, which is about the only limiting factor there is for Medicaid. But how many are left after that and, again, how much indebtedness are we justified in piling onto the young, even the unborn, for the sake of it, and mightn’t there be ways short of that to deal with it? Since this government manifestly doesn’t even know how many of those sorts there are, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that this has all been done for ideological reasons; perhaps worse, for political reasons, a confiscation largely of the upper reaches of the middle class for redistrbution to lower segments of the very same class, simply to do it.
And all of it, of course, being put into place by people who will, themselves, never be subjected to it. I truly don’t think a lot of them even know what they have done. As we recall, Pelosi said they would have to pass the bill in order to know what’s in it. None in Congress read it before passing it, and one can rightly doubt many have since then. There is not the least doubt in my mind that Obamacare will make employment-based coverage a good deal more expensive than it is now if, for no other reason, that portability will eventually do away with the well worker effect. Caterpillar, as we know, had the temerity to say it out loud and got slapped hard by the administration for telling the truth. Now, Obama and Co are laboring mightily to exempt labor unions from the effects of Obamacare, for political reasons. But for the rest of labor?
Peace, Carlan