The real reason health insurers won’t cover people with pre-existing conditions • Hacker News Board

Re: The real reason health insurers won’t cover people with pre-existing conditions

#61

Post by anarchotroll » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 6:39 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #38

anarchotroll wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individuals can opt into an insurance plan. That's sharing risk. What "society" (government) can do is force everyone to share THE SAME risks single-payer insurance == monopoly

Part of the notion that suggests people should be forced into sharing those risks is that nobody can rationally rule out future unbounded medical expenses; you can't predict the future, and virtually nobody has enough money to cover every plausible medical expense they might face. So the freedom we're really talking about is --- notionally --- the freedom to make what basically must be an irresponsible choice. It's t…

I am sorry but the logic above could be applied to anything.

"Part of the notion that suggests people should be forced into sharing those risks is that nobody can rationally rule out future unbounded expenses; you can't predict the future, and virtually nobody has enough money to cover every plausible expense they might face."

Meet socialism.

Re: The real reason health insurers won’t cover people with pre-existing conditions

#62

Post by anarchotroll » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 6:43 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #57

true_religion wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not arguing against liver transplants so you've just thrown a redherring into the discussion. I believe his argument is that expensive end-of-life care is unnecessary because death at that point is inevitable in the immediate future. You can gain months on average, but those months aren't economically invaluable . With limited resources, its better to spend on treatments with the greatest quality of life to cost…

And I'm not arguing about expensive end-of-life care. I don't have a strong opinion about end-of-life care. There could be a lot of value in changing the way we finance end-of-life care. That doesn't change the fundamental problems we have with health insurance now: either it chains you to your current employer, or threatens you with an intolerable risk of bankruptcy.

In other words: you have no _freedom_ to pick insurance yourself. The current system gives benefits to employers and not to individuals.

I sincerely don't understand why people call it "free market".

Re: The real reason health insurers won’t cover people with pre-existing conditions

#63

Post by anarchotroll » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 6:44 AM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #54

tptacek wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The remainder in this statistic are covered by what? Medicare/medicaid? Private insurance? Co-op plans? Nothing at all?

17% have no coverage at all. 56% get it from their employer, and 8% buy their own private insurance. Source: US Census Bureau, 2009 figures http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf (Starting on page 22)

How many of those 17% are illegal immigrants? Do you have that data?

Re: The real reason health insurers won’t cover people with pre-existing conditions

#64

Post by onemoreact » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

anarchotroll wrote: post #63

bunderbunder wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

17% have no coverage at all. 56% get it from their employer, and 8% buy their own private insurance. Source: US Census Bureau, 2009 figures http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf (Starting on page 22)

How many of those 17% are illegal immigrants? Do you have that data?

17% of 300 million = 50 million. There are ~10-12 million illegal immigrants so up to 20%.