The debate about repealing the UN-affordable Care Act has rekindled once again. Democrats are determined to keep the crap they invented going for as long as they can. Their hope is to stall the ACA act into bankruptcy, and to then foster a bill to push money into its entrails to keep it alive. In the meantime, the millions of people who have not been able to afford it go without any health care at all. Those who can buy it will have crappy care, and go bankrupt because they won’t be able to afford it either.
Years ago while traveling in Canada I learned that the Canadian government has universal health care for all the provinces. In their wisdom they invented a scheme which paid each province the same amount of money. It was up to the province to spend it however they wished on meeting the needs of their constituents health needs. Canadians were happy. I don’t know if that is still the case, but that is what it was back in the eighties or nineties when I traveled there.
The company I worked for decided how much they could afford to spend on health care without going broke and subsidized our company policy to that tune. If we demanded a stronger policy, the dollar difference came out of our paychecks. We grumbled a bit about having to pay more, but overall we were happy with the situation. I was lucky, I had a job, but there were still too many people who didn’t have insurance at all. Yet, none of them with a serious illness was ever refused by a hospital because they didn’t have insurance. They wound up paying the bill on an installment plan.
Currently, the Democrats are fighting against a plan similar to the one I described Canada to have. To me, granting the same amount of money to each state to take care of us makes total sense. Each state has the freedom to decide what kind of system it will have to care for us. If Illinois, a totally blue state wants to venture its bankrupt ass into a single payer system let them have at it. If Indiana wants to come up with something more cost-effective let them invent it. In either case any over-cost will be the burden on the residents living in the state.
A popular argument against the latest system proposed is that there is no provision to include insurance for customers who have a pre-existing condition. This is a very popular feature of Obama Care. It is also one of the reasons the Affordable Care Act evolved into the UN-affordable Care Act. My opinion on this matter is an argument addressed to insurance companies. Isn’t being born a pre-existing condition? When we are conceived we get a blueprint from our parents called DNA. As I understand it our DNA has within it all the reasons we get sick. Somewhere inside that helical ladder of the DNA molecule lies the nucleus for every genetic reason to get sick in a life time. After that we add into the mix the way we choose to live, eat, rest, etc. to make our health or unhealthiness more under our control. I have never heard a definition of what a pre-existing condition is. I think it means that if I apply for insurance and know I am a diabetic, that diabetes is not covered. What happens if I have diabetes and don’t know about it like too many people in the world have? Does the insurance lapse because it is discovered? Jimmy Kimmel’s argument about his son being born with a heart murmur keeps him from getting his son insured. If Jimmy was on a family plan doesn’t that include any new child born into his family? Of course if he wasn’t on the family plan and he had to purchase a separate insurance policy for the new-born I guess the kid is out of luck if Jimmy waited to buy it until he knew of his condition. It is my logical thinking that the difference between being insured, or not insured was the knowledge one has before the condition. What that leads me to is a proposal to insure your child as a fetus with a lifelong pre-condition policy. This policy would cover any pre-existing condition throughout one’s life from the instant of conception until death.
Well Grumpa Joe, how the hell am I going to do that? Does it mean I have to call my insurance agent from the bedroom, the back seat of my car, or the tent immediately after doing the deed? Of course not, you would call him upon learning of your success.
I am shocked that the insurance companies have not offered this kind of policy or policy-rider before. One can buy a life insurance policy at the time of birth, and I would say death can be defined as a pre-existing condition. We all know it is going to happen we just don’t know when. Isn’t the same true with diseases, viruses, or other conditions? Insurance companies argue that they will be taken advantage of by patients who are dying of some terrible disease, and will wait to buy insurance at the latest moment possible to cover their costs. Often they use the example of the man who crashes his uninsured car, and calls to buy insurance from the scene of the accident. I agree that scenario is not fair to the insurer, but I could buy a new car, and buy insurance from the dealership and crash the car on the way home, and the insurance company would have to cover me. I could argue that the accident was a pre-existing condition that one had by virtue of driving on any road. Diseases are no different, and insurance companies are going to have to deal with the facts and offer products for us to cover those situations.
You may choose to buy my arguments and proposals or not, but I recommend we all push for a practical resolution to the health care problem, and not some utopian country-bankrupting system like Obama Care is intended to be. The Bill currently being proposed by Congress labeled Graham-Cassidy appears to be the most logical approach to something that will work for all of us. Call your Congressman ans Senator to vote for this bill. Imagine 50 states working independently of one another with insurance companies from all over the USA and possible from outside to brainstorm how to meet the needs of each state population. The power of that number of teams working to find solutions is unimaginable. Certainly, it will be stronger than a bunch of bureaucrats working in the walnut paneled rooms of Washington, D.C.
If I may quote Forrest Gump’s mother “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.” In this analogy our illnesses, accidents, conditions are all chocolates in the box and we have no pre-knowledge of which situations we will get in life. few of us dies of old age. As my mother used to counsel me “we all have to die from something.” Life is a pre-existing condition.
Filed under: Aging, family, health care | Tagged: ACA, Graham-Cassidy Act, Insurance, Obama Care | 2 Comments »
“Sometimes, when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I did not drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, it is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true, than be selfish and worry about my liver.”
