How does any "insurance plan" that allows people to join with pre-existing conditions and covers the health care related to those conditions have any chance of being affordable?
If an automobile insurance policy allowed me to wait until I had wrecked my car to acquire "insurance" and then pay the same premium as if my car were not wrecked, and then go file a claim on that insurance policy and get my car fixed, that would be redistribution from safe drivers and responsible insurance customers to me, an unsafe driver and irresponsible insurance customer, no? It wouldn't really be insurance.
Insurance is to pool risks that claims will occur and spread the cost among the insured. A pre-existing condition is a surety that a claim will occur, not a risk that a claim will occur.
And frankly, I'm interested in responses of how this can possibly work cost-effectively without mandates. Or an acknowledgement that removing pre-existing condition restrictions is more akin to redistribution than insurance.
If an automobile insurance policy allowed me to wait until I had wrecked my car to acquire "insurance" and then pay the same premium as if my car were not wrecked, and then go file a claim on that insurance policy and get my car fixed, that would be redistribution from safe drivers and responsible insurance customers to me, an unsafe driver and irresponsible insurance customer, no? It wouldn't really be insurance.
Insurance is to pool risks that claims will occur and spread the cost among the insured. A pre-existing condition is a surety that a claim will occur, not a risk that a claim will occur.
And frankly, I'm interested in responses of how this can possibly work cost-effectively without mandates. Or an acknowledgement that removing pre-existing condition restrictions is more akin to redistribution than insurance.
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