3 ms·

Sure, you found some company willing to take your money claiming you had "insurance". In reality, had you actually try to use it, would have been in "pre-existi

Sure, you found some company willing to take your money claiming you had "insurance". In reality, had you actually try to use it, would have been in "pre-existing condition" hell. Because the asthma could have cause $ailment, and they don't cover preexisting. Tood bad, so sad. Glad you paid the premiums!

dragonwriter 9y ago
The other part of precondition hell was recisions, where if you had an expensive condition, the insurance company would look for evidence of a (potentially unrelated) pre-existing condition that had not been disclosed, cancel your insurance based on that (perhaps refunding all the premiums you had paid, for all the good that did you) and call it a day; as part of ending preexisting condition exclusions, the ACA ended recision.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  As someone who was diagnosed with T2 diabetes thanks to Obamacare, I greatly appreciate the work the ACA did. It's not great, but it's a hell of a lot better than what I had prior - nothing.
Consultant32452 9y ago
I filled out paperwork in which I divulged my pre-existing conditions, including my asthma, and that was calculated into the premium price I paid.
- lostcolony 9y ago
  Which points out the problem. Childhood asthma is a super common, yet extremely low risk condition for adults. Yet it was grounds to refuse coverage, or to raise premiums on the individual, rather than price it into the overall pool. So imagine it's something high risk. "Oh, you have cancer? Yeah, we're not taking you on. Or if we do, we're going to charge you what we expect you to cost, which is going to be insanely high, to where you probably can't afford it." Net effect: you can't afford healthcare. The whole point of insurance is to spread the cost and risk widely, so that the healthy outliers help cover the cost of the unhealthy outliers. The fact that it's not always clear who those are (i.e., the healthy eating jogger who has a brain aneurysm and requires multiple expensive surgeries and months of care) should help with any perceived unfairness (though people are really, really bad at accepting that bad things can happen to them).
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    We're talking about whether it's reasonably possible for an average person to start their own small business or start consulting if they don't have another income earner in the home to back them up. Your response is, "Well, what if you have cancer?" Fine, I wasn't trying to solve every problem for every person. I'm not suggesting that the current state of healthcare in the US is ideal, or even good. Instead of seeing that there is a path forward and considering that each individual might have to adjust to their own needs, or might have to take a different path altogether, you're just trying to shut down the conversation because the solution I provided is not universally applicable. That's an unnecessary and unhelpful response.

dragonwriter 9y ago

The other part of precondition hell was recisions, where if you had an expensive condition, the insurance company would look for evidence of a (potentially unrelated) pre-existing condition that had not been disclosed, cancel your insurance based on that (perhaps refunding all the premiums you had paid, for all the good that did you) and call it a day; as part of ending preexisting condition exclusions, the ACA ended recision.

crankylinuxuser 9y ago
As someone who was diagnosed with T2 diabetes thanks to Obamacare, I greatly appreciate the work the ACA did. It's not great, but it's a hell of a lot better than what I had prior - nothing.

Consultant32452 9y ago

I filled out paperwork in which I divulged my pre-existing conditions, including my asthma, and that was calculated into the premium price I paid.

lostcolony 9y ago
Which points out the problem. Childhood asthma is a super common, yet extremely low risk condition for adults. Yet it was grounds to refuse coverage, or to raise premiums on the individual, rather than price it into the overall pool. So imagine it's something high risk. "Oh, you have cancer? Yeah, we're not taking you on. Or if we do, we're going to charge you what we expect you to cost, which is going to be insanely high, to where you probably can't afford it." Net effect: you can't afford healthcare. The whole point of insurance is to spread the cost and risk widely, so that the healthy outliers help cover the cost of the unhealthy outliers. The fact that it's not always clear who those are (i.e., the healthy eating jogger who has a brain aneurysm and requires multiple expensive surgeries and months of care) should help with any perceived unfairness (though people are really, really bad at accepting that bad things can happen to them).
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  We're talking about whether it's reasonably possible for an average person to start their own small business or start consulting if they don't have another income earner in the home to back them up. Your response is, "Well, what if you have cancer?" Fine, I wasn't trying to solve every problem for every person. I'm not suggesting that the current state of healthcare in the US is ideal, or even good. Instead of seeing that there is a path forward and considering that each individual might have to adjust to their own needs, or might have to take a different path altogether, you're just trying to shut down the conversation because the solution I provided is not universally applicable. That's an unnecessary and unhelpful response.