GOP Offer Healthcare to All Those without Pre-Existing Conditions

by emptywheel

According to the LAT, the GOP presidential candidates have come up with a brilliant way of offering insurance to the uninsured: leave out those with pre-existing conditions, including people with medical histories just like the candidates' themselves.

When Rudolph W. Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the spring of 2000, one thing he did not have to worry about was a lack of medical insurance.

Today, the former New York mayor joins two other cancer survivors in seeking the Republican presidential nomination: Arizona Sen. John McCain has been treated for melanoma, the most serious type of skin malignancy, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson had lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system.

All three have offered proposals with the stated aim of helping the 47 million people in the U.S. who have no health insurance, including those with preexisting medical conditions.

But under the plans all three have put forward, cancer survivors such as themselves could not be sure of getting coverage -- especially if they were not already covered by a government or job-related plan and had to seek insurance as individuals.

"Unless it's in a state that has very strong consumer protections, they would likely be denied coverage," said economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, who has reviewed the candidates' proposals. "People with preexisting conditions would not be able to get coverage or would not be able to afford it."

I was drawn to the article because I'm one of those the article explains would be denied health care coverage in almost all cases.

An expert with access to a manual that insurers use to make coverage decisions said that most companies wouldn't consider a cancer survivor for 10 years, with some exceptions, and then would only issue a policy at a higher premium.

Nice to know I can always escape to Ireland if I lose my healthcare.

But in reading it, I wanted to recommend it because it is really the kind of coverage we need for a presidential election. It is informative, explaining in several different ways why and how cancer survivors cannot find affordable healthcare. It tells voters--in terms that put the voter at the center of the debate--information critical to assessing the candidates. And it's a great story, using the cancer history of three leading candidates to emphasize the gaps in their plans.

It's so rare we see good reporting on the presidential race, this article deserves attention.

 

 

Comments

[Jodi]

We need universal health care on a need and means basis.

Just hook it up to the tax system like we do now with the negative income tax that is really welfare.

[flounder]

I think it would be very illuminating if someone did a story on Tony Snow's health care situation and how it would be different then the rest of us. He moved into a new job already having a pre-existing condition, then announced a flare up shortly after getting said job (and since every job I've ever had involved a waiting period for the benefits, that would probably be a big deal). Then he left that job while still doing check ups and whatnot. In short, who's paid for that stuff then and now?

[P J Evans]

The insurance companies will claim 'pre-existing condition' as often as they can get away with it, and too many legislators will allow them to do so.

Universal affordable healthcare should be a priority, not universal coverage.

[katie Jensen]

He said he left for "financial reasons", which I always thought was a strange thing to "say out loud." I wondered what that meant? Could it be that he couldn't get his treatments covered? Or something along those lines? I also thought it was weird that no one really pressed him on what he meant by that.

[Gunner]

I am with you EW that rellly sucks I have to find a place to go also if I was to lose coverage I am sure Emphsema falls into the mix

[selise]

health insurance is one of the two big reasons i live in MA.

1) no exclusions or higher rates for pre-existing conditions (by state law)
2) state negotiated plans that cost less (this year when i changed to a state negotiated plan with the same insurer, my monthly premiums went down a couple of dollars and my new plan now covers meds).

still lots of problems here... i dream of a single payer system.

[Brian in Seattle]

Emptywheel November 20, 2007 at 11:26 Post based on 1300 word piece in LA Times
Jodi November 20, 2007 at 11:42 Two lines of nothing interesting keyed to the word "healthcare"

Spam bot behavior at its best!

[marksb]

I got lucky when I got unlucky and found my cancer last year: I'm under my wife's policy, so they trigger on the policy holder. So far.

[Sally]

The republics' plan will insure only the healthy who must certify they will remain that way for the length of the policy. Should they ever need the insurance, they will be denied coverage because they defaulted on their certification.

[Alyx]

a country for the people by the people...but who the hell cares about you when your sick country...sigh...I stopped reading the article when I read insurance companies won't touch you for 10 years...in that time you could be dead. For Christ sakes what a country. This was the best country on earth, I always thought it would be the best, now it has turned on its middle class and poorest classes. It's a country only for the rich now. I hope their happy!

[Joe Klein's conscience]

Katie:
It probably means that he was used to living a lifestyle financed by Rupert Murdoch money and got sick of having to live on less than 200K a year. I am sure Murdoch makes sure guys like Snow are covered when working for him, or else they'd be clamoring for UHC as well.

[marksb]

Price Waterhouse Coopers has just released a very interesting analysis of the Democratic and Republican health care proposals. You can find the report here for download, with the press release summary here.

The dem’s proposal seems to be classic mandated employer and individual insurance, using a combination of tax incentives and subsidies to fund the programs: tax breaks for those who can afford private insurance and government subsidies for those that can’t.

The repub’s are offering the same old tax incentive-based plan, with relief for corporations by eliminating or reducing employer-based insurance. Repub's are also calling for keeping the current tax reduction in place, so I'm not sure how they expect to afford expanded health care. Probably not, if you get below the surface. A continuation of drown-it-in-the-bathtub philosophy.

Interesting reading, if you like that sort of thing.

(Of course a presidential candidate can promise anything at all, but when something as complicated and full of special interests as health care hits congress, all bets are off...)

[LK]

I got that no one can file for psych benefits because Carville and Clinton already had them seeing and hearing.

[joejoejoe]

It would be fun to list the government funded health care of the GOP candidates. I believe McCain and Thompson both have had major procedures done with their Senate healthcare, Huckabee with is Arkansas Governor health benefits, and Giuliani with New York city benefits. The free market at work!

[Neil]

EW, thanks for referring your readers to this article.

I needed a break from my pre-occupation make that obsession witj whether Hillary in fact does have dirt on Obama or whether the rat-fuckers at the RNC are up to their usual campaign season tricks of formulating lascivious stories and braodcasting them with Novak, the tool of the RNC and douchebag of liberty.

Excluding coverage for existing preconditions is a problem unique to "for profit" health care insurance. Take the profit out, and you've got 10-15% more to spend on the people who need coverage the most.

[Jodi]

Brian in Seattle

27 If (self serving pompus idiot >0), Go to 38
38 If (bad language <2) Go to 92
92 If (time = recent ) Go to 109
109 Write (Blog, , ,) "Brian in Seattle", LF, CR, "Don't be an Idiot. I am a real thing just like you." LF, CR "I am, I am, ...", LF, CR, "See that is more than 2 lines!")

Blog:

Brian in Seattle(a.k.a. Captain Kirk)

Don't be an idiot. I am a real thing just like you.

I am, Iam, ...

See that is more than 2 lines!

[Brian in Seattle]

Regarding: Posted by: Jodi | November 20, 2007 at 20:37

OK - you passed the minimal existence test. So here's the deal. This is a great blog with consistently high quality front page posts and equally good comments. It is a joy to read.

If you are not a bot, then stop acting like one. Read. Think. Then type when you have something interesting to add to a discussion with other live people.

Or just continue being nearly indistinguishable from a spam bot. I'll not test you anymore...

[Jodi]

Brian in Seattle, aka Capt Kirk,

I can calculate Pi!
I can divide by zero!
I can defeat the first law!

But I think you are pulling the Prime Directive on me, meaning that I shouldn't attempt to raise this planet/blog to the next level.

(Well you got me pegged there, Jim. I might be violating that little clause. Hmmm, I will compute on it a while.)

[Brian in Seattle]

Regarding Jodi | November 21, 2007 at 01:11

Wow! That is too much evidence for brilliance. I'm sold.

Count me as a committed fan from now on. Please write more - at least 5 times per thread. (Don't worry about the line count - shallow criticism on my part) Show 'em how its done! Take this place higher and higher till we just can't see the earth below. It could be like Heaven.

[Jodi]

Brian in Seattle,

ok, I will stand down, though I was gettng excited and was preparing to bring on some high energy plasma dynamics. But ok. That's enough.

And as I part to finish the trip to the Turkey House, I leave you with a quote from one of the great movies of our time.

Notting Hill
Ana Scott (Julia Roberts): "I'm also just a girl ..."

[RevaHealth.com]

Medical tourism is being touted as a way in which the uninsured or the underinsured might still be able to obtain the treatments they need at a cost that is affordable to them, but whatever the merits of medical tourism, in this regard it can only be considered a stop gap. There are plenty of models in different countries around the world that ensure the availability of healthcare servics to all their citizens or residents, and while none of them are perfect, I'd rather see one of them implemented than the current situation in the US.

[sidney]

I am from the UK and have listened in for a long time now about the health care in the USA. It does not seem to get any better and the problem goes on and on. Why do you vote in politicians that cannot provide proper adequate health care for everyone who cannot afford insurance and for those that cannot get insurance cover because of their conditions? It is the one thing the richest country in the world should give to its people as a fundamental right.