Do you think the government should take care of people with "pre-existing medical conditions?

#304

They do. They always did for me. My hubby changed jobs but I was covered. I might have to wait for 3 months but I made arrangements for my meds to be taken care of during that transition time and the new insurance kicked in to cover me. No problem.

#305

That’s part of it. The other part is that in many states, non-disabled adults (and the government definition of disabled is very strict) aren’t eligible for medicaid at all. That would leave out people who don’t get insurance through work, people who aren’t able to work but aren’t legally disabled, and so forth.

#306

What are you talking about? Social Security Disability recipients do receive Medicaid

If they aren’t working and aren’t getting SSI benefits, they should qualify based on their income.

#307

I would like to see pre-existing conditions protected by law, but not for religious reasons. People can remain in good faith and have differing opinions on issues such as this.

#308

My point was that SSDI disability is a much narrower definition of disability than the colloquial definition of disability. Someone can very well be sick enough not to be able to work and not be considered disabled by SSDI standards.

And in several states you cannot qualify solely on the basis of low income - there are a number of states where if you are an adult with no dependents and do not receive SSDI, then you are not eligible for medicaid no matter what. It’s not just “if you’re below this income level you can get medicaid anywhere in the USA.”

#309

Since the SSDI definitions are based on years of experience and medical input, I have faith in them.

Maybe many of these other ‘disabled’ people who don’t qualify can actually find work. Do you have an example that supports your position. It’s hard to give it credence without something tangible. Many disabled people can’t do construction but they can do office work, etc.

#310

Actually have personal experience with this one. The problem was that I had some major issues that, with appropriate treatment, were something I’d be expected to recover from and get back to work. Which means it wasn’t a permanent or long-term disability so I wouldn’t be considered disabled by legal standards, since I was expected to return to work after a couple of months of medical treatment. Which in turn meant since I wasn’t legally disabled (because my health problems weren’t expected to last long enough) I was classed as “able to work”…thankfully I ended up in a state that didn’t have as strict rules on work.

Oh yeah and my job prior to that was apparently classed as financial aid rather than a job, which meant legally speaking I didn’t have any work history other than a few summer jobs…the rules can get kind of kafkaesque.

The short version is, SSDI covers people with long-term, severe disability, who are really not expected to be working at all. It doesn’t cover short-term disabilities and it doesn’t cover people who can work a certain amount but not enough to cover healthcare. It also doesn’t cover people who can work with sufficient treatment or accommodations, even if they can’t afford those without assistance.

#311

Back when I was a kid, I was allowed to go out of the house and roam the streets and get exercise.

Now kids are chauffeured from one scheduled acitivity to another. Also the availability of snacks. When I was a child, snacks were rare. We had three meals and we had better eat what was on our plate because the kitchen would be closed after the meal. We didn’t continually graze as people do nowadays.

This culture of perma-snacking and being driven everywhere results in fat kids.

#312

I’m revisiting this thread because I find the wording of the title interesting.

Why is it that health insurance companies “cover” people, but the government “takes care of them?” Whether people are paying premiums to a private entity or taxes to a public one, they’re essentially serving the same function.

#313

Your premiums are very specific for your coverage.

Both medicaid and medicare are heavily subsidized, more like welfare than paying a calculated but fair premium based on your risk profile.

#314

Obviously.

#315

As a public school teacher, I realize that there are problems with public education, but public schools do indeed provide students a basic education. It’s not the the fault of teachers that we cannot be both teacher, parent, social worker and juvenile detention. We have one job, but we are being asked to teach large amounts of children who are unprepared, unsupported at home, behind grade level, and lack healthy family and neighborhood structures.

True, but having gone to a private school I can assure you it also happens there. The difference is that private schools get to choose what students they enroll. Public schools take our kids as they are, not how we wish them to be.

No doubt, we need to move away from a diploma system to a more UK style that allows students to decide if they want to go to college or train for a trade/career and then tailors the last years of high school to prepare students for gaining those specific qualifications.

Everyone knows that a US high school diploma is merely a certificate of attendance. But this is the fault of government intervention through tying school funding to graduation rates. If you tell school districts, their effectiveness is judged on graduation numbers, of course they are going to ensure that as many people graduate as possible, even if those students are not objectively qualified.

But even if we had universal private education, you would still get economic sorting. You would have the elite exclusive private schools for the wealthy, and then the discount private schools for the poor. The former would have the best trained teachers and more resources, the latter would have the least.

#316

Thanks to Internet anonymity, I have no way of knowing whether you’re young or a senior citizen. But are you currently on Medicare or intending to enroll in the future?

#317

Yes, it is our duty to care for each other

#318

Let’s stay on topic and try to get personal, are you going to say that current medicare costs aren’t subsidized by people working?

Don’t presume I think some subsidy is a bad thing, I just try to be honest in how I describe things.

#319

Medicare and Medicaid costs are both subsidized by tax dollars, while private insurance is subsidized by reduced paychecks. You’re describing it accurately, but I’m not seeing the difference between the rhetorical choice of “covering people” and “taking care of people.” It makes the private sector sound like Daddy and the public sector like Mommy. Honestly, it’s nothing to dwell on - just a subtle language difference that caught my eye.

#320

One problem and it’s major is if he had insurance then the provider would accept a reasonable payment from them. If they would charge individuals paying out of pocket the same as they “accept” from insurance them most of us could pay for most healthcare and only carry insurance for emergencies and illnesses requiring hospitalization…So in a real sense insurance companies and the government are responsible for the “high price “ of health care. I don’t understand why more people don’t realize this…

#321

Insurance is shared risk, and your rate is based on your risk profile.

Supporting pre-existing condition is very much straight up welfare, hence we are “taking care of people”

#322

Here is what I think:
We, as a society and as secular as we are in many ways, are not willing to allow people to just suffer or die because they can’t afford medical treatment.

We are silly to allow people to put off buying insurance when they could buy it, in the blind hope that they won’t need it, because just like with drivers who won’t buy car insurance they do suffer bad turns of fate like everyone else. When they do, everyone pays.

The need for medical care isn’t a “risk” in the same way that fire insurance is a “risk.” Why? Because (a) essentially everyone eventually needs medical care and the vast majority of us benefit from preventative care and (b) a person whose uninsured house burns down loses a material asset, not life or limb.

We are a democracy, and we get to decide together how we want to fund the amount of health care that we agree we aren’t going to allow anyone to do without for lack of the ability to pay. We really ought to make deliberate decisions, and not have this weird and spotty “system” we have now. It is inefficient, it is impractical, it fails in the humanitarian department too often, and it is all over the board on how it encourages or discourages misuse of the resources that are jointly paid for.

Insurers are wary of pre-existing conditions because of the people who try to get by with no insurance or cheap insurance until they actually need insurance, and then try to jump into different (and better) coverage that they haven’t been paying for all along when they need a payout. The problem is that people are also forced to change coverage for no fault of their own, too. If people aren’t allowed to stick a new insurance carrier with that expense, they’ll be allowed to stick the government with it. I don’t see how to prevent that except to have people pay a certain fee all of the time, either to the government as a fee/tax or to an insurance carrier, and then to have those who want to pay more do that.

Either way, this problem remains: We have the capacity to provide a certain level of care to some that we cannot afford to provide to everybody. Some of that care could be the difference between life and death. How do we decide who gets it and who does not? How do we resign ourselves to the fact that some people in this nation are going to have to go without the kind of care that those for whom money is no object are going to get? The wealthy man’s baby gets the surgery and might live, but the poor man’s baby either gets a miracle or dies? You can hardly stop the wealthy from doing everything possible to save their own children, but you cannot raise the standard of care to include everything that a family with limitless resources would provide. What do you do about that?

#323

See, I would say that taking tax dollars for health care would COVER a pre-existing condition. “Taking care of” sounds pejorative and reflects a bias for the more utilitarian approach of funding others selectively based on “risk profiles” in order to skim off the rest for profit.

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