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Short-Term Health Insurance to Destroy the Affordable Care Act

LewisBraham
in Off-Topic
Speaking of junky products: https://nytimes.com/2018/08/01/us/politics/trump-short-term-health-insurance.html
The Trump administration issued a final rule on Wednesday that clears the way for the sale of many more health insurance policies that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act and do not have to cover prescription drugs, maternity care or people with pre-existing medical conditions.
And:
But Mary Dwight, a senior vice president of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, said: “The new plans will no longer be just transition coverage. They will be an alternative to comprehensive insurance. They will split the market into plans for healthy people and plans for sick people.”

Comments

  • VintageFreakVintageFreak
    Err...how will this work practically?

    The way I understand it, power to negotiate is with "groups". The larger the "group" better the rate, unless of course the "group" is all "bad" for insurance companies.

    So a "group" with all "sick people", their insurance premiums will be so high, basically they will be without insurance.

    I must be missing something or maybe Mary Dwight is going to treat people for free?
  • expatsp
    @VF Mary Dwight's comment is meant as criticism. Thanks to these new regulations, you will now have the option of buying health insurance that will not help you out if you get seriously sick. And your tax dollars will pay for advertisements that don't mention that fact.
  • davidrmorandavidrmoran
    Per Dwight's insight, ACA for dummies (Krug):

    Explain it in terms of preexisting conditions. Assuming you want to cover those, you need to ban discrimination by insurers. But then you need something to get healthy people to sign up --- like the mandate. And you can't mandate insurance without subsidies to make it affordable.

    So the logic of covering preexisting conditions, which the vast majority wants, requires either something very like ACA or single-payer.

    3 legs to the stool. Necessary and sufficient.
  • LewisBraham
    @davidrmoran Why are you talking about logic, the good of the people and what would make the healthcare system work when the whole point of this move is to destroy the system and take away people’s access to healthcare? You’re making too much sense!
  • davidrmorandavidrmoran
    actually I tend not to think it's simply cruelty

    but a lot of misbeliefs and self-sabotage and profound niggardliness out there, widely
  • davidrmorandavidrmoran
    This could be big, really big; wonder what will happen:

    https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/10/17/16489526/take-care-clause-obamacare-trump-sabotage-aca-illegal-cities-sue
  • larryB
    @davidmoran. Thanks for a simple but brilliant explanation of why the mandate is necessary to allow health insurance companies to accept all applicants. As you point out it takes either something like the ACA or single pay-payer. I have always wondered why repuglicans are so committed to preventing all citizens to have access to affordable health care. It must be the cruelty planks in their platform.
  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    Hey, if everyone has access to health care what's the point of having lots of money?
  • larryB
    Seriously ladies and gentlemen,,,,,, is there no limits to how low repuglicans can sink? I have been in the health insurance business since 1988. I can't tell you how how many folks tried to buy individual health insurance and were turned down for the even minor conditions. They were ready, willing and able to pay,,, they just had taken the wrong Rx and had the wrong illness. And the stinking miserable repuglicans want to bring those days back again. WHY ARE REPUGLICANS SO CRUEL,,SO COLD, SO HEARTLESS?
  • davidrmorandavidrmoran
    @lB,
    That explan was courtesy PKrugman, not me, and not really original with him, though he does indeed have a gift for clear explans.

    Wonder if there is a betting pool somewhere about finding the "president" derelict in his sworn duty to uphold existing law.
  • larryB
    @DavidM. One basic law of insurance is adverse selection. If only sick people or bad drivers, or fire prone houses populate the pool the result will be too many claims and not enough premium dollars. Poof,,, insolvency. For all it's complications,,,,the genius of the ACA is(was) that it found a way to get most people insured, short of single payor. The repuglicans should have been thrilled by the ACA. Big insurance and big pharma could still get richer still and no single payor. But no,,,, they apparently would prefer people to die and people to go broke because of the system prior to the ACA. Why are they so cruel? How selfish can they be? Pretty selfish it would seem.
  • davidrmorandavidrmoran
    This particular 3-legged stool was partly designed and built by Heritage Foundation conservatives, personal responsibility and all that good stuff.
  • larryB
    Romney care? The pugs liked it when it was named after one of their own.
  • davidrmorandavidrmoran
    Our very own here in Mass., later disavowed by that chickenshit; but we have been lucky to have non-wingnut GOP govs
  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    Why the bad rap on wingnuts? I use them frequently... certainly more useful and dependable than most politicians.
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