SURELY YOU’RE NOT SERIOUS

Let me get this straight Senator Baucus: So if you’ve been dropped from your insurance company because of a “pre-existing condition” (which can be anything the insurance company decides it is) you can sign up for a “high risk” insurance plan, but you have to be uninsured for six months before you’re allowed to do so? The high risk plan would only cover 65% of your treatment and that’s AFTER the $6000 deductible?

And you’re required to pay for that insurance or pay an “excise tax” of up to $3800 dollars if you make 3 times the Federal Poverty Limit (FPL) ($22,050 for a family of 4 in 2009) ?

I don’t understand. You’re diagnosed with a lethal illness e.g.. Your insurance company determines it was caused by a preexisting condition and therefore drops you. You are *required* to wait six months to sign up for the new “high risk” insurance (and let’s be real- what else are you going to get now?) which will only cover 65% of your treatment after the 6k deductible because you’re *required* to have insurance or be fined?

Nope, stating it another way doesn’t help.

And this is to be administered by the ever so trustworthy private insurance companies?

So Senator –when they said we needed healthcare reform or health insurance reform YOU apparently thought they meant that the insurance companies were shouldering too much of the burden?

This is what is known as getting you coming and (quite literally) going.

Let me put this as simply as possible. Insurance is good. Insurance for a profit is bad.

When an insurance company’s reason for being is to make a profit, by definition they must provide their service at the lowest possible cost, as all other businesses do. If you can do it for less, you can take home more. That’s automatic incentive to not cover sick people and only healthy people. That is the *exact opposite* of what insurance is –that is, a mechanism to spread losses throughout a larger pool of resources.

The Swiss have already figured this out. It is ILLEGAL for private health insurance companies to turn a profit in Switzerland for basic coverage (“Cadillac plans” can make a profit)

Um...is there someone more intelligent there that we might be able to speak to about this?