re: Pre existing conditions

in Iowa there is one person, ONE, that is currently costing 1 million dollars a month to treat for Wellmark in Iowa. He/she suffers a rare genetic disorder and it is directly responsible for 10% of Wellmark's premium increase this year. One person.

Charities rely on people's generosity or subsidization to function. And they have never been sufficient to pick up the slack for something like a Medicare or Medicaid. I mean think of how much is spent on Medicare and Medicaid to take care of the poor and old? Or the VA? Now try and imagine how you provide the 100's of billions annually that will be needed to take care of that group if we "get the government out of healthcare."

And then there is the problem of dispersion. How do you get enough charity hospitals everywhere in the country that needs them? Especially in a country where often it is some of the more rural areas that are impoverished and in need of that care. And what happens when that charity hospital gets 1 or 2 of those million dollar patients?

I certainly think there are better ways to handle the problems then we are. But just hoping we can make up those billions and billions needed annually and in the right dispersion, if only we would get the government out the way, is pretty hard to imagine.

A for-profit system is always going to want to avoid potential land mines like the million dollar patient(or the less extreme but still problematic outliers). Unless you regulate the system in a way that they can be sustained in good health but not allowed to discriminate. Clearly the current arrangement is not sufficient.

But since unfortunately the severity of health issues do not align perfectly with people's incomes, there is always going to be a lot of shortfall, in terms of inability to get needed care or coverage based on what a for-profit system can bear, and a charity system can realistically do.

People that are too sick and too poor for an insurer to insure, People that have one catastrophe and run through their lifetime limits(a common policy staple pre-ACA). Or just people that fall on hard times, or another recession hits, and lots of people can't maintain coverage and then end up in the pre-existing condition pool. And yes, those assholes who ruin it for the rest of us because they aren't responsible and rather buy tickets to Hangout fest and go on a party cruise instead of maintaining insurance.

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Free dog sled ride to ice floe. Get out on the ice now grandad. Bye.

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And there it is. Get older and get ill and die. We don't care.

And what about a premey born with serious health issues, throw that person on the ice floe with the old folks and bye to them too?

Maybe you should use the human chattel to do medical research on them prior to discarding ala the Nazis. Then you would have at least a use for the human lives you are discarding. Try to get some value.

And by the way, grandad is spelled granddad. Educate yourself, but I understand your GED didn't cover spelling.

As it is we are spending too much on healthcare for people that put themselves in bad situations or people who abuse hospital visits. The first thing we need to do is clean that shite up and put those savings towards assisting those who just got fricked by the genetic lottery and didn't eat themselves sick.

I don't think private charity is going to Cover the costs fully and some form of public assistance will be needed, which I'm fine with but we have to rig the system so that there is personal accountability first.

I think it is unfair I cannot buy homeowners insurance that covers fire after my house has burned down.

Link on that Wellmark story? Jesus Christ that's jaw dropping.

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More or less the republican plan is just to let them die - amirite?

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People are literally dying in the streets, right?

You do realize that all pre-existing conditions are not life threatening. In fact, most probably are not. But that flies in the face of civil discourse in which a solution can be found. So let's just tell everybody we will have people "literally dying in the streets!" Because, you know, before pre-existing conditions were required to be covered, I had to get a snowplow out to remove all the bodies laying in my driveway.

Funny because charity pays for congenital heart defects requiring surgery and necessary post op treatment, cancer treatment, and all sorts of other medical ailments. Hell there are entire hospitals whose operating budgets are made by nothing but charity. Amazingly they don't go under

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People are literally dying in the streets, right?

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Estimated 45,000 were a year in 2009 due to lack of insurance.

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Where was the charity then?!

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Where was yours? I'm sure you take a hefty salary cut to drive costs down in your field, don't you?

LINK