Greenbeard
Gold Member
I think I made my position pretty clear, if it be a man or a woman that wishes to purchase health insurance for themselves and their family they should have affordable options available to them. Medical history, while I do not think anyone should be denied medical converage based on medical history, I do feel that once the factors that actually ahave an effect on the high cost of medical care are aactually addressed there will be little change in the high cost of providing health insurance to those with pre-existing conditions.
There's a lot in what you've said there and entire pages of thread could be chewed up talking about this. But the key seems to be the focus on the "high cost of medical care"--here we have to make sure we distinguish between the price of health insurance (or even the direct price of care a provider would charge) and the cost of providing that care.
Many times people focus very much on the price of insurance and so they design solutions based entirely on the premise that health insurance should be de-regulated at the state level. But those "solutions" don't correspond to "if it be a man or a woman that wishes to purchase health insurance for themselves and their family they should have affordable options available to them," in part because the savings some hope to achieve that way are achieved by shedding risk or denying benefits to some. That strategy has nothing to do with addressing the cost of care itself (this is in fact one of the primary places that the reform law differs from those approaches).
Personally, I believe that it would take little effort to provide a catastrophic health insurance program , much like life insurance for everyone at a low cost through Medicare.
It sounds like you're advocating a Medicare-for-all sort of system with sufficiently high deductibles and cost-sharing. I'm intrigued, all though you'd have to work out some of the equity issues on the cost-sharing front.
My position is that if the incentives are there then this silly notion of mandates will not be needed and young people as well as older Americans will sign up for a regular payroll deduction for a catastrophic policy at the very least.
Even with catastrophic coverage plans (however you would define that), you'll still have to deal with issues of adverse selection issues if people can opt in without having paid much or anything in through the (voluntary?) payroll deductions you mention.