Healthcare merry-go-round

[dgs49]

Insurance for Morons:

(1) It is "immoral" for an insurance company to turn someone down if they are already sick (premiums being frozen by law).

(2) Insurance companies can provide unlimited lifetime coverage for everyone while premiums stay the same.

(3) Insurance coverage for families can be extended to include "children" up to 26 years old without increasing premiums to cover the extra cost.

(4) The Federal Government can compel you to purchase personal health insurance (or pay a fine for not doing so), based on a provision in the Constitution that says, Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce among the several states. While at the same time Congress prohibits insurance companies from offering coverage across state lines. Go figure.

(5) It is a wonderful thing that almost everyone in Massachusetts has health insurance and the insurance companies (and the associated state programs) are going broke. (Consider what happens over time when an insurance carrier finds that it cannot operate profitably within a given state).

There is nothing magical about insurance. Any insurance company will accept any risk imaginable (e.g., accepting sick people), PROVIDED they are permitted to analyze the relevant cost data and charge premiums accordingly. That is what they are in business to do.

The Lefties have convinced their moron constituency that insurance companies can assume new, almost incalculable risks, and that insurance premiums can be maintained at current levels - or that "government" can somehow make it OK by forcing the insurance companies to "give up some of their obscene profits."

Adults know better.

[Big RR]

Yeah, those damn "lefties" ruin everything, from the great fight against communism (and for a freedom loving democracy) in Vietnam, to having people assume personal responsibility and just not get sick.

[Gob]

I'd never heard of this "pre-existing" condition clause until I saw Michael Moore's "Sicko".

Here's an Aussie insurers plan with regard to "pre-existing" conditions, can someone cast their eye over it and let me know how different it is to a typical US policy?

We have similar health insurance, but with another firm.

In my 40+ years of living in the UK I never even considered health insurance as I was content with NHS treatment.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Sounds about right although the "6 month" diagnosis/evident to you, might be a contention of dispute (always against the person with the illness)

Now I can understand how insurance companies do not want x number of people showing up on their doorstep with a sudden serious problem, people who have not ever had health insurance before. But for the people like me (pretty much the majority of people here in the USA) who have always had health insurance via their employers (to which I contributed about 1/3 of the cost), and end up having to switch health insurance companies because of a job change and then be denied coverage for an existing condition is just wrong. I've paid in, just not to YOUR company. Maybe there is a way for a major "pool" for the insurance companies to pay into that they can pull from when someone with a preexisting condition changes insurance companies.

[Long Run]

But for the people like me (pretty much the majority of people here in the USA) who have always had health insurance via their employers (to which I contributed about 1/3 of the cost), and end up having to switch health insurance companies because of a job change and then be denied coverage for an existing condition is just wrong. I've paid in, just not to YOUR company. Maybe there is a way for a major "pool" for the insurance companies to pay into that they can pull from when someone with a preexisting condition changes insurance companies.

HIPAA (the "P" stands for "portability" not "privacy") prohibits denying coverage for a preexisting condition if you go from one employer coverage to a new employer policy. You have 63 days. States differ on how much they add to this for individual policies, but since 1996, the basic law has eliminated preexisting exclusions for people who stay covered under employer plans.

[Crackpot]

An then there are those that lost their jobs this recession...

If I didn't have my Wife's insurance I'd be fucked considering I have a shitload of "pre-existing conditions" all of them perfectly manageable with medication. 63 days isn't shit when you have long term unemployment.

[Long Run]

Well, there is also the 18 month COBRA for unemployment situations. The real hole in coverage is the prohibitive cost, not the stop-gap periods to allow people to find alternative coverage.

[Long Run]

If I didn't have my Wife's insurance I'd be fucked considering I have a shitload of "pre-existing conditions" all of them perfectly manageable with medication. 63 days isn't shit when you have long term unemployment.

Your example, as painful as it is personally, shows how HIPAA actually worked as intended. You lost coverage at your employer, and your wife's employer's plan had to allow you to enroll; you don't have to wait for open enrollment and her plan cannot exclude your preexisting conditions. (This is usually a better result than going with COBRA coverage). It is clearly an imperfect system, but for those who are in the system, it generally works okay to maintain coverage.

[Scooter]

Not wanting to speak for him, but I imagine, like most people, both spouses were already enrolled with each other's plans (in order to cover copays, etc.), so HIPAA probably had nothing to do with it.

[Crackpot]

Actually I'd been on my wife's plan since I've been married. I'd been without since I was laid off 6 months before that luckly at the time she had Blue Cross (no denial for pre-existing conditions) for the short time (almost 3 months) we were both out of work we had to buy short term insurance ($$$$ for shit coverage) just to make sure we'd still be eligible for insurance.

[Gob]

If I didn't have my Wife's insurance I'd be fucked considering I have a shitload of "pre-existing conditions" all of them perfectly manageable with medication. 63 days isn't shit when you have long term unemployment.

I cannot believe that in a civilised country that can happen...


Oh, wait...

[rubato]

If I didn't have my Wife's insurance I'd be fucked considering I have a shitload of "pre-existing conditions" all of them perfectly manageable with medication. 63 days isn't shit when you have long term unemployment.

I cannot believe that in a civilised country that can happen...


Oh, wait...

And one would not think that in a civilized country a women would go to prison because a pet dingo was allowed to kill her child either.



yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

First, dingoes are wild, not domesticated, so it was no one's "pet".

Second, living in a glass house wherein innocent people have most likely been executed due to miscarriages of justice, might lead someone to refrain from throwing stones on that score.

[rubato]

First, dingoes are wild, not domesticated, so it was no one's "pet".

Second, living in a glass house wherein innocent people have most likely been executed due to miscarriages of justice, might lead someone to refrain from throwing stones on that score.

In the case in question it was a pet dingo which did kill the woman's child. Rather levelling the field in the arena of legal miscarriages of justice.

yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

sigh

Azaria Chantel Loren Chamberlain (born 11 June 1980 in Mount Isa, Queensland) was a nine-week-old Australian baby girl, who disappeared on the night of 17 August 1980 on a camping trip to Uluru (then known as Ayers Rock) with her family. Her body was never found. Her parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, reported that she had been taken from their tent by a dingo.

eyewitness evidence was presented of dingoes having been seen in the area on the evening of 17 August 1980

An Aboriginal man gave evidence that his wife had tracked the dingo and found places where it had put the baby down, leaving the imprint of the baby's clothing in the soil.

In early 1986, English tourist David Brett fell to his death from Uluru (known as Ayers Rock at the time) during an evening climb. Because of the vast size of the rock and the scrubby nature of the surrounding terrain, it was eight days before Brett's remains were discovered, lying below the bluff where he had lost his footing, in an area full of dingo lairs. As police searched the area, looking for missing bones that might have been carried off by dingoes, they discovered a small item of clothing. It was quickly identified as the crucial missing piece of evidence from the Chamberlain case—Azaria's missing matinée jacket.

link

[rubato]

News stories at the time said that the dingo was a pet of a park ranger (or whatever the job title was) and the ranger tried to cover this up which contributed to her false conviction. (along with the fact that she belonged to a minority religion)

yrs,
rubato

[Sean]

News stories at the time said that the dingo was a pet of a park ranger (or whatever the job title was) and the ranger tried to cover this up which contributed to her false conviction. (along with the fact that she belonged to a minority religion)

yrs,
rubato

Maybe you should pass on your obviously important information to the Australian Federal Police Rubato. To date the cause of Azaria Chamberlain's death is "undetermined". You could end up a hero in Australia by cracking a 30 year old case singlehanded!

Oh wait...

Frank Morris, now 65, was the first police officer to arrive at the camp site when Azaria went missing on August 17, 1980. While most of the people involved in the initial investigation have either died or moved interstate to escape the media circus, as well as the constant barrage of questions from the public, Mr Morris still lives in Alice Springs.

"The police department, the government, parks and wildlife ù everyone involved was having mud slung at them," Mr Morris said.

The real problems started for the then Constable Morris when private investigator Phil Ward published a book outlining his theory of what happened to Azaria, claiming that the dingo that took Azaria was "Ding", the pet of a park ranger. The book, Azaria, what the jury were not told, explained how Const Morris shot the dingo and several locals conspired to cover it up.

"My wife was accused of being one of the three women involved in burying the baby in our backyard," Mr Morris explained.

The Morris family were hounded by the media and received countless prank phone calls and hate mail from around the world.

"It's all part and parcel of how it affects your life," he said.

"There were some incidents that were detrimental, but you got to see who your real friends were."

Mr Morris and his then-wife Margaret, along with several other people implicated in Ward's theory, launched a class-action defamation case against the publisher of the book. The matter was settled out of court.

"It wasn't peanuts, but it wasn't worth our health and lifestyle. It won't take away what's already happened."

Although many media outlets unfairly portrayed him as "a dumb country cop", the father-of-two has put the Chamberlain case behind him and is not angry about the gossip and criticism he endured.

"There's rotten apples in every profession, unfortunately."

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=153386

Maybe you shouldn't trouble the authorities with that idea after all...

[Sean]

Now that's being arch!

[rubato]

"....
"There were some incidents that were detrimental, but you got to see who your real friends were."

Mr Morris and his then-wife Margaret, along with several other people implicated in Ward's theory, launched a class-action defamation case against the publisher of the book. The matter was settled out of court.

"It wasn't peanuts, but it wasn't worth our health and lifestyle. It won't take away what's already happened."

Although many media outlets unfairly portrayed him as "a dumb country cop", the father-of-two has put the Chamberlain case behind him and is not angry about the gossip and criticism he endured.

"There's rotten apples in every profession, unfortunately."

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=153386

Maybe you shouldn't trouble the authorities with that idea after all...[/quote]

I hate to break it to you but if your intention was to defend the Aus justice system you achieved the opposite ...

Fascinating that the constable had no remorse about a false conviction and imprisonment.

And now that is evidence-based.

yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

And this has what to do with US healthcare?