Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Obamacare unintended consequence #2

So the insurers claim the bill does not actually require them to cover children with pre-existing conditions. The bill merely states that if they insure children they must cover all their healthcare needs regardless of the time of onset.

Apparently, in haste to pass a 2,700 page bill that they had never read, our uber-intelligent legislators forgot the difference between coverage and guaranteed issue. Meaning, coverage need not be extended to sick children, but if it is, then all illness is covered.

The important part of this whole discussion is the definition of insurance. Insurance-A means of indemnity against a future occurrence of an uncertain event. Note the term uncertain. It is not insurance if you are merely providing a reimbursement mechanism for foreseeable expenses. That would be a risk pool. There is nothing wrong with a pool. It is a good method for spreading the costs among individuals who must use a service. But, it is not insurance. And forcing people who do not have a certain future event, but an uncertain one, into the same "insurance" plan as people with pre-existing conditions is merely socialistic redistribution of money from one individual to another.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i dont know if i understand this or not, but having a child with a pre-existing condition, does this mean im screwed or that you are??? ":)