Health Care Reform - Do You Have Health Insurance?

I came across an interesting take on what it means to be insured. The site makes a pretty good argument that almost none of us are really insured (except those covered under Medicare).

You can read it here.

Essentially, the author makes the argument that since most of us have health insurance through our jobs, and a lot of people are finding that their jobs are not as secure as they once thought, we don't have reliable health insurance.

He also points out that one of the things that can cause someone to lose their job is a protracted illness, and that while COBRA does exist, losing ones job kind of makes paying the full premiums (generally over $1000/month for family coverage) very difficult. Thus, the time when you most need your health insurance is one of the times you're most likely to lose it.

I did have an issue with his take on things, which I wrote in a comment on his article, and have reproduced below.

Still, the people who are buying into the insurance-company-sponsored hype that all this reform will be bad for those of us who have insurance are not considering what happens if they contract a catastrophic illness and lose their coverage.

I would love to have someone with some actual facts give me reasons why health care reform is a bad thing. Not false claims like "reform just means the government killing the elderly" and "this is government taking over health care, which won't work" and "every country that has this has worse health care than we have, with longer lines and rationing".

None of those talking points is true, they're lies designed to scare you into letting the private insurance companies continue to treat you like a sponge, wringing you dry as long as you have money in your pocket, but tossing you aside the moment there's nothing left to wring from you.

Anyway, as promised, here follows my response to the author of the link above...

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There is one point that needs to be taken care of in your otherwise reasonable article: The people who don't grasp that paying into the system while you are healthy is an integral part of the system working.

I can't tell you how often I've heard people complain about Massachusetts' plan, saying they don't like it because they are required to have health insurance, and they don't need it, so why should they have to pay for it?

These same people are the reason why pre-existing limitations exist. If they didn't, if the insurance companies COULDN'T refuse anyone or exclude any condition, then why would any of us pay for insurance until we got sick? Skip the premiums, do something more sexy with that money, and then, when some sort of major illness occurs, run out and buy an insurance policy.

I agree that insurance companies should not be allowed to drop you if you get sick, and I agree that insurance companies should not be allowed to refuse you if you've had continuous coverage and lose it due to loss of job or other legitimate reason.

But it's entirely unworkable to expect anyone insuring anyone to be "medical welfare", standing by taking in no money from some segment of the population and then being forced to donate to those same people when they get older and sick.

Liam.