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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated
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To: Lane3 who wrote (76508)10/11/2004 3:20:49 PM
From: Ilaine  Read Replies (1) of 793800
 
One thing about the federal health plan -- there is no requirement that people with pre-existing conditions wait for coverage. Taking this option away from insurance companies would open the door to free riders waiting to sign on for coverage until they came down with a devastating disease like cancer, or a chronic ailment like diabetes.

I imagine that the way the federal government gets around this is that all employees are covered as soon as they start working, so there really is no free rider problem.

This is, of course, one of the main reasons other countries have gone to nationalized health care. No free riders. Everybody pays, via taxes.

It's rational to be a free rider if you can get away with it. Rational but short-sighted. Thus, the rational response by insurance companies is to delay coverage until you've paid into the plan for a while. Discourages free riders.

Perhaps a plausible alternative would be free rider coverage. You can get the same coverage as everybody else but if you don't sign on while you're still healthy, you go into a pool of some kind and wait. You don't get any coverage until you've paid a certain amount. Maybe a sliding scale.

Say, $1000 for poor people and $10,000 for well-off.

This sounds draconian but my clients on SSD have to pay $1500 out of pocket before SSD health coverage kicks in, and you only get SSD if you can't work. That's $1500 annually.
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