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This had not occurred to me. Would forbidding pre-existing conditions from influencing premium calculations, without being coupled with an individual mandate for insurace, in fact result in the above situation? (via sds) Only if you screw up the rest of the bill. I think health insurance does a few things.
The question is how many people would try to game the system. I don’t think many will. You might price a few of them out of the system—but if we have significant subsidies, I wouldn’t worry about that. Afterall, access to preventative care is worth something—and if you get all the other stuff tossed in there, that’s great. I would, however, add a disincentive to trying to game the system. If you try to enroll when sick, I probably want you to pay something. It might be the equivalent of two years premiums (or the cost of treating your sickness, whichever is less). (via squashedcomments) What’s my incentive to not drop my insurance on the bet that I won’t have any major insurable events for at least 2 years? If at year ten I get cancer, apply for coverage and have to backpay two years’ worth of premiums, I just saved eight years’ worth. Why not? |
…prohibiting insurers from charging more to older and sicker customers amounts to a tax on the young and healthy who must pay higher premiums to subsidize their less-healthy counterparts. And letting people buy insurance after they get sick means healthy people have little incentive to buy insurance. Put the two together and, as the Congressional Budget Office has warned, the young and healthy are much more likely to simply do without insurance. As the healthy leave the insurance pool, the proportion of sick in the pool grows ever greater, leading to higher premiums — which in turn causes the healthiest remaining individuals to leave in what amounts to an insurance death spiral.
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