Romney Justifies Denying Health Care To People With Pre-Existing Conditions: 'We Can't Pla

[donnay]

Romney Justifies Denying Health Care To People With Pre-Existing Conditions: 'We Can't Play The Game Like That'

h xxp://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/03/28/453474/romney-justifies-denying-health-care-to-people-with-preexisting-conditions-we-cant-play-the-game-like-that/
ThinkProgress. org
Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:28 CDT

As Mitt Romney tries to distance himself from Obamacare, he ran into some trouble last night when he got stumped by comedian Jay Leno. Leno asked Romney what he would do to help people with preexisting medical conditions, who are often denied coverage today by insurance companies worried about increased costs.

Romney's answer was essentially nothing. Someone who has forgone insurance doesn't deserve to get medical coverage, Romney suggested, because, "we can't play the game like that." Asked what he would do to help people with pre-existing conditions, Romney replied:

ROMNEY: People with pre-existing conditions, as long as they have been insured before, they are going to be able to continue to have insurance.

LENO: Suppose they haven't been insured before?

ROMNEY: Well, if they are 45 years old and they show up and say I want insurance because I have heart disease, it's like, 'Hey guys. We can't play the game like that. You've got to get insurance when you are well and then if you get ill, you are going to be covered. [...]

We'll look at a circumstance where someone is ill and hasn't been insured so far, but people who have the chance to be insured - - if you are working in the auto business for instance, the companies carry insurance, they insure their employees, you look at the circumstances that exist - - but people who have done their best to get insured are going to be able to be covered. But you don't want everyone saying, 'I am going to sit back until I get sick and then go buy insurance.' That doesn't make sense. But you get defined rules and get people in who are playing by the rules.

Watch it here (beginning 2:15)

Barring insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions is one of the Affordable Care Act's most popular and important provisions. The problem, for Romney, is that this can only function when coupled with an individual mandate (as he well knows), the constitutionality of which the Supreme Court considered yesterday.

Without the mandate, healthy people could forego buying insurance until they became sick, thus driving up costs for everyone and potentially collapsing the system as there may not be enough people paying into the system to cover the costs of all the sick people. Moreover, there are people who, from a young age or even birth, have pre-existing conditions due to congenital diseases.

Under Romney's current plan, since they have no existing history of coverage, it's conceivable people born with pre-existing conditions would be completely unable to ever get insurance. Insurance companies have already said that without the mandate, they'd go back to denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Romney himself seems to understand this, telling Leno, "you have to find rules that get people in" to the insurance market so they don't freeride. A former governor of Massachusetts named Romney came up with just a such a rule - it's called the individual mandate. But now that Romney is running for president for Pete's sake, he hates mandates, and so he has literally nothing to offer people with pre-existing conditions expect for a scolding about how they should have purchased insurance earlier.

[specsaregood]

Insurance is the wrong term to use. Better would be to suggest setting up buyer clubs; where people with specific pre-existing conditions can work as a group to lower costs for their specific needs.

[donnay]

Insurance is the wrong term to use. Better would be to suggest setting up buyer clubs; where people with specific pre-existing conditions can work as a group to lower costs for their specific needs.

Wouldn't that be the same as an HMO?

[specsaregood]

Wouldn't that be the same as an HMO?

Perhaps, an HMO should be able to be setup that caters to specific groups.

[CaptUSA]

He answered that all wrong, but I can see what he's talking about.

How I would have answered?

"Well, the free market tends to bring prices down, while government always drives the prices up! So if there are people who the insurance companies won't insure, then at least they'll be able to afford their own medical care. Remember, if you're already sick, then you don't want "insurance", you want low cost care. That's what I'm offering. Eventually, though, different insurance companies will see the need for this type of care and offer it. The free market works - at least a whole lot better than government."

[thoughtomator]

the market would handle it far better than the government will

the only thing a government does well is kill

[sailingaway]

the fact is, Obamacare wasn't about insuring the uninsured but controlling EVERYONE and creating a new funding source (a new 3% tax on sale of homes nationwide etc etc etc.)

If they WANTED to just insure those with preexisting conditions they would have not messed up EVERYONE's insurance but would have created a 'high risk subsidized pool' ONLY, similar to how federal flood insurance has people subsidize houses in high risk areas.

That would have been a MUCH more limited intrusion and likely would have been accepted by most, even if not philosophically pure, because 'it could happen to anyone'. And since govt would be controling a smaller amount of health care prices wouldn't go up as much. The more govt controls payments the less price sensitivity to any given procedural choice there is, the more medical prices skyrocket, the faster funds for medical programs run out, the more the govt rations services and looks for more funding resources.....