Re:The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’
by Frondo on Saturday March 16, 2019 @07:51PM
(#19411196)
One more fucked-up data point about the for-profit health care system:
before the ACA, I was also unable to purchase health insurance from anyone at any price.
Why? Because, in 2004, I had my gallbladder out. Then I moved overseas for a year and a half, and didn't have an American-based health insurance plan. I came back, and boom, I have a "lapse in insurance" and a "pre-existing condition".
The ACA at least let me buy health insurance, although the plan is so expensive and so shitty I can't really use it for anything.
American health care is garbage, and we desperately need a radical change in how we care for people here.
On top of that, if you are under group insurance through an employer, they have always been required to insure everyone at the same price except they could have a smoking surcharge. Your risk pool and the price you paid was determimed by the group you were a part of.
Unless you die suddenly, there is a good chance that at some point in your life, you will have a “pre-existing condition” that would have made you ineligible for health insurance.
But on another note: right before the ACA took affect, I was laid off from my job. That by itself was no big deal. I literally was laid off on Friday after the company was sold and started contracting for one of our customers the following Monday.
I went to get private insurance and no one would sell it to me because I had mild cerebral palsy. My CP is so mild that it only basically affects one hand, I was a part time fitness instructor, I had just run two half marathons in the previous year, and I hadn’t had any surgery besides foot surgery and that was 12 years prior.
I was getting paid more than enough as a contractor to pay higher premiums, I offered to do a fitness test - I knew I was in shape to pass any of the military fitness tests for my age - but they wouldn’t go for it.
As far as CORBA, yeah I ended up buying into the acquiring company's health plan. But guess what? They cancelled their health plan and there would have been nothing to buy into.
The ACA means that I could buy insurance.
My then fiancé/now wife said forget it. We moved our wedding date back six months, went to the courthouse, got married and I got on her insurance plan. She since chose another job with the school system partially to guarantee that after 10 years, we would have access to health insurance for the rest of our lives no matter what.
But why should someone have to go through these contortions to buy insurance at full price?