Pre existing conditions don't keep people from getting health insurance, just from getting insurance that covers the pre existing condition. It is insurance, after all, and isn't going to cover something that has already happened. That would be a lot like buying car insurance to cover an accident that has already happened.
That's not entirely true either. Let's say I have Diabetes, or some other incurable, but treatable illness.
First, the pre-existing condition clause generally only applies if you had NO health insurance prior. For example in my policy, as long as I had health insurance to the date my coverage began, then I am exempt.
Second, generally all pre-existing condition clauses, are on a time frame. Meaning that if I had no insurance, then applied for the plan I have, my diabetes would not be covered for 3 months. After that, I would be covered in full, like any other claim.
The purpose of the pre-existing condition clause is to prevent someone from braking a leg, applying for insurance, sending in one months check, getting $2000 worth of treatment at the hospital, and then canceling the policy the next day.
But the idea that if you have a pre-existing condition, means you can never get insurance for it, is simply not true. First always have minimum insurance of some sort, and you will never have that problem. You can switch insurance companies 10 times, and provided you have continuous coverage, you'll never have that problem. Second, just buy an insurance policy, wait out the clause time frame, and you are fine.
Well, that's not what the Libertarians say, of course. When the conflict is between ideology and pragmatism, I'll go with pragmatism. As it is now, health care costs are ruining the country just as surely as the growth of government spending is ruining the country. Something has to be done, and the cost here is still a lot higher than it is anywhere else.
We've covered that too. The service here is better than anywhere else. I don't see people flying from the US to go to Canada. Nor do I see people pulling their own teeth. Nor do I see people flying to India, like they do from the UK. Nor do I see people ordering drugs from over seas because they are not offered here, like in France.
We have the highest quality system, and it requires more money than the long-waits and lack of service seen in cheaper systems.
That is a little scary, I'll admit. What, though, is the alternative? Our choices are somewhat limited. We can keep what we have for a time, as long as we can afford it. We can go totally to socialized medicine, which I think you'd agree would be a lot worse. We can go with a government subsidized insurance, a kind of government regulated monopoly, with the government's role simply allowing or disallowing cost increases. Maybe there is another alternative.
First, remove medicare. Second, remove the government controls on insurance. Third, eliminate the tax incentives for corporate health care policies. Instead cut capital gains tax. Finely, and this is the harshest one... eliminate the requirement to service non-paying customers.
All of these drive up health care cost. Removing all of them would lower health care costs.
California had such a system in place for electrical power. Pacific Gas and Electric had the northern part of the state, while Southern California Edison had the south. The state government set prices. It was a perfect marriage between government and private industry, with the industry running things and the government keeping the monopoly from charging what the traffic would bear. Then, Governor Pete Wilson decided that we needed competition in the industry. Ideologically, he was right, but pragmatically, he was dead wrong. The result was Enron, soaring prices, and an eventual return to the state regulated monopoly model once again.
Where do you get this from? I can find nothing supporting this idea thus far. (I'm out of time for now). As best I can tell, the industry was regulated, but prices were set by the companies. In fact, the reasoning for the deregulation, was to try and lower rising costs. Of course their "deregulation" forced (which is antithetical to 'deregulation') the utilities to sell off their power generation plants, which automagically raised costs of power production.
I'm not really seeing what you are claiming. In fact, prices for electricity are jumping across California, and the government is going broke paying the difference in customer cost and electrical generation cost. That's why Arnold is being forced to raise taxes even when he claimed he wouldn't.
There is no perfect solution to any such problem, but a purely ideological solution is likely to fail, regardless of the ideology.
I would cite Capitalist hospitals in India that get customers from all over the world, looking for cheaper, better, faster, high quality care, as being a purely ideological solution. They do not have oppressive government controls, nor do they have to subsidize a government funded health system, nor are they mandated to service non-paying customers. The result is they provide world class service for a fraction of the cost.
There are examples of failures in every health care system in the world, including ours.
Failures in ours are generally because people fail to purchase good insurance, or a bad doctor slips through the net. When thousands are fleeing a "Free" system to escape to a country where they can PAY for service... that's a systemic problem.
