Because of the ACA, we can now remove the quotations from health "insurance"..

[livingwagenow]

Thinking back about my blogging on various political forums over the years, I always used to refer to American health "insurance" as just that. The word "insurance" in quotations. Implying what insurers call insurance. Implying that it is fake.

Because when people made a health insurance claim, their policies often got canceled, or they'd quickly reach a benefit cap, or they couldn't get insured in the first place due to pre-existing conditions.

The ACA has changed all of that. Health insurance is now real coverage, real insurance.

No more fake policies that cancel when people need it the most.

When people tell me they don't support the ACA I tell them that insurance is now real and must pay out when a medical claim is made, no more benefit caps, no more cancellations.

I tell them that the former fake policies basically throw their policyholders to the lions once a medical claim is made for an illness.

I ask them, "Do you prefer being thrown to the lions or do you want real health insurance coverage, when YOU need it most? Are you still opposed to the ACA?"


..........................

In closing, it's nice to actually be able to refer to the subject now as just health insurance. No more quotes.

Made possible by the ACA.

[alc]

1. quotes are even more necessary now

insurance is when a group of similar people pool their money together to share risk. they all pay in before anyone needs the money to save up enough that they can pay out when one or more of them has a covered need.

By allowing people with pre-existing conditions to join the pools, this is no longer insurance against an uncertain future. It's a pool of money that anyone can pull money out of when they need it (for a small cost at the time of need) and anyone who wants to can contribute money before they need it. (there's a small tax to discourage abuse but it's too small to be stop people from waiting until they need it - they have to decide they want to "be fair" against their own financial interests).


Also, buy limiting the number of pools, it is no longer about people with similar risks sharing those risks. The healthy small business can't get get lower rates by encouraging their workers to keep in good health. The non-smoking, exercising, healthy-eating, non-obese individual has to share risk with the smoking, obese, soda-guzzling couch potato. It's like saying the Leaf owner and Farrari owner have to pay the same rates for car insurance while knowing that on average they will have very different payouts.

The government needs to fix health care (i.e. universal coverage or a public option for the "uninsurable&quot , not pretend to fix the way private companies pay for our health care and call it "insurance".