On 08/18/09 10:37, Darren New wrote:
>>> The insurance nature suffers therefrom, especially if those who
>>> didn't pay for it get treated anyway, which they do.
>>
>> OK, if you get treated anyway without insurance then why do even the
>> unhealthy people bother paying for insurance? Who currently pays for
>> the uninsured people to get treated?
>
> The hospitals. That's why so many hospitals are closing their emergency
> rooms.

	For context, the hospitals only treat emergency cases if you don't have 
insurance/money. If it's a long term (but even life threatening), then 
they generally won't. There are always exceptions, though.

>> So, in America then, if you get a chronic condition do your insurance
>> premiums sky rocket?
>
> The situations I'm aware of, the chronic condition happened after the
> person had already been getting insurance from the employer. The victims
> couldn't change jobs (because then it would become a "pre-existing
> condition", and the employer's premiums obviously went up some, but that
> got spread out amongst all the employees, which is the point of insurance.

	Actually, sometimes the insurance company more or less forces the 
employers to drop insurance or go elsewhere.

	Some of you may know Wendell Potter, the health insurance insider who 
recently went public with a lot of their practices. This is from an 
interview:

"Another is, if you are employed, particularly with a small business, 
and your insurance—your employer gets his or her insurance through one 
of the large insurers, and if just one person in your company files a 
claim that the underwriters think is too high, if it skews what they 
think is the appropriate medical experience or claim experience, when 
that business comes up for renewal, they very likely will jack up the 
rates so much that your employer has no alternative but to leave and 
leave you and all of your coworkers without insurance. Either that or 
they may cut benefits or try to shop for coverage somewhere else. But 
the end result is, you may find yourself dumped into the rolls and the 
ranks of the uninsured."

	I read in another article of a case where they jacked the prices so 
high that it would have been the equivalent of paying over $40,000 per 
person per year. Any way they can find to dump the employer...

-- 
As long as I can remember, I've had amnesia.

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