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- Amendment X (16)
- 03/02/10: The slippery slope of wheat and depression.
- 02/24/10: General Welfare
- 12/03/09: Climategate
- 11/11/09: New author
- 10/26/09: Obama phone (or not)
- 10/22/09: Don't ask, don't tell
- 10/22/09: Pre-existing conditions
- 10/07/09: Insurance mandates revisited
- 10/07/09: Secret tape released
- 10/05/09: Harvard uninsured death study
Pre-existing conditions
Taking a quick look over the most prominent health care bill in Congress, the Baucus bill sheds some light on what Democrats want to do. The President has come out on many occasions to state that he would not support a bill that would; reduce benefits, cause waiting, or raise the price of health care. Well, if he told the truth, he won’t be supporting this one. The 1502 page proposed bill covers a great many things, but we will take an example to show how much you can trust what you hear.
The Baucus bill creates entities without definition. For pre-existing conditions, section 2215;”(a) ESTABLISHMENT OF HIGH RISK POOLS.— ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this title, the Secretary shall establish 1 or more high risk pools that— ‘‘(A) provide to all eligible individuals health insurance coverage (or comparable coverage) that does not impose any preexisting condition exclusion with respect to such coverage for all eligible individuals; and ‘‘(B) provide for health benefits coverage and premium rates described under subsection (b).”
OK, so this phantom pool is just a group of individuals with pre-existing conditions that get a subsidy for insurance. Well, not really. That’s only true if the subsidy stays under $5billion. If that amount is exceeded, subsection (2) applies ‘‘INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.—If the Secretary estimates for any fiscal year that the aggregate amounts available for payment of expenses of the high risk pool will be less than the amount of the expenses, the Secretary shall make such adjustments as are necessary to eliminate such deficit, including reducing benefits, increasing premiums, or establishing waiting lists.”
The bottom line is; everyone will get what they want, unless they don’t. If you are part of the latter, which is estimated to be around 85% of the population, voting is REALLY important.
AX