Comments on: McCain Health Care And Individual Health Insurance

By: Don Levit

Don Levit — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:22:08 +0000

Louise:
I would like to see catastrophic coverage, but I would like to see the premiums for the benefits to be assessed in a separate pool.
For example, if the primary policy’s benefits maxed out at $50,000, the secondary policy’s benefits would provide catastrophic coverage from $50,001 of benefits.
With today’s policies of millions of dollars of lifetime benefits, premiums are assessed whether you have $10,000 of benefits claimed or $5million of benefits claimed.
If we want to attract and retain low claimants, they must be given incentives to remain in the pool.
Putiing all participants in a catastrophic pool of $50,001 of benefits or more, will help accomplish this worthwhile goal.
Don Levit

By: Louise Norris

Louise Norris — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:20:50 +0000

Don,
Those are some good ideas. I like the idea of defined-contribution benefits, as long as catastrophic care is provided equally. If a person (myself, for example) wants to pay less for health insurance in trade for not having doctor visits covered prior to the deductible, that’s fine. But I don’t think that there should be policies with, say $50,000 max coverage, based on a low premium. That sets people without much money up for a disasterous situation in the event of a catastrophic illness or injury. But for the small stuff – things that are less than maybe $5000, I agree that people should be able to buy more or less coverage, depending on their risk preference and how often they use medical care.
As far as the waiting periods go, I think that would be a better solution than permanent exclusions or flat-out denials. Are you proposing no benefits at all for the first two years, or just for pre-existing conditions? Playing devil’s advocate here – but if it’s the former, what would people do in the event of a serious illness or injury in the first two years? Would you propose “gap” insurance that takes on claims just for those two years? It could be less expensive, just as short-term policies are now, since they know they won’t have long-term claims from anyone.
Interesting ideas – thanks for sharing. You should write up more details and submit your ideas to ChangeNow4Health.com

By: Don Levit

Don Levit — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:08:01 +0000

Louise:
Thanks for providing your thoughts.
I agree that individual insurance should be guaranteed issue and community rated.
However, we don’t want the prices to dramatically increase, due to potential high-claims participants getting cheap insurance.
To help solve this problem, I recommend a 2-year waiting period, in which no coverage is effective.
However, all the contributions would go toward one’s coverage starting in year 3.
In addition, the community-rated premium would be on a “defined-contribution” basis.
For example, if someone pays x, he has y in benefits.
If he pays 2x, he has 2y in benefits.
Thoughts?
Don Levit

By: Kelly

Kelly — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:15:54 +0000

Thanks for the information on McCain’s health care plan, Louise. I didn’t know much about it before.

The US is known for helping out when other countries are in crisis. But is the US doing enough for themselves? There are around 47 million people in the US who don’t have medical insurance and so many more have bad insurance coverage, can’t afford their premiums or deductibles, and have no access to dental care. Does more need to be done?