The Effects Of Obamas Health Care Law On Life Insurance
What do you call news that that does not take effect until 2014
? Meaningless!
The fact that a federal district judge in Virginia ruled on Monday that a section of the Obama health care law is unconstitutional will not change anything because we already know the new congress coming into power in January of 2011 might make some changes before that date anyway. What I find ironic is that the concept of demanding an individual to purchase insurance in some form is not new. We see it in many states for car insurance already. Both right and left sides of government have talked of some form of this as a way of protecting the cost of health insurance. It is needed to solve a problem which would come up if health insurance becomes guaranteed for everyone like the public wishes and needs.
Let me give an example of a phone call I once had many years ago. I had a individual call up and ask for a quote for temporary health insurance coverage. After providing a quote for a ten day policy the individual responded by saying she only wanted the coverage for three days. I mentioned that the company has a rule that the minimum plan is ten days and it is normally used to bridge a gap between leaving one plan and starting with another in a variety of cases such as moving or changing jobs. I was then told that the reason the individual wanted only three days of coverage was that they were told they needed an operation and would only be expected to be in the hospital for three days so that is the maximum coverage they wished to purchase. I became the bad insurance company representative when I then explained that even if she bought the ten day plan this operation would not be covered because of the concept of pre exciting conditions.
The fact is we can not have it both ways. If the goal is to cover everyone regardless of health then everyone needs to take their responsibility to get protection before a condition requires medical treatment not after. There are a number of ways to protect everyone and with this new ruling we will have to go back to the drawing board to works out a solution. My feeling is for the system to work it might not look too much different when 2014 comes around.