One more time

Let me repeat this, nice and slow, so certain Congressmen, Congressmice, Congresscreeps, and other armchair politicians can keep up.

If we can only agree on one thing that requires reform in the entire health insurance industry, it needs to be that pre-existing conditions must go away. Seriously. The use of pre-existing conditions for any and every purpose must be outlawed. This includes but is not limited to using it for underwriting, rate setting, or coverage. This includes conditions such as chronic diseases, any issue related to a past or present pregnancy, genetic conditions regardless of whether they have been diagnosed, prior or current use of medication, or status as a crime victim.

True story, I happened to be looking at my health insurance booklet last week. I noticed that the small print says they won’t charge me higher rates on the basis of genetic testing. Bully for them! I bet a shiny quarter that if I actually had some genetic tests done for the genes that are associated with a higher risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer and the tests came back positive, they would find a way to not cover me should I actually get breast cancer!

The insurance industry has demonstrated over and over again that they will abuse their covered individuals whenever money is involved. This must be stopped. There is no potential compromise on this issue, except maybe in the minds of certain Congressmice and Congresscreeps. Eliminating the pre-existing condition is far more important than anything else, even the public option. Implementing a “universal”, “socialized“, or mandatory coverage scheme without eliminating pre-existing conditions is a literal sick joke on the American people.

Seriously people, how many stories do we have to hear about ordinary, hard working folks who can’t get their single biggest health concern covered — or can’t get coverage at all — because somebody decided they had a pre-existing condition?

In closing: best thing you’ll read today about the unemployment numbers; get used to high unemployment, by the way; after all, where will the jobs come from?; when the Government is your biggest shareholder, they get to say what your top execs make, and if you don’t like it you can buy them out of their shares!; on pensions and why you are unlikely to get one (ergo, why you need to support Social Security); CNN realizes that the Catholic Church in America is increasingly Latino (way to notice trends there, CNN);  and make sure the name on your ticket matches the name on your ID exactly, because goodness knows we can’t trust the TSA to figure out that John S. Smith is the same person as John Samuel Smith. It isn’t like they’re required to have a high school diploma or pass a civil service exam or anything like that.