2 simple fixes for healthcare system

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: chrisho
How about making it legal for a Company in NJ to sell a policy in GA?

The Feds prevent my ability to shop across state lines for health insurance, why shouldn't it be sky high because of that?

That's not the issue. You can shop WITHIN your own state and get good deals. My company recently switched from one insurance provider to another and we are paying less for the same coverage.

The issue here is allowing people to SHOP for their own insurance. Most people don't have the knowledge to read through an insurer's policy (its not spelled out in plain english, never is)

What you will have occur is that all the healthy people will get fantastic rates because they will all go to the same insurer who can just reject unhealthy people for reason X. Then you have pockets of unhealthy people without insurance who will go to emergency rooms etc. and that will get expensive fast.

 

[GTKeeper]

I will add one more thought here.

I think laws need to be passed that insurance companise cannot reject people based on pre-existing conditions etc.

I think if you are leading an unhealthy lifestyle (which can easily be measured via fat %, cholestrol, blood pressure) your premiums SHOULD be higher. What will bankrupt the system is that as projected by various medical journals, by 2030/2040 more than half of all people in the US will be obese. Then no government program will help us, there will not be enough healthy people to support all the fat slobs out there.

Thats one difference between car insurance and medical insurance. When you get insurance from your employer you get a group rate based on average group risk. I think that should be more individualized based on CONTROLABLE conditions, such as being fat.