I saw on MSNBC that Guiliani is offering a new health insurance "plan"
Link
Paramount to his "plan" is to give families a $15,000 deduction for purchasing insurance in the private sector. In addition, he says that when so many people enter the market due to his wonderful plan, the insurance companies will lower their rates!
I laughed out loud, because I'd just been performing research on health insurance plans across the nation. Below the fold are some interesting bullet points I found that illustrate that Guiliani's "plan" is not very well "planned," aside from the instantly obvious fact that, for many of the uninsured, the $15,000 "deduction" along with other deductions, might place their income levels at less than 0! In addition, insurance companies don't magically lower their rates based on numbers of subscribers! LOL! So funny!
First my favorite link that summarizes plans by state is:
Georgetown University Health Policy Institute Health Insurance Info
From this link and other sources, I concluded the following:
- In most states, including my home state of Washington, insurance carriers can (and do) deny you for being sick. If you have diabetes, or have had cancer, forget getting individual insurance through Blue Cross/Blue Shield or other such carriers. When they deny you, you have the option to apply for a state insurance pool that doubles or triples your rates.
- The one failsafe for people who can't get individual insurance due to past disease is to work for an employer that offers group insurance. Most group insurance plans don't require health questionaires for enrollment. Guiliani's "plan," as I understand it, doesn't address this option in any way.
- In many states (California included) insurance companies can retroactively cancel your insurance if THEY feel you've mis-represented yourself on your application, even if it's pretty obvious you've just made human error. Here's a recent article talking about this point: Link.
- If you manage to get insurance, but get sick, insurance companies can raise your rates in most states. (thankfully not Washington). In these states, there usually is no cap on how much they can raise your rates.
- In addition to raising rates for serious illness, insurance companies will raise your rates merely for filing a claim. Here's a Link from the lovely Texas state insurance commissioner's office where it is clearly stated that for individual insurance, "You can expect to pay more if you've filed claims in the past". Raising your health insurance rates because you've filed claims is not insurance, it's a pyramid scheme.
- HIPAA seemed like a great idea. Under HIPAA, if you've had insurance with a group plan, but lose your job for whatever reason, insurers are absolutely required to offer 1 or 2 individual plans that you can choose from under certain restrictions. This sounds wonderful, but if you or a family member happens to be sick or have past disease, yes, you can still GET insurance, but in most states the skies are the limit on how much you can be charged. You can effectively be denied coverage because the coverage is so expensive you can't afford it.
And I'm sure more issues with his lovely "plan" exist, so this isn't an all-exhaustive list.
Why does Rudy present such lovely ideals without thinking through the ugly details of the insurance nightmare? Because he lives in liberal New York. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in New York State, you can't be denied coverage or placed in a higher rate class because of a disease. Source: American Diabetes Association.
So Rudy is just another candidate (like Bush) who thinks that the entire country is just a wholly-owned subsidiary of his state. Very narrow-minded thinking. And the irony is, he's basing his ideals on the very liberal policies of his state that JUST DON'T exist in the majority of states.
Rudy, thanks for the unintentional comedy. Best humor I've had all day.