For instance, HIPAA (with respect to group plans):

Does not require that employers offer health coverage or offer coverage on any particular terms;

Does not guarantee that any conditions you now have (or have had in the past) are covered by your new employer’s health plan; and

Does not prohibit an employer from imposing a preexisting condition exclusion period if you have been treated for a condition during the past 6 months.

In addition, HIPAA (with respect to individual plans) has the following conditions:

You must have had at least 18 months of continuous creditable coverage without a gap of more than 63 days.

You must generally have been covered under a group health plan, a government health plan or church plan (or health insurance offered in connection with such plans, such as COBRA) during the most recent period of creditable coverage.

You must not be eligible for coverage under a group health plan (including a spouse’s plan), Medicare or Medicaid.

You must not have other health insurance; and

You must have elected and exhausted any option for continuation of coverage under COBRA (or a similar state law) that was available under your prior plan.

HIPAA does not limit the premiums individual health plans can charge. While your application for insurance won’t be rejected because of health problems, the premiums for individual coverage can be much higher than for group plans.

A good time to be a jihadist “Obama has already gone a long way towards ensuring that interrogators cannot use any technique that might reasonably be expected to extract information from hardened terrorists.”
The CIA Report: What Does It Say?

…

You are right about “trash pickup”. In my personal experience the private companies do it better and provide better service.

The continental state militias were useless during the revolution. They ALMOST always ran after the first shot from the British soldiers. In fact, that was so predictable, that the Continental Army used that to sucker in the British and win many exchanges. I don’t have to prove anything about warriors and soldiers. Soldiers are disciplined and depend on each other, warriora aren’t and don’t. I was a soldier. Any old soldier can tell you about warriors.

The other posters are right. Why are we talking about portability in our national arguement. HIPAA is there, it works. You can’t lose coverage because of pre-existing conditions, you can’t have the price jacked up. I suspect those who do let it lapse are so traumatized by the loss of the job, they don’t listen when HR explains it to them. EVERYBODY: make sure you get your HIPAA form when you are laid off or retire. Get an electronic copy (PDF) if possible. I’m not sure, but I think that even if you forget or didn’t listern then, the waiting period for pre-existing conditions can be truncated.

My Senator is Tom Coburn. I am disappointed that he hasn’t been hitting the airwaves with this information. I am remiss. I will write him. The rest of you contact your senators about HIPAA.

Happens all the time

You said in reference to there being some kind of crisis of people reaching their maximum medical payouts and being dropped by insurance. Show me some stats that back up this claim. I have yet to see any that support the argument that there is some kind of crisis regarding this.

Again, your side’s (the left) numbers regarding how many are uninsured are found to be bogus (which we all knew from the get go – the left’s “facts” always turn out to be lies), and you suddenly pop in here w/ a new claim of crisis – this time regular folks being dropped from their insurance left and right for being sick.

it ain’t so. Stop looking for a rational to support your goal – socialized medicine and instead try and argue that socialized medicine will be more efficient and bring better care to everyone. The reason you never try to make that argument is b/c you know you can’t. therefore, you try to gin up various “crisis” to use as an excuse to implement socialized medicine.

If you stepped back and looked at this behavior, you might begin to question your political philosophy. Why is it that your side must always lie to try and get what it wants?

Wisconsin, for example, has the BadgerCare program. It provides health insurance coverage to lower-income families, and it works quite well. Just this year, they opened the program for enrollment by lower-income singles (individuals). It would be interesting to see some reporting on how that expansion has been received, and how it differs from other state solutions.

Once you reach your annual maximum they pay $0 for anything for the rest of the year. Once you reach your lifetime maximum you’re dropped. So yes, it’s entirely possible to disclose everything and still be dropped because you got sick. Happens all the time.

jonknee on August 24, 2009 at 7:29 PM

Call the Waaaaahmbulance!!!!

If you’re dropped under these circumstances (had insurance, got sick, maxed out), you CAN get replacement insurance through your state’s “assigned risk pool”: check it out!!

My own brother got insurance this way for only $550/month (very affordable for him at the time), despite the fact that he had terminal brain cancer. If he had not been able to pay for this coverage, a variety of other lower cost alternatives would have been made available to him UNDER EXISTING LAW!!!

Thus your entire argument is a completely phony “straw man” argument.

HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996………..they are trying to sell us protection that we already have and no one is bringing it up.

It never ceases to amaze me how they want the government to have more power to fix something that was supposed to be fixed by their previous power grabs. If the last law didn’t do the job, or the one before that, or the one before that… what is it about this law that will make it work when all the others failed? Why is it that the more power government exercises over us, the more problems they find to blame on the free market?

By the way, does that HIPPA thing allow companies to just jack the premium through the roof? I’m guessing they probably would.

boomer on August 24, 2009 at 10:31 PM

HIPAA does protect you from price gouging as well (again if you are part of a group policy) – you cannot be charged additional fees for pre-existing conditions, etc. – by law your fees are the same as the group.

How many times have you heard them trying to sell the “reform” and mention “portability” of your insurance? HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996………..they are trying to sell us protection that we already have and no one is bringing it up.

And a public fire department.

Well, I could see the argument that a public department wouldn’t need to set a quota for fires put out, because it isn’t paid per service rendered, whereas a private department might be. Though I’d see no reason to change the pay scale. A fire department isn’t helpful unless it’s available 24/7.

It’s a bogus argument anyway. If we follow their logic, everything should be run by the government because at one time or another, someone in the private sector has behaved inappropriately.

xblade on August 24, 2009 at 11:07 PM

Agreed. Besides, it’s not as though government enterprises have always behaved appropriately. And when a corrupt organization has the backing of the government, it’s far more dangerous.

The same incentive that exists for a private fire department also exists for a public firefighter.

And a public fire department.

It’s a bogus argument anyway. If we follow their logic, everything should be run by the government because at one time or another, someone in the private sector has behaved inappropriately.

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Unfortunately, they will probably not pay much attention to Jazz Shaw, Cato Institute, or Hot Air and Ed Morrissey either

Of course not, Ed. They don’t have to. You see, you aren’t “credible”.

Here’s an example of how it works: Over at Reason, Treacher tried to educate someone by linking to one of your articles here. The response was a pathetic ad hominem:

Right. Hotair.com always come to mind whenever I think of credible investigative journalism.

Go back to Redstate.

See, no one has to bother to listen to your arguments; they just declare you irrelevant, stick their fingers in their ears and say “lalalalalala I can’t hear you lalalalalala”. Either that or they can use the Ransom Note Method to set up a straw man to knock down. It’s a Fielder’s Choice, really.