Might Clinton Sort Out The Problem Of Health Insurance For Those With Pre-existing Conditions?

By Author: Donald Saunders
Total Articles: 84
Comment this article

With the US Presidential Election in full swing it is no surprise to see that health care and in particular health insurance is high on the agenda and, for a lot of us, the potential for solving the problem of affordable insurance cover for people suffering from pre-existing conditions might make Hillary Clinton's plan an attractive choice. But will it work?

As with the majority of plans it sounds wonderful and promises to offer new choices for individuals who currently have health insurance and also for the forty-seven million US citizens who are presently without health insurance. In addition, it promises to lower your premiums and give you increased security of cover. For people suffering from pre-existing conditions it also promises to "end discrimination based on pre-existing conditions or expectations of illness".

Hillary Clinton's plan to tackle America's health insurance needs calls upon insurers to work with patients and employers to offer a high quality of health care at an affordable price and also calls upon government to reform the health care system in order to both raise the quality of care and lower ...
... costs.

This of course is precisely what we all want to see but if it were really that easy why is the health care system in such a mess today and why are costs increasing instead of decreasing?

The truth is that this is merely the latest in a growing list of proposals to reform the health insurance system and is pie in the sky. In effect it is nothing more than a political document which is extremely well written and excellently presented and will no doubt to a certain extent achieve its objective, which is quite simply to drum up votes. It will not however do anything to improve the health care system as it is simple unworkable.

Health insurance today is very big business and it has very little to do with providing health care and a great deal to do with making money for the insurers. Now you can of course talk to the insurers all day long however, unless the US government is going to throw a considerable sum of money at the problem then costs will go on increasing.

Anyone who has experience of private medical care abroad will know very well that much of the cost of providing care at home represents profits for the insurance companies and not the actual cost of providing care. You need only seek major medical treatment in any of the many superb hospitals in the Far East for example to realize that you can obtain the very highest quality of care at a mere fraction of the cost of buying that same care in the US. And if you think that the quality of care abroad is not as good as that in the US then think again because a lot of the medical facilities throughout the Far East today are staffed by very highly qualified surgeons and doctors and have some of the most modern equipment to be found anywhere in the world.

Now you can talk about working with the providers to lower costs but the truth of the matter is that it is far from being in their interests to do so. Costs will remain at their present high levels and indeed will continue to increase until the US government takes over the responsibility for the provision of the majority of health care in the US.