Preexisting Conditions Afflict Up To Half Of Americans Under 65: Study

A government study released today shows that up to 50 percent of Americans under age 65 have some type of pre-existing health condition.

The study predicts that 30 percent of currently healthy Americans will likely develop a pre-existing condition over the next eight years.

Under the Affordable Care Act -- the President's signature health care reform legislation -- policies set to be in place by 2014, these 129 million Americans can receive health coverage despite their previous conditions; if the new law is repealed, millions could risk losing health care or being forced to pay more.

The Department of Health and Human Services has released these figures on the same day Republican leaders plan to debate a bill to repeal the new health care law entirely. GOP leaders claim the study is an effort to sway American public opinion in favor of the current law.

From the Washington Post:

Republicans immediately disparaged the analysis as "public relations." An insurance industry spokesman acknowledged that sick people can have trouble buying insurance on their own but said the analysis overstates the problem.

Conditions insurance companies may consider "pre-existing" range from heart disease, cancer and diabetes to asthma, high blood pressure and arthritis. Uninsured people with such conditions now have access to health insurance through a temporary Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, which serves as a bridge until 2014.

Before the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies determined whether something was considered a pre-existing condition, and could thus refuse to sell a policy or charge two or three times more for coverage.

Comments

[dadw5boys]

02:05 AM on 01/20/2011

Did you guy search and look at the list of PreExisting conditions ?

Do it they are wild. Insurance Company can deny everyone and claim they had one and lied. Unknown medical problems is a preexisting condition too.

[dadw5boys]

02:02 AM on 01/20/2011

I exist therefore I have a condition.

[CanadjunBeef]

10:51 PM on 01/19/2011

I would like the cons here to explain to me why people should be denied regular health care based on -- poor health. Don't unhealthy people need MORE care? But that is of course bad for profits which, unlike sick people, are important.

[CanadjunBeef]

10:41 PM on 01/19/2011

The very core of private insurance is cherry-picking. Sick people are bad risks, so they are excluded, in advance or even after they have insurance. In a free market system of health care, the people most in need of care will get the least care. That's why governments are heavily involved in health care in almost every industrialized country. Market values work opposite human values when it comes to health care.

[yankhadenuf]

03:29 PM on 01/19/2011

Urge Your Representative and Senators to Protect Health Care Reform!


http://capwiz.com/thearc/callalert/index.tt?alertid=22130521

[Cool Bam]

03:23 PM on 01/19/2011

Less then 1% of "Americans" are denied coverage period. As someone that thinks insurance regulation didn't begin to address the true issue of health care costs (which is the cost of health care), this kind of weak propaganda will back fire as the Right rips it limb from limb. Why mislead when the facts are on your side. In fact , why debate it at all. People are sick to death of the HC debate, that worked against reform until the day it passed, and it works against the Pubs now they are the ones that are forcing the issue

[Cool Bam]

04:01 PM on 01/19/2011

Not to mention, its very likely HHS will again (remember the Medicare thing?) come under investigation as to why they did this report. They narrowly avoided having the Medicare mailing ruled "pure political propaganda" and had major pieces or it ruled "inaccurate". It's entirely possible this IS a violation and constitutes "pure political propaganda". Imagine the bloodsport of the Right having that headline.

[CanadjunBeef]

10:43 PM on 01/19/2011

Fewer than (not "less then") one percent of Americans are denied health insurance? Yet somehow 50 million are uninsured. Isn't that about 17 per cent?

[oilfield]

02:22 PM on 01/19/2011

http://biggovhealth.org/stories
nightmares of the uk healthcare system.....

[tj101]

03:08 PM on 01/19/2011

nightmares of the US system are ten-fold.

What's your point?

[CanadjunBeef]

10:44 PM on 01/19/2011

His point is to distract and distort.

[yankhadenuf]

03:28 PM on 01/19/2011

Americans without healthcare coverage don't complain- they're dead

[cbaratta]

01:02 PM on 01/19/2011

Insurance companies can still use preexisting conditions to reject people until 2014, but after that they won’t be allowed to. And seeing the vast number of us who are vulnerable to rejection highlights how important that is. Having had cancer shouldn’t mean you can never get insurance again—but this shows starkly that it’s not just the most serious conditions that will keep you from being insured. It’s…well, these days it’s just about anything the insurance companies want to say it is. And that’s wrong.

Charles Baratta
http://www.merchantloans.com

[dadw5boys]

02:03 AM on 01/20/2011

But people can go to Medicaid now

[T Pile]

08:08 PM on 01/22/2011

Not in Texas, not for long anyway!

[Shannon Cunningham]

12:23 PM on 01/19/2011

6 Billion people suffer from a preexisting condition known at "Birth"

[HerrMonk]

12:08 PM on 01/19/2011

How do you develop a pre-existing condition?

[CanadjunBeef]

10:45 PM on 01/19/2011

It existed prior to applying for insurance currently. But the joke is still good.

[yougg]

07:12 AM on 01/19/2011

This is exactly why we need a single payer system. We are WAY OVER medicated. Doctors get kickbacks for prescribing drugs. If you have insurance the doctor will work your insurance. Our preventive care sucks in this country. Our doctors do no rotation in gereatrics, and in general they do a marginal job treating the elderly. Doctors know very little about nutrition. Cuba (Communist Cuba) has good preventative medicine. Maybe we could learn something from them.

[massjim]

07:43 AM on 01/19/2011

The single payer being the minority of people in the country who actually pay taxes.

[SercaneT]

11:07 AM on 01/19/2011

We already have a single-payer system in operation in this country. It is functioning pretty well and fully funded by its beneficiaries, many of whom are high-risk for medical problems.

It is called Medicare.

[oilfield]

02:52 PM on 01/19/2011

yes and the single part is getting more and more accurate every day.

[oilfield]

02:54 PM on 01/19/2011

canada spends 30b a year on medicine for its single payer program....we have roughly 9x the population.....then you take in to account that it is "free" so 270b a year in medicine......buy big pharma stock it will be the floodgates opening.

[CanadjunBeef]

10:36 PM on 01/19/2011

Wrong. Canadian health care does not cover pharmaceuticals other than those administered in-clinic. or in-hospital. I live here, I shoukd know.

[spytheweb]

01:17 AM on 01/19/2011

"50 percent of Americans under age 65 have some type of pre-existing health condition."

This is a gold mine for health insurance. What they do is have you fill out a application and file it away, you pay premiums for 20, 30, 40 years. One day you or a family member comes up with cancer. Now they look over your application, they find when you were in grade school you were sick and had to take some type of medicine, you never put that on your application, you're denied.

How did they find out? They employ full time people to find these things and give bonuses to who find the most, suckers. On your application you said yes to any and all of your medical history. Now that you're denied those premiums you paid for 40 years are also non refundable, gold mines!

[marlaannchristenson]

01:10 AM on 01/19/2011

Of course up to 50 percent of Americans under age 65 have some type of pre-existing health condition. Why? We are humans. What is considered a pre-existing condition? acne, headaches, sinus infections, and in some cases - having been the victim of domestic violence. For someone to reach their mid-twenties and not have something that would be considered a pre-existing condition would indicate: 1) lack of medical care during childhood and young adulthood; 2) avoidance of medical care during childhood and young adulthood.

[themainpoint]

12:31 AM on 01/19/2011

Right. Because "preexisting condition = anything that might mean your insurance company would actually have to deliver on anything but a check up (which tells them if something is not right and they better to find a way to drop you?)

It seems insurance has become pointless for many. If you are well, they take your money. If you get ill, they look for reasons to not pay.

Public Option or single payer now!

[pwd2008]

11:27 PM on 01/18/2011

In mid 2009, the Senate Select committee on heath care reform came out with a study in support of the health care law where they stated:

" A recent national survey estimated that 12.6 million nonelderly adults5 – 36 percent of those who tried to purchase health insurance directly from an insurance company in the individual insurance market – were in fact discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition in the previous three years."

It's interesting now that that figure has ballooned 10 fold to 129 million people. The timing of this new information (just before the congressional debate on repeal of the health care law) is suspect.

The numbers are either made up or else the definition of pre-existing has just been expanded to the common cold.

[Kevins]

02:01 AM on 01/19/2011

The way that a specific pre-existing condition is handled in an application for individual health insurance has been solely at the discretion of the underwriting department of the health insurance company. Of course, a pre-existing condition of cancer ought to be treated differently than a pre-existing condition of the tendency to develop a cold: just as Diabetes ought to be treated much differently from hay fever. But as it actually works: pre-existing conditions are mainly used--very effectively--to deny payment, drop coverage, or deny coverage altogether--to you--if that is most profitable for the insurance company.
These are for-profit companies. For you, insurance is a gamble: you don't know what will happen to you or if you will ever 'use' your insurance. But to the Insurance company it is not a gamble--it is a certainty according to the odds that they must make money, just as there is no such thing as 'gambling' to a casino. There is only profit motive. These for-profit corporations are merely ruthless in protecting themselves against your risk--if you are actually due a 'pay-out' then all bets are off.

[pwd2008]

06:41 PM on 01/19/2011

Your explaination is correct - no disagreement.

The issue is with the revised estimates of people under 65 having pre-existing conditions.
It's not 129 million unless the goverment stretches the definition to the breaking point for political purposes.