September 21st, 2010

As reported in Some insurers to halt new child-only policies (Washington Post 9/21/10), the health insurance industry has announced that it is discontinuing new child health insurance policies.

“[Prohibition of denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions] provides a very powerful incentive for a parent to wait until their child becomes very sick before purchasing their coverage.” – health insurance lobby spokesman Robert Zirkelbach (i.e., they’re discontinuing the policies because there’s no individual mandate)

After Thursday, insurance companies can’t deny coverage to kids with preexisting conditions,

So they’ve decided to eliminate all new child policy additions.

This is exactly the kind of problem that will be created

If individual insurance coverage isn’t mandated.

An estimated half million kids will be affected

And for health insurance coverage rejected.

This won’t be a problem when the indivdual mandate kicks into place,

But until then it will be commonplace.

Of course, if the indivdual mandate is overturned,

Insurance companies will be the ones to be burned.

They’ll still have to provide coverage to all takers,

Even system-gamers, freeloaders, and outright fakers.

In the meantime, it’s the children who’ll be hurt…

Unless reformers can figure out a way, this dirty industry trick to avert.

***

Here’s Countdown’s 9/21/10 report on the health insurance industry’s discontinuation of new child health insurance policies. Notice that the reason they give for doing so is the same excuse that would apply to everyone in the absence of an indivdual mandate.

And speaking of children, here’s a cartoon (from Kaiser Family Foundation, posted by Ezra Klein on his blog) that’s not just for kids. As Ezra points out, it’s an excellent intro to healthcare reform. Gee, doesn’t this make healthcare reform (even the dreaded indivdual mandate) sound reasonable? Too bad Congressional Republicans haven’t taken the time to watch it.

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Comments

One Response to “Think of the Children”

1. Newsericks » Blog Archive » Don’t Hate the Mandate (or: My HSA Stroke of Genius) Says:
   March 26th, 2011 at 10:32 pm

   [...] in the healthcare reform bill, the GOP’s corporate masters would have made them do it (viz. the health insurance industry justification for cutting child health benefits for proof of [...]

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