see Part 1
There was a time, 30+ years ago, when a “pre-existing condition” clause in a health insurance policy did not seem unreasonable to me.
I’m working from memory here, looking back to my twenties, when I was just out of school and starting to make my own way in the world. I had a few jobs that offered group insurance, and I recall shopping for an individual policy when they didn’t. At that time, premiums weren’t altogether out of reach for a healthy person with a paycheck.
I’m sure I read at least one plan that excluded coverage for pre-existing conditions. Fair enough, I thought. For the likes of me, that might mean I broke my leg or caught strep throat the week before the policy was in effect. Of course the insurance company wouldn’t pay to treat an illness that didn’t happen on their watch!
Back then, I viewed illness and injury as temporary things. If they didn’t kill you, they could be cured, and then you could get on with your life. I had no concept of injuries that result in long-term disability; of chronic diseases like diabetes that require lifetime management and care.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Pre-Existing Conditions, Part 1
As of two days ago, most health plans will not be allowed to deny coverage or limit benefits to children on account of pre-existing conditions. More information
This is one provision of the Affordable Care Act that I’m really glad to see. I just wish it would kick in sooner for grownups. We have to wait until 2014 to get the same protection.
And of course there are politicians who think that mandated coverage of pre-existing conditions is a crazy idea, that it will put insurance companies out of business. In a recent speech, Mike Huckabee made a crack about trying to buy auto insurance for a car that was already wrecked. Months ago, when the health care bills were being debated in Congress, I heard Senator Ron Paul argue that nobody would sell homeowner’s insurance for a house that was on fire. I can’t give you a direct quote, but he finished up with something like: That’s not how insurance works. If we’re going to make them do that, maybe we should call it something else.
He may have a point, which I’ll explore in a moment. Before I go any farther, however, I should note that members of Congress and other federal employees have access to a range of health insurance plans, none of which have waiting periods or exclusions for pre-existing conditions.
This is one provision of the Affordable Care Act that I’m really glad to see. I just wish it would kick in sooner for grownups. We have to wait until 2014 to get the same protection.
And of course there are politicians who think that mandated coverage of pre-existing conditions is a crazy idea, that it will put insurance companies out of business. In a recent speech, Mike Huckabee made a crack about trying to buy auto insurance for a car that was already wrecked. Months ago, when the health care bills were being debated in Congress, I heard Senator Ron Paul argue that nobody would sell homeowner’s insurance for a house that was on fire. I can’t give you a direct quote, but he finished up with something like: That’s not how insurance works. If we’re going to make them do that, maybe we should call it something else.
He may have a point, which I’ll explore in a moment. Before I go any farther, however, I should note that members of Congress and other federal employees have access to a range of health insurance plans, none of which have waiting periods or exclusions for pre-existing conditions.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Religious Tolerance (?) in America
Since the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock, the country that we now know as the United States of America has been home to people who felt strongly about religion. The spiritual descendants of those early colonists are here today, along with a number of people who feel very strongly against religion. I suspect it’s all part of the same phenomenon, two sides of the same coin. So perhaps the seeds of our current discords have been there from the beginning.
Maybe Americans have always been incapable of believing anything in moderation. Dare I suggest that in this way, we are more like the people of the Middle East than we are like the people of Europe?
I mention Europe because the early settlers, the founders of those 13 colonies that would become the United States, came from there. I know, of course, that there were people here before the Europeans showed up; and people of all sorts have come from many other places in the intervening centuries. Still, much of what we used to call the “dominant” culture came from the colonists' European roots.
Lately I've thought maybe there was a fundamental difference in those Europeans who crossed the water to put down roots in the New World. I’ve seen some museum exhibits; I have a vague idea what trans-oceanic travel was like in those days, and it was no picnic. It took serious motivation to get on those ships, to leave behind the known world and venture into the new as a colonist, an explorer, a missionary. Every one of those people must have had an extraordinary need to conquer, some fervent belief, or a high sense of adventure; and perhaps some were so persecuted that they simply couldn’t stay where they were.
One could make the argument that everyone in Europe who had a capacity for living in moderation stayed home. Maybe that's why public discourse on religion is so much livelier in the U.S. than it seems to be on the other side of the Atlantic.
... although France's recent action to ban burqas appears to have ignited some sparks. More on that next time, perhaps.
Maybe Americans have always been incapable of believing anything in moderation. Dare I suggest that in this way, we are more like the people of the Middle East than we are like the people of Europe?
I mention Europe because the early settlers, the founders of those 13 colonies that would become the United States, came from there. I know, of course, that there were people here before the Europeans showed up; and people of all sorts have come from many other places in the intervening centuries. Still, much of what we used to call the “dominant” culture came from the colonists' European roots.
Lately I've thought maybe there was a fundamental difference in those Europeans who crossed the water to put down roots in the New World. I’ve seen some museum exhibits; I have a vague idea what trans-oceanic travel was like in those days, and it was no picnic. It took serious motivation to get on those ships, to leave behind the known world and venture into the new as a colonist, an explorer, a missionary. Every one of those people must have had an extraordinary need to conquer, some fervent belief, or a high sense of adventure; and perhaps some were so persecuted that they simply couldn’t stay where they were.
One could make the argument that everyone in Europe who had a capacity for living in moderation stayed home. Maybe that's why public discourse on religion is so much livelier in the U.S. than it seems to be on the other side of the Atlantic.
... although France's recent action to ban burqas appears to have ignited some sparks. More on that next time, perhaps.
Friday, September 10, 2010
On the Subject of Burning Books
Book burners give me the creeps.
I’ve been following the story of Terry Jones, the Florida preacher who announced plans to observe 9/11 with a “Burn the Koran Day.” As I write this, he appears to have called it off, but he may reconsider. I don’t know what he will do. But it gives me hope to see the range of people, from all areas of the political and religious spectrum, who have stood up and objected to his planned demonstration. Here’s a sampling:
A preacher on Fox News
John Kelso in the Austin American-Statesman
The Huffington Post
An Evangelical Christian website
Personally, I think book burners are about as low as the human race can go.
Of course, you’d expect to hear that from me. I’m crazy about books. I have three 8-foot bookcases in a fairly small house, a short pile of books on my nightstand, and more books in boxes that I can’t figure out where to put. I’ve loved books since I learned to read. Maybe even before that. I still have a few of my childhood favorites, and I treasure those books. I love them as much as I loved any pet I’ve owned. I know, in my rational mind, that books are inaminate objects. Just ink and paper, not alive and capable of loving back like a cat or a dog. But they’ve kept me warm through many a cold and lonely night. They contain characters who live in my imagination, and speak the wisdom of authors who are long gone, but in a sense immortal, because their words are still here.
I myself am an author. I have some idea what it takes to bring those words out and set them to paper. Writing a book is a lot like giving birth -- except that in my case, the gestation period was considerably longer.
I don’t have much respect for people who ban books. They do it, I suppose, when they don’t want others to find out what the book-banners don’t want them to know; or they don’t want others thinking what the book-banners don’t want them to think. Book banners are an affront to the American ideals of free speech and free expression.
Book burners have the same desire to squelch knowledge and expression, but they’re more into drama and violence. They don’t simply want to ban a book; they want to obliterate it. To take those words that someone composed with so much thought and turn them into smoke. To make sure that nobody will discover that book, years from now, in an attic or a library stack or a quirky used bookstore. They want to silence the voice, kill the ideas, and sear the flames into the public mind, in the hopes of sending a message to anyone who might dare to pose an unorthodox idea in the future.
Let me be clear here. I'm not talking about legal rights. If this preacher in Florida decides to go ahead with his Koran-burning, he has the right to stage that demonstration. Provided, of course, that any books destroyed were owned by the people that brought them to the fire. That means bought and paid for, or otherwise legally acquired. If they are snitched from libraries or bookstores, or taken by force from Muslims on the street, those who profess to be Christians need to review the Eighth Commandment.
I’ve been following the story of Terry Jones, the Florida preacher who announced plans to observe 9/11 with a “Burn the Koran Day.” As I write this, he appears to have called it off, but he may reconsider. I don’t know what he will do. But it gives me hope to see the range of people, from all areas of the political and religious spectrum, who have stood up and objected to his planned demonstration. Here’s a sampling:
A preacher on Fox News
John Kelso in the Austin American-Statesman
The Huffington Post
An Evangelical Christian website
Personally, I think book burners are about as low as the human race can go.
Of course, you’d expect to hear that from me. I’m crazy about books. I have three 8-foot bookcases in a fairly small house, a short pile of books on my nightstand, and more books in boxes that I can’t figure out where to put. I’ve loved books since I learned to read. Maybe even before that. I still have a few of my childhood favorites, and I treasure those books. I love them as much as I loved any pet I’ve owned. I know, in my rational mind, that books are inaminate objects. Just ink and paper, not alive and capable of loving back like a cat or a dog. But they’ve kept me warm through many a cold and lonely night. They contain characters who live in my imagination, and speak the wisdom of authors who are long gone, but in a sense immortal, because their words are still here.
I myself am an author. I have some idea what it takes to bring those words out and set them to paper. Writing a book is a lot like giving birth -- except that in my case, the gestation period was considerably longer.
I don’t have much respect for people who ban books. They do it, I suppose, when they don’t want others to find out what the book-banners don’t want them to know; or they don’t want others thinking what the book-banners don’t want them to think. Book banners are an affront to the American ideals of free speech and free expression.
Book burners have the same desire to squelch knowledge and expression, but they’re more into drama and violence. They don’t simply want to ban a book; they want to obliterate it. To take those words that someone composed with so much thought and turn them into smoke. To make sure that nobody will discover that book, years from now, in an attic or a library stack or a quirky used bookstore. They want to silence the voice, kill the ideas, and sear the flames into the public mind, in the hopes of sending a message to anyone who might dare to pose an unorthodox idea in the future.
Let me be clear here. I'm not talking about legal rights. If this preacher in Florida decides to go ahead with his Koran-burning, he has the right to stage that demonstration. Provided, of course, that any books destroyed were owned by the people that brought them to the fire. That means bought and paid for, or otherwise legally acquired. If they are snitched from libraries or bookstores, or taken by force from Muslims on the street, those who profess to be Christians need to review the Eighth Commandment.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
When There's No Insurance...
I know a married couple who are getting along without health insurance and say they prefer it that way. They don’t get sick often. When they need a doctor or medical treatment, they pay cash. They don’t carry any kind of insurance, except on their vehicles (being working musicians, they do spend a lot of time on the road.) These folks have made no secret of their views in recent months. They believe insurance is a dirty game, and choose not to play it.
I can respect that. My own feelings about the insurance industry aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy. If I had to sum it up, I’d sigh and say, “Can’t live with ’em; can’t live without ’em.”
But I know plenty of musicians, artists, and small-business owners who don’t have health insurance. In most cases, I don’t get the idea that they are happily paying cash for their medical expenses. They simply avoid going to doctors. They don’t get checkups. If they get sick, they try folk remedies or just wait for it to go away. And if, God forbid, they suffer a serious injury or an illness that can’t be cured with a few cups of herb tea, they go to the emergency room. Where they often get decent treatment. And then their friends get together and organize a benefit show or a silent auction to help them pay the bills.
In the past twenty years, I’ve attended more of these benefit events than I can count. I’ve served on organizing committees, donated items to auction, and been a performing act at one or two. Musicians in my community spend so much time playing benefit shows for free, I wonder how they make any money at all. But most are glad to do it, when asked. They know that, fate being what it is, it could be their own bills that need paying next time around.
I used to think of all this as an informal support network for people who were “outside” the health care system. But two years ago, as my spouse and I were discussing how much we could afford to donate to a friend who fell off a horse and broke herself in several places, it hit me that I’d been looking at it wrong.
It takes a great deal of time and energy to stage a successful benefit. With few exceptions, all that work is done by unpaid volunteers. And folks, this is PART of the system.
I’m lucky enough to have health insurance, but it doesn’t come cheap. My employer pays most of the premium. I kick in a share for my dependents. And over the years, in order to keep us insured, I’ve made some choices I wish I hadn’t had to make.
There are people who are much worse off than I am, and some of my tax dollars are used to provide health care for them.
And then our crazy, dysfunctional system counts on me and the rest of my crowd to dip into what time and money we have left, to take care of people who fall through the cracks: the hundreds of thousands of Americans who can’t afford health insurance (or can’t buy it at any price) but are too well off to qualify for public assistance.
Ah, well. For your friends, you do what you have to.
But wouldn’t it be better if all the people you care about could afford their own health care, and you could show your friendship by dropping off a casserole or offering to mow the yard while they’re laid up?
I can respect that. My own feelings about the insurance industry aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy. If I had to sum it up, I’d sigh and say, “Can’t live with ’em; can’t live without ’em.”
But I know plenty of musicians, artists, and small-business owners who don’t have health insurance. In most cases, I don’t get the idea that they are happily paying cash for their medical expenses. They simply avoid going to doctors. They don’t get checkups. If they get sick, they try folk remedies or just wait for it to go away. And if, God forbid, they suffer a serious injury or an illness that can’t be cured with a few cups of herb tea, they go to the emergency room. Where they often get decent treatment. And then their friends get together and organize a benefit show or a silent auction to help them pay the bills.
In the past twenty years, I’ve attended more of these benefit events than I can count. I’ve served on organizing committees, donated items to auction, and been a performing act at one or two. Musicians in my community spend so much time playing benefit shows for free, I wonder how they make any money at all. But most are glad to do it, when asked. They know that, fate being what it is, it could be their own bills that need paying next time around.
I used to think of all this as an informal support network for people who were “outside” the health care system. But two years ago, as my spouse and I were discussing how much we could afford to donate to a friend who fell off a horse and broke herself in several places, it hit me that I’d been looking at it wrong.
It takes a great deal of time and energy to stage a successful benefit. With few exceptions, all that work is done by unpaid volunteers. And folks, this is PART of the system.
I’m lucky enough to have health insurance, but it doesn’t come cheap. My employer pays most of the premium. I kick in a share for my dependents. And over the years, in order to keep us insured, I’ve made some choices I wish I hadn’t had to make.
There are people who are much worse off than I am, and some of my tax dollars are used to provide health care for them.
And then our crazy, dysfunctional system counts on me and the rest of my crowd to dip into what time and money we have left, to take care of people who fall through the cracks: the hundreds of thousands of Americans who can’t afford health insurance (or can’t buy it at any price) but are too well off to qualify for public assistance.
Ah, well. For your friends, you do what you have to.
But wouldn’t it be better if all the people you care about could afford their own health care, and you could show your friendship by dropping off a casserole or offering to mow the yard while they’re laid up?
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