Pre-Existing Condition Craziness Highlights the Need for Health Insurance Reform

While the storm continues to circulate around proposed health care reform, it is clear it should be called health INSURANCE reform. And while "death panel" arguments make the rounds of the conservative pundits, they fail to address the "death panels" already existing in the form of, once again, insurance companies. Take a look at some reports about crazy insurance company opinions on "pre-existing conditions."

An example from earlier this week comes from HuffPo. Did you know that in eight states, and the District of Columbia, domestic violence is a pre-existing condition. Not only is it bad enough to be beaten by your spouse, this just adds insult to injury.

To be honest, it makes sense when you consider insurance companies care only about the bottom line: if you are married to someone who has beaten you in the past, you're more likely to get beaten again. Therefore, you are more expensive to insure.

While many may think that someone will leave a relationship once beaten, that's not the case. Speaking with a psychologist, many of these relationships are co-dependent, and the person taking the beating will return given reassurances by the beater that "it won't happen again." It usually does, however.

It's also clear that women are subjected to a pregnancy surcharge. Because women can get pregnant, as described in a recent Perspective series entry on NPR, they usually are charged more for health insurance. The younger (and more fertile) are charged still more. For example, women in California pay an average of 39% more than men.

That's just the start of it. More private insurance policies are being written without maternity coverage, period. As Anthem Blue Cross said:

"The point of insurance is to insure against catastrophic care costs. That's what you're trying to aggregate and pool for such things as heart attacks and cancer. "Having a child is a matter of choice. Dealing with an adult onset illness, such as diabetes, heart disease breast or prostate cancer, is not a matter of choice."

Talk to the Duggars.

C-sections are also considered pre-existing conditions. Take a look at this New York Times story from 2008. Golden Rule Insurance Company rejected Peggy Robertson's application for health coverage in 2007 because she had a prior C-section. As doctors will tell you, once you have a C-section, it is more likely any later pregnancies will require one. It's all about the bottom line.

Yesterday, a Harvard study was released linking 45,000 deaths a year to lack of insurance. Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, from Harvard University and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program said on Democracy Now! this morning:

The way to afford Universal Health Care is to go to Medicare for All, also known as Single Payer, also known as non-profit national health insurance. That the way every other developed nation achieve universal health care. They spend less than we do; in fact, the average for other developed nations is about 1/2 the per capita cost that we have. People in Canada and Western Europe live longer, they don't have to worry about having medical bankruptcies because their health insurance din't pay for things, so the non-profit Medicare for All approach is the only affordable way to cover all Americans. Of course, the insurance industry hates it. And when you put an insurance industry vice-president in charge of writing a bill, you shouldn't be surprised to see that the insurance industry profits are protected, but American lives are sacrificed.

Liz Fowler is the person that Woolhandler was talking about. Woolhandler went further, saying that insurance companies are unnecessary, and add nothing to the equation of health care. Realistically, what do they add, besides adding cash to their execs' pockets and those of their shareholders? Readers?