Huckabee Opposes Insurance For People With Pre-Existing Conditions

[meegbear]

When Republicans attack health care reform, Democrats like to counter by accusing Republicans of wanting to repeal a law that requires insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. According to Republican Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, that's exactly right. People with pre-existing conditions, he explains are like houses that have already burned down.

"It sounds so good, and it's such a warm message to say we're not gonna deny anyone from a preexisting condition," Huckabee explained at the Value Voters Summit today. "Look, I think that sounds terrific, but I want to ask you something from a common sense perspective. Suppose we applied that principle (to) our property insurance. And you can call your insurance agent and say, "I'd like to buy some insurance for my house." He'd say, "Tell me about your house." "Well sir, it burned down yesterday, but I'd like to insure it today." And he'll say "I'm sorry, but we can't insure it after it's already burned." Well, no preexisting conditions."

A moment of candor from the evangelical former Arkansas governor. Hard to say how that comports with voting on values, though.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/huckabee-opposes-insurance-for-people-with-pre-existing-conditions.php?ref=fpblg

[Recursion]

1. He's talked about this before

He's not against treating people with pre-existing conditions. He's against making insurance the financial conduit that happens through. He's sticking with the GOP mantra that costs by providers are the problem.

[Klukie]

6. Thanks for the distinction

[davidinalameda]

8. so he wants those of us with preexisting conditions to pay out of pocket?

we're the ones who need insurance the most so we can afford treatment

[Recursion]

13. He wants providers to do a lot more pro-bono work

And to cut costs for treatments in general.

[louis-t]

20. Repugs want everyone to work for less.

Except them.

[Recursion]

21. Basically, yes

He wants doctors, nurses, administrators, pharma, and medical device manufacturers to make less money than they do now, or at least charge less money than they do now.

[Maru Kitteh]

57. He wants nurses to make less? Suck it, Huck. n/t

[Recursion]

73. He wants nurses to charge less

Or rather, hospitals and other providers to charge less for nursing services.

That wouldn't have to mean nurses make less. Though, yes, in the real world it probably would.

[geardaddy]

37. That's why Target's motto is

"Expect More. Pay Less."

[femrap]

75. And typically they have a

family member on SS or Disability. They complain about taxes and employ undocumented immigrants. I know. This is part of my family...I keep wondering if I'm really adopted....:rofl:

[davidinalameda]

50. good luck with that

[Recursion]

64. I didn't say his idea was good or workable

I just wanted to clear up what I understand his idea to be.

[Yupster]

53. I would think that would be the role of government

In Texas we have a high risk health insurance pool so those who can't get insurance can get covered through the government.

The whole theory of insurance is easiest toi understand withg life insurance. The life insurance table says 1 of 100 people of this group will die next year. So if everyone puts in $ 1,000 a year the family of the person who dies gets $ 100,000.

That works, but it depends on the pool of people.

If four people come into the system who are likely to live less than three months, then the insurance pool is blown. You have to quadruple everyone's premiums.

The way the theory of insurance works currently is that everyone who asks to be part of the pool gets a medical exam. If they are deemed to increase the risk to the pool, they are not accepted.

That's the way insurnce is supposed to work.

[WinkyDink]

66. Well, of course he's not against bleeding these people dry, pardon the expression.

[Recursion]

69. Neither is Medicaid

It's a tough call for me. On the one hand, I can understand the argument that the patient should pay as much as he or she can before we tap the taxpayers for the cost of treatment. On the other hand, it's like bankruptcy law: we're all better off if the patient, when he is well, can still get back on his feet and isn't destitute. There's a "right" balance in there somewhere.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. I don't suppose Jesus would have helped anyone with a pre-existing condition, now would he?

:wtf:

[meegbear]

4. Well Lazarus was dead, so he was pretty much off the books

[bluethruandthru]

3. Wow! quite a comparison...

I can't say I'm surprised at his views. Heartless un-christian creep.

[kestrel91316]

5. What's really funny is, I betcha the man and most of his loved ones

have pre-existing conditions of some sort or another.......

[sinkingfeeling]

19. He did have type II diabetes before he lost all that weight.

[davidinalameda]

7. I guess his analogy makes sense

in some fucked up bizarro world

[WinkyDink]

67. Not really. The owner of the burned house can still buy insurance on his next dwelling.

Try getting a second body.

[aquart]

9. So he's saying someone with asthma is already dead?

Sounds like a death panel to me.

[Newest Reality]

10. A house is not alive!

In short, to me, he says, "Profits are in danger here and we all know that people and their health issues are not the priority in this country. I am here to go blah, blah, vigorously, in defense of what is vital and important to those whom I represent. You know, real people, not all the useless eaters."

[Lorien]

63. A house that has burned down is no longer a house. His analogy doesn't work

A burned down house would equal a dead person. House with termites might equal a sick person. It can still be saved if measures are taken. It's obvious from his piss poor analogy that he puts the value of property far above that of human life-which is the opposite of being a Christian (or so I'm told).

[4lbs]

11. Too bad his analogy doesn't make sense.

A house that is "burned down" can no longer be lived in. It doesn't function anymore.

The correct analogy would be trying to buy health or life insurance for someone who is already dead.

[Recursion]

15. I think he's right about insurance even if he doesn't mean to be or know why he is

Insurance has to hedge based on risk; if a condition is pre-existing there's not "risk", there's certainty.

The current plan tries to ameliorate that with a mandate; that's one way.

All in all, Huckabee represents a wing of the GOP we can work with on fiscal matters. If we can work on provider cost controls with them we might get some traction on increasing access.

[4lbs]

25. Then what about the certainty in life insurance? Everyone is certain to die.

Death is the pre-existing condition. Life insurance's "risk" is about WHEN a person dies and is likely to based on many factors. Hence the actuarial tables they use.

So, even a health insurance plan for people with pre-existing conditions can be built on both certainty and risk.

People who've had cancer but are now in remission have pre-existing conditions according to the health insurers. They can be insured. The "risk" is the possibility of recurrence of the cancer, based on many factors.

One way to control health costs is to make it financially easy for people to get checkups several times a year. If a person sees a doctor 3 or 4 times a year, any illness that is discovered is likely to be in the initial stages, and very treatable with low to moderate cost, and the prognosis is often good.

Meanwhile, what if they only visit the doctor once every couple of years, or only when they fell ill, because they can't afford it? A discovered illness is then likely to have been festering for a year or more, and treatment for it becomes much, much, more expensive, and the prognosis more grim.

Another way is to give people rebates for eating healthy. Help them buy fresh, healthy, fruits, vegetables, and organic bread. Help them buy good multivitamins. Spending $120 million a year to help people eat healthy now beats spending $1.2 billion a year in 10 years. Then their unhealthy eating caught up to them and is giving them all sorts of medical problems like diabetees, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc.

[Recursion]

27. Yes, but nobody has eternal life insurance

You get life insurance against the risk of dying in the next decade (or whatever).

One way to control health costs is to make it financially easy for people to get checkups several times a year. If a person sees a doctor 3 or 4 times a year, any illness that is discovered is likely to be in the initial stages, and very treatable with low to moderate cost, and the prognosis is often good.

Yup. That's why HCR made preventive care free (I think that kicks in for everyone in 2013).

Another way is to give people rebates for eating healthy. Help them buy fresh, healthy, fruits, vegetables, and organic bread. Help them buy good multivitamins.

I love the "rebate for health" idea, though we have to be careful not to let it turn into "rebate for avoiding medical care".

[southmost]

51. exactly

so he's basically saying if you have a preexisting condition you may as well be dead

just like Alan Grayson stated repukes want sick people to die quickly

[ingac70]

12. Huck preaches for Supply Side Jesus. n/t

[bluestateguy]

14. Mike Huckabee is a criminal coddler

Wayne DuMond and Maurice Clemmons.

[ProSense]

16. So he opposes health care for Dick Cheney? n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

17. No, idiot, it's like having a house's roof ripped off by a hurricane. Should we deny homeowners'

insurance or cancel that insurance as soon as a claim is put in for damages? Isn't the whole point of insurance to pay out if something unexpected comes along?

[Scuba]

18. Sharing risk, except for the risky is the for-profit way of health insurance.

[Recursion]

22. Someone with a pre-existing condition doesn't represent "risk"

He represents certainty of payouts. If there's a "risk" of payouts, there are ways to hedge that risk and insurance companies can take the person on . If there's a certainty of payouts, it's not really "insurance" anymore.

[Scuba]

23. If they take on a family, and then won't cover a newborn, that's dumping......

...I was dumped multiple times when my 20 year-old daughter contracted a serious ailment.

They cancelled our policy EVERY TIME A CLAIM WAS MADE. Through persistence we were able to be reinstated, only to be cancelled again when the next claim was filed.

Please note that my premiums were always paid in advance.

[Silver Swan]

31. In reality

A "pre-existing condition" doesn't have to even exist, or present a health threat to be used as a reason to deny insurance. If an individual was ever evaluated to rule out a condition, and such condition was found to not exist, or found to not present a health threat, the very fact that the evaluation occurred is considered evidence of a "pre-existing condition."

At least, that is what happened to my daughter when she tried to obtain private health insurance. Fortunately, she has since had employer-sponsored insurance.

I have the same "pre-existing condition" as my daughter. In my 64 years of life, it has caused NO problems.

[starroute]

24. This is part of the problem with having "insurance" in the picture at all

The idea of single payer is that everyone pays into a pool which then provides health care for everyone -- the temporarily sick, the chronically sick, and those who are healthy now but might be sick in the future.

Insurance, on the other hand, is written with an eye to profit -- and they do their calculations on the basis of the individual. If they think you're likely to pay in more than you take out, they'll insure you gladly. But if they think you're going to take out more than you put in, they have no interest in you.

Huckabee is going along with that. He's saying if you'd cost the insurance companies money, you should forget about it and either pay your own way or rely on charity -- because the insurance companies are in business to make a profit.

Which is true, of course -- and is exactly why our health is too important to be entrusted to insurance companies.

[Klukie]

30. +1

[OmahaBlueDog]

43. Not correct

Insurance is a system in which everyone pays into a pool which then provides payouts if certain outcomes arise. Death. Crop failure. Fire. You get the idea. In order to grow the pool, the funds are often invested. They may be placed in banks, invested in real estate, invested in bonds...again, you get the idea.

Insurance is not, of necessity, written with an eye to profit. Flood insurance, for example, is not written with profit in mind. Mutual companies and insurance societies return funds in excess of expenses to their membership. Only stock companies (companies constituted as corporations that go to the markets for capital and whose stockholders expect returns in the form of dividends or increased stock value) are written with an eye to profit.

What you, I think, mean to say, is that health care should be considered a social entitlement for all, regardless of income or severity of condition.

[Deep13]

26. Remember in the Bible how Jesus only healed those who paid in advance?

Yeah, neither do I. JC was pretty clear about charity and greed though. I bring this up because Huckster is a religious man.

[OmahaBlueDog]

44. JC shares his views on greed

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Matthew 19:24 (KJV)

[county worker]

28. Health Insurance is not insurance like home owner insurance is.

If your house is on fire it doesn't need long term treatment. It is a one time event. Health insurance is the way we pay for treatment. It is like gambling. You pay and pay and hope you don't need it.

What is the name of the value by which right wingers have no compassion for anyone but themselves?

That name Values Voters makes me want to puke!

[Recursion]

33. OK, but you can't get private flood insurance in New Orleans

That's why the Federal Government does that.

[Raksha]

46. +1 Those are some pretty strange values, all right! n/t

[City Lights]

29. Sick people deserve to die, or go broke trying to stay alive, eh, Fuckabee?

:nuke:

I HATE republiCONS.

Has your spawn killed any dogs lately, Fuckabee?

[indepat]

52. The Fuckabee moniker doesn't sufficiently capture holistic evil, but then, what would?

;)

[phleshdef]

32. Yet another illustration of the vast differences between President Obama and his challengers to be.

[harun]

34. How the hell can supposedly "religious" people like Huckabee get this

one THAT WRONG.

Being a human being means you WILL NEED HEALTH CARE and being a human being is a pre-existing condition.

Are there any "religious" politicians who are not hypocrites, or are they all just using it for their own advantage and are completely full of it.

[davidwparker]

35. Wow. Sounds like he really is a FORMER Baptist preacher.

Unreal.

[OmahaBlueDog]

36. This problem came up in Workers Compensation after WWII

The solution many states came up with were SIFs (second injury funds).

Workers coming back from the war with injuries were having difficulty getting hired. The SIFs were established to pay claims where there would be a legitimate question of causation of the injury (was the back injury from lifting, or did it reaggrivate an old wound). The SIFs were funded by (big gasp here) a small premium surcharge.

I understand conceptually that you don't insure a burrning house. That said, there are lots of ways to handle pre-existing conditions. You could, for example, exclude the condition, but include everything else - and let a second fund pick up expenses for the PEC. Or, you could exclude the condition for a time frame (say 1 year). Or, you could accept and manage the pre-existing condition -- get diabetics into diet and excerise programs, for example.

[Monique1]

39. My daughter went to the doctor for ab pain over a year ago

She thought maybe her female problem was coming back. No, she was pregnant. The insurance company refused to pay her doctor visit because she had a pre-existing condition.

[Dappleganger]

38. People are not property insurance.

Fuck you, Huckabee!!

[damntexdem]

40. Hey, OK Mike, we won't offer health insurance to people who are already dead.

After all, your analogy would appear to apply to cadavers, not living human beings.

[NMMNG]

41. Pre-existing conditions are not a burned down house

To the typical insurance carrier a "pre-existing condition" is a broken window, a leaky faucet, or any of thousands (maybe millions) of other such conditions. What home insurer would deny you for one or two such situations?


But health insurance companies deny people for such things every single day. Have migraines? Denied. Allergies? Denied. A few pounds overweight? Denied. A minor bout of depression 10 years ago? Denied. Chronic acne? Denied. (All real reasons people have been denied health insurance) The list goes on and on. It's insane the way health insurance companies can deny you for any number of (often minor) pre-existing conditions. Who among us doesn't have any pre-existing conditions--at least as defined by insurance corporations?

Huckabee is full of shit when he tries to claim that insurance corporations are being forced to accept "burned down houses". He's being heartless when he insists people shouldn't get insurance if they have pre-existing conditions. He's apparently of the mind (as they are) that they're in existence merely to collect premiums and never pay anything out. Fuck that.

[Joanne98]

42. Jesus HATES fake Christians!

[vssmith]

54. If he is Christian then I am proud not to be one

[Raksha]

45. In other words, he wants people with pre-existing conditions to hurry up and die

if they can't pay for medical care out-of-pocket.

[Recursion]

65. Well, no

Huck is not against social programs; he's taken some heat from other Republicans for that. He's actually more willing to spend government money than some Democrats are. His "idea" for health care is to greatly increase the amount of pro-bono and charity-funded work done.

[Doctor_J]

47. Wow. Jesus's own candidate says, "Let the sick die"

I'm sure he'll be a speaker at the "values voter" meeting

[Vinca]

48. What a batshit crazy, mean, nasty, hateful charlatan who is

masquerading as a Christian. A total asshole.

[Qutzupalotl]

49. Okay, now I know he's definitely running for president.

Notice how he sides with opponents of healthcare reform and even takes the industry perspective. Couple that with the sweet deal from Fox News to keep his name recognition high while avoiding most of the scrutiny and speculation that announced candidates get, and I'm willing to bet he'll be the nominee.

He's a heartless cretin with a moderate image, and that makes him as dangerous as W.

K&R to expose this clown.

[ThoughtCriminal]

55. Insurance Companies believe ALL conditions are pre-existing

Broke your leg when you were 7? That means that the bone cancer you developed at 40 was a pre-existing condition.

There is no limit to how unreasonable they will get to avoid paying a claim.

[donheld]

56. Are these conservatives all running to be president of Idioticstan?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

58. It should be the state's resposibility to provide health care.

An insurance company is a bookmaker. Never lose sight of that.

Because America doesn't have decent health care, people are forced to gamble that they will get sick (I almost typed "to gamble that they won't get sick", but that's wrong - insurance pays out when you are ill).

The state has a responsibility to ensure that everyone has access to decent healthcare. But the right way to do that is not to lean on the bookies to accept losing bets, it's to ensure that people don't need to take the gamble.


Don't hold the fact that insurance companies don't provide coverage for all against them; do hold against them the fact that they lobby against the government doing so to protect their trade.

[DearAbby]

59. A human life is compared to a House...

Isn't that special. I wonder if Jesus thought that way as well.

[gauguin57]

60. Huckabee has clearly gained some of his weight back. He'd better keep his mouth shut ...

... cuz once he hits the campaign trail, all those chicken pot pies are gonna give him some major pre-existing conditions.

[Hugabear]

61. Remember, if you get sick, die quickly.

That's the GOP health care plan. Never forget it.

[WinkyDink]

70. It is the Corporatist credo. More people need to be dead; this will help the economy.

[Lorien]

62. How "Christian" of him

:eyes: His analogy works if a person is DEAD. They still give insurance to homes in flood zones and tornado ally-and most people have a choice about what area they'll live in or if they'll even own a house. None of us "choose" to have cancer.

[WinkyDink]

68. So, we've had the "car insurance" "analogy" from Obama, and now the "home-owners insurance"

"analogy" from Huckabee.

Too bad for either man that "being alive" is not analogous to "driving a car" or "owning a home," the first's being the sine qua non.

[malaise]

71. I hope his heavy weight of a few years ago

comes back to bite his ignorant ass.

[_ed_]

72. Fine,

Obesity is a pre-existing condition that has an awful effect on overall health. No insurance for Huckabee or any of the members of his overweight family. Well, let me be more generous: we'll let them have insurance if they pay 5-6x normal premiums.

[femrap]

74. And he calls himself

a 'Christian.' I'm sure Jesus is pleased.:sarcasm: