McCain Plan Could Leave Cancer Patients Without Coverage For Cancer Treatments
McCain Plan Could Leave Cancer Patients Without Coverage For Cancer Treatments
Yesterday, in a speech at the LIVESTRONG Presidential Town Hall, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) conceded that his proposal to push Americans into the individual health insurance market could leave cancer patients without health insurance. But McCain promised that his Guaranteed Access Plan — which would subsidize state-run high-risk pools with federal and possibly industry money — will “help in the purchase of coverage for those hardest to insure”:
Some worry that even after this reform many Americans with pre-existing conditions — including many thousands of cancer patients — could still be denied insurance. And to make sure they get the high-quality coverage they need, I have proposed a — or GAP — that will combine industry, state, and federal resources to help in the purchase of coverage for those hardest to insure, including patients with pre-existing conditions. There would be limits on premiums, and lower-income Americans would get additional financial assistance.
Watch it:
Americans with cancer will need more “financial assistance” than McCain imagines. Financing insurance for the millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions who would lose employer-based coverage under McCain’s plan, would cost $100 billion a year, far more than the $10 billion McCain has proposed spending on shoring-up high risk programs.
In fact, the high cost of insuring a large pool of sick people has forced states to limit eligibility. As a result, the 33 states that run high risk pools “exclude from coverage the pre-existing condition that made you eligible for it in the first place.” According to Karen Pollitz, director of the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University:
These programs [high risk pool programs] are very expensive…because [sick people] account for all of the spending. So these are very expensive programs for states to run…and so states look for ways to restrict these programs and in particular they have limited eligibility rules in some states, the premiums that they charge are exceedingly high…all of these pools will exclude from coverage the pre-existing condition that made you eligible for it in the first place.”
Given the high costs of running high-risk pools and McCain’s penchant for cutting government programs, it is likely that the senator’s Guaranteed Access Plan would leave cancer patients to finance their own treatments.
3 Responses to “McCain Plan Could Leave Cancer Patients Without Coverage For Cancer Treatments”
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McCain’s plan to rely on state high risk pools mirrors the plan offered by the health insurance industry’s lobbying group AHIP (shocking, I know).
If AHIP were successful in implementing such a plan they would have limited their market to their ideal demographic: healthy people with money. The old (Medicare), the poor (Medicaid), and the ill (state high risk pools) would all have been dumped on the taxpayer.
If health insurance companies had one ounce of dignity they would be begging the government to stop them from medical underwriting. Like slavery and child labor, it’s a morally bankrupt practice that has been outlawed in other countries for decades. Instead they want to use their underwriting prowess to dump sick people on the taxpayers, or as they phrase it at AHIP “encourage states to develop and implement access proposals”.
Right. Is there one person in America who believes the GOP has any intention of raising $1 of tax money to pay for this? McCain and his buddies at AHIP are moral cowards imho. Especially McCain, having spent his entire life covered by publicly financed health insurance; where does he get off recommending this type of program for the rest of us?
July 25th, 2008 at 8:52 pmDoes McCain ever think through anything he says? WShat a buffoon.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:58 pmIf an individual qualifies for health insurance coverage from the majors, it’s a sign they don’t need it. When they actually need expensive care for a new condition, the plan won’t pay the provider or drops them. It’s a form of organized crime, fully endorsed by our elected officials. The system cries for universal coverage.
July 26th, 2008 at 9:16 am