(1) Obamacare/ACA proponents put forth that their scheme is grand and great as it takes all comers as it includes/accepts even those with pre-existing conditions,
(2) that somehow and in some way people where cancelled by insurers, in the past, due to pre-existing conditions which becomes the vilification of insurers for such practice,
(3) hence you can then acquire health insurance and never be cancelled due to pre-existing conditions.
Nice and tidy argument huh? Maybe not so much.
For a moment consider the above mantra as exactly correct (which it is not and discussed below). Now consider the above mantra again with the following in mind:
(1) if one had acquired health insurance in the past and consequently a condition manifested itself which would qualify as a pre-existing condition,
(2) yet one’s policy was cancelled or will soon be cancelled because it did not/does not conform to Obamacare/ACA guidelines,
(3) then the same group of ACA proponents have advocated and initiated, through legislation, insurers cancelling policies with pre-exiting conditions.
Oops!
If you examine the ACA proponents argument regarding insurers cancelling policies due to pre-existing conditions one actually finds the facts and mantra don’t jive. How so? The mantra is based on “rescissions”. An insurer rescission of coverage, generally speaking, is when an applicant did not divulge a pre-existing condition on the initial application then seeks treatment soon after the policy went into force for the pre-existing condition. The policy is rescinded and premium is returned to the insured [rescission].
Exactly how widespread was this "rescissions" process? One hundred thousand rescissions per year? Half a million rescissions per year? Millions? If you no longer have to worry about losing your health insurance because you are sick, and this is a major talking point regarding Obamacare, then the phenomena had to be affecting a major portion of the population. Right?
Wrong. Sorry, it’s yet another Obamacare riddle.
"According to a congressional report, there were actually fewer than 5,000 rescissions per year, and at least some of those were actual cases of fraud...." (1) (2)
Coming full circle, considering fewer than 5,000 rescissions per year supporting the mantra regarding pre-existing conditions and further considering the approximately 135,000 signing up for Obamacare directed risk pools: Is the total number of rescissions and risk pool applicants smaller than or greater than the 4.2 million policies cancelled by ACA advocates considering the subsection of the 4.2 million policies (so far) which indeed have acquired pre-existing conditions? (3) (4)
Who cancelled who?
Notes:
(1) Bad Medicine, Cato Institute, M.D. Tanner, page 7
(2) http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090616/rescission_supplemental.pdf
(3) Funds run low for health insurance in state ‘high-risk pools’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/2013/02/15/cb9d56ac-779c-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_story.html?hpid=z1
(4) New Numbers: 4.2M Americans Dropped From Health Plans, foxnewsinsider.com
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/11/07/how-many-americans-have-lost-their-health-insurance-under-obamacare
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