“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ”

Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1954

Yet we can afford to be the policemen for the world and support dictators and despots. We can triple earmarks for unneeded projects. We can do all those things but cannot afford health care reform? I have the answer and its not Republican.

Or is it not invented here syndrome ?

“Maybe…”

“Maybe…???” What are you – the POTUS? (*GIGGLE*) A congressmen or Senator? (*SMIRK*)

“Maybe” doesn’t do us much good, Spart. (*WINK*)

Oh… and speaking of what I remember… I seem to remember some sort of technology which allows revision of… oh… laws and such… when certain sections no longer apply.

(*GRIN*)

BILL

I’m guessing that when Congress enacted HIPAA it wanted to specifically address the issue of pregnancy as a preexisting condition. As you probably remember from your high school civics course (assuming high school had been invented by the time you were a teenager:)), Congress has the power to preempt state legislation. Maybe HIPAA preempts state rules regarding the classification of pregnancy as a preexisting conditions.

Hmm… (*NOD*)

OK. I started out by following your link. According to your link… you’re right! No doubt about it! Call me Obama for automatically taking Sdspringy’s assertion regarding HIPPAA as gospel.

My bad…!

But then I turned to researching HIPPAA.

Now THIS is weird – and I’m guessing it’s not the only disconnect I’d find if I were to go looking:

From YOUR link:

http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0100-consumers/0070-health-issues/ind-health-insurance-underwriting-ab-356.cfm

“What health conditions will cause a health insurance company to automatically refuse or deny my application for insurance?”

Among the MANY conditions listed… they specifically include “Pregnancy, pregnancy of your spouse or significant other, planned surrogacy or adoption in process;”

Now… contrast this with:

http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jun/1/127540.html

From paragraph #4 –

“Another significant feature of HIPAA is the fact that it prevents pregnancy from being treated as a pre-existing condition. Pre-existing condition exclusions cannot be applied to pregnancy, regardless of whether the woman had previous coverage. Additionally, a pre-existing condition exclusion cannot be applied to a newborn, adopted child under age 18 or a child under 18 placed for adoption, as long as the child became covered under the health plan within 30 days of birth, adoption or placement for adoption, and provided the child does not incur a subsequent 63-day break in coverage.”

Weird, huh….???

BILL

Thanks for the response, but you are very, very wrong. Most states in the East do not allow insurers to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions; most states in the West and elsewhere. Please see the link below for indisputable proof that California, the largest insurance market in the country, permits insurers to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions.

http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0100-consumers/0070-health-issues/ind-health-insurance-underwriting-ab-356.cfm

I hope this does not sound offensive, I truly do not intend it to be, but does the fact that you’re very wrong about an extremely basic concept in health insurance cause to consider that you probably don’t really know much about problems in the healthcare market and, therefore, you probably should not form any firm opinions one way or another until you learn a little bit more? Also, would this fact not strongly suggest that when in the process of learning more, you should probably pay more attention to those who’ve been right more often than those who’ve been wrong more often?

“I don’t want to just “slow the growth;” I want to reverse the trend. That’s why I favor tort reform”

……..The innumerate rambles on…….total malpractice premiums and payouts are 1% or less of total healthcare costs…….if half of it disappeared tomorrow it wouldn’t make a dimes worth of difference to slowing growth let alone reversing the trend……….. Duh!

“…if you slow the growth in med mal premiums…”

I don’t want to just “slow the growth;” I want to reverse the trend. That’s why I favor tort reform.

“I’m not opposed to med mal caps as a part of healthcare reform.”

(*HANDSHAKE*)

Re: Sdspringy // Jul 24, 2009 at 9:37 pm –

“If we assume that a human life is infinitely precious, then there can be no cost constraints on saving that life.”

Exactly.

Re: Sdspringy // Jul 25, 2009 at 9:49 pm –

“The 1996 HIPPAA prevents the denial of coverage based on preexisting condition.”

And the Springster hits one out of the park!

(*THE CROWD GOES WILD*)

Anyway…

ONE
MORE
TIME

What we need is affordable catastrophic care insurance coupled with affordable regular healthcare accessibility.

The FORMER is an INSURANCE issue.

The LATTER is more about “re-educating” the American People to accept the reality that government policies from the ’40’s (WW-2 wage/price controls and using health benefits as a tax free carrot) are what got us in to this mess in the first place.

No matter how many multiple threads – one after another… day in, day out… week by week, month by month – Frum and his “contributor’s throw on this site and no matter how many (literally!) thousands upon thousands of reply posts we post in response, it really does come down to that.

BILL

http://www.expertlaw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13173

…….btw reading this jogged my memory on what HIPPAA is……..it’s the legislation Clinton passed in the mid 90’s to tidy up the state and fed law on job changes etc…..to be honest I didn’t know it was called HIPPAA