September 09, 2009

The speech

This is the best sales pitch in the entire speech:

What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives. (My emphasis)

Those two items are the ones that scare me the most. I've been through the pre-existing condition drill, and it's a terrible shock to be told you can't give an insurance company money because you might cost it more down the road, let me tell you.

Posted by Linkmeister at September 9, 2009 03:48 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Tell me about it. My sister and I both have medical conditions that would make it totally impossible for either of us to buy individual policies under current rules. We've never HAD to apply for coverage, but I know what we'd hear if we did.

Posted by: hedera at September 9, 2009 05:22 PM

I've always said that no one in the history of the country has simply legislated an entire industry out of business, and this President would not consider it.

Making the insurance companies to live up to their contracts is a good start.

Posted by: WereBear at September 9, 2009 05:55 PM