Obama: “Children who have pre-existing conditions are going to be covered.”
This week, almost every big insurance company in America—including Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealth Group, WellPoint, Humana, Coventry, some Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates and others—stopped writing “child-only” policies in the individual market… The collapse of the child-only market is a preview of what will happen when guaranteed issue and the rest of ObamaCare comes on line in 2014 for adults, except then insurers will have nowhere to flee. Exiting the market will mean going out of business.
Full article on the elimination of child-only policies from the individual insurance market.
Is anyone surprised at this?
What the insurance companies are doing is just self preservation.
The individual insurance market for children is especially plagued by adverse selection. It’s easy to see why parents might want to enroll their children once a costly medical condition is diagnosed (which is rare in children). Maybe this is due to the fact children are inherently healthy and going without coverage is generally not a big risk for kids. One fact is certain, however. No insurance market can survive for long if enrollees are legally allowed to game the system and wait until they are sick before exercising their legal right to enroll.
Pass idiotic rules and you get idiotic results.
Devon,
My children have never seen a day without insurance. Children may be generally healthy but they comingle with classmates who might not be and they are accident prone.
On the other hand, if the insurance companies keep up their naked greed we will see single payer health care by default.
And Yes, I have them on individual child only plans.
My state spent about the same amount per child on its SCHIP policies as private insurers charged for child only policies in the individual market. After just 2 years with a private HSA type plan, the average family would have been better off with a voucher than being forced to accept what the SCHIP policy considers health care for the same money.
They’re from the government and they’re here to help.
Update…