Build a Health Care Bill: Problem 4 – Childhood Pre-Existing Conditions – Part 1

Problem 4: Childhood Pre-Existing Conditions
If a child has a pre-existing condition that employer-based insurance has covered for years; when that young person graduates from college, with or without a job, will they be able to get insurance coverage?

Solution Ideas:
Idea #1.
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about this problem is the mandate currently proposed by Congress that would require insurance companies to write policies regardless of pre-existing conditions. This was tried by Massachusetts’ state run health insurance system and it contains a huge moral hazard problem.

Healthy people could, did, and still do, go without health insurance in Massachusetts secure in the knowledge that when they become ill or injured they can buy insurance after the fact that will pick up the tab for their health expenses commencing immediately upon signing the contract – even if they’re hospitalized at the time of signing. This, of course, is a recipe for financial disaster for any insurance system. It’s also the reason proposed legislation contains a mandate that everyone must have health insurance – a mandate with tax penalties to be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service and backed up by jail time tax in the event of non-compliance.

Idea #2.
Another possibility is to allow the young adult to indefinitely piggy-back on the parent’s health insurance. This would postpone the problem but in most cases the time will come when the parent’s health insurance is terminated and the adult child will face the original situation.

Idea #3.
Allowing the child to spin off an individual health insurance policy from the parents insurance company without pre-existing condition limitations could also work. However, this option runs into the portability and individual policy cost problems. Still, if the portability and individual policy cost problems are also solved the spin off policy idea might be viable.

Additional ideas for solving this problem or ways to improve the ideas presented are welcome. As are any other problems you think should be addressed by health insurance reform legislation.

Contribute your ideas as comments to this blog or in the Discussion Board of the Facebook Group "Build a Health Care Bill: We Can Do It Better Than Congress". Or, if you received this by email you can reply by email.

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