Crossing the Border to Purchase Health Insurance
photo credit: AmbismWith all of the important issues being tossed around in this incredibly crucial election, it can be difficult to discern what would and wouldn’t work for the American people. We hear different things from different sources (Fox News vs. NPR), and it can be a challenge to get a feel for how you would like to vote. One of the biggest issues for the two presidential candidates is that of healthcare, and as covered in a previous blog, the two men have distinctly different ideas about how to create healthcare in this country.
One of Senator John McCain’s biggest changes to our current system would be allowing for the purchase of health insurance across state lines. You don’t see a health insurance plan that you like in California? Hitchhike on up to Oregon. That statement is obviously simplified immensely, and the following will be a close examination of this proposed radical change and if it is really a good idea for the United States’ healthcare system.
What is “Across State Lines?”
To those not already in the know: The proposals set forth by Jon McCain and others would enable insurers to sell and Americans to purchase their health insurance in states other than the one they reside in. Insurers would be allowed to sell their products in any state they so desired, and would only be governed by the rules and regulations of the state that they were based in. For example, if an insurance company from Idaho wanted to sell its policies to someone living in Nebraska, they would only need to worry about complying with Idaho’s laws. The laws of the state in which the person purchasing the insurance lives would have no precedence.
Insurance Across State Lines Examined
Would health insurance premiums be lower for consumers? It doesn’t look like that would be the case. According to a paper publicized by The New America Foundation (a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States), selling insurance across state lines would cause premiums to skyrocket. If you are looking in another state for a comprehensive insurance policy, then be prepared to see higher price tags. You might also be saying goodbye to the guarantee that benefits like emergency maternity care would be included in your insurance package in the future.
People with health conditions would have a really tough time finding some insurance company willing to sell them a policy, and as touched on above, you wouldn’t be guaranteed the type of coverage you might be looking for. Companies that offer integrated health systems like Blue Cross/Blue Shield might also lose out on the ability to be competitive in an across state lines health system, so you’d basically be pushing your health care shopping cart from company to company, hoping to fill it up cheaply with the coverage you are looking for.
This proposal would also seek to eliminate the tax breaks for employers providing health care plans to employees, supposedly “evening the playing field” between group and non-group insurance. What this would actually do is make it so that more Americans over time would find themselves completely without health insurance. Fewer employers would be able to afford offering coverage to their employees, so many of us would be wandering around in an unregulated insurance market trying to purchase our own health care plans. For those of us who would be coming off of an employee-provided insurance plan and onto a public one, we would find ourselves looking at higher premiums based on our health history and probably a much more bare bones policy than our employer had been giving us. More money, less coverage? That does not sound very appealing.
The End of our System as We Know It
This may be an attempted parody of some well-known pop lyrics, but that doesn’t make it any less true. If John McCain is elected as the next president of the United States, everything we have come to rely on for our health insurance will change. What this across state lines proposal essentially does it puts all of the power and money in the hands of the insurance companies. They will get to dictate which employers can afford to give their employees health care coverage. They can choose to not offer you insurance based on your past medical history no matter how many states’ doors you’ve gone around knocking on. They will be competing with one another, not at the benefit of the consumer, but to drive up prices for all of the average Americans. Plans like this would work great for the young and healthy. You haven’t ever been sick a day in your life and have no health problems like asthma? You will probably have no issues shopping around for a plan that suits you perfectly. But for the rest of the population, the ones who have battled breast cancer or got carpal tunnel from working hard at their job, will be left behind. Pockets turned out, standing at state lines peering up at insurance companies with hopeful eyes. Is this the type of health care system that America needs? One encouraging and supporting corporate greed while leaving its citizens out in the cold? Consider this carefully when you head to the polls this November. Your health hangs in the balance.
Tags: across the border, health insurance, insurance in different state, presidential politics, state lines
