Let's be clear at the outset. I favor restricting insurance companies' ability to deny coverage based on existing bad health conditions. Note I said 'restricting'.
The problem insurance companies have (which is also our problem) is lots of people don't purchase health insurance so they'll have more money for other stuff. Then, when they get sick, they want to buy insurance to cover what they have so they don't have to pay so much for the care they need. What they're doing, of course, is forcing/expecting the rest of the insured pool of people to subsidize their care but they won't contribute to the pool to help others. What they want (ie, feel entitled to!) for themselves they're unwilling to do for others.
The whole point of 'group insurance', whether it be for health, death/dismemberment or other (there are hundreds of different forms of group insurance), is to protect everyone in the pool against some catastrophic event. We all pay a little so no one has to endure significant hardship due to one of life's vagaries. It's the humane thing to do.
When we were a more rural/agricultural society, it's how people lived because life, in general. was challenging if not usually hard. But it was a good kind of 'hard' life. It had its rewards. It was satisfying. Neighbor helping neighbor was often a matter of survival ... personally and for one's neighbors. Strongly knitted and supportive communities survived ... most thrived, in spite of extraordinary hardships. Group insurance is rooted in that kind of thinking/attitude and is successful because many more people still think that way than not.
Problem now is the increasing percentage of people who feel entitled to the good life or to 'stuff' regardless the impact on others. An increasing percentage of people in America have an increasing sense of entitlement and a decreasing sense of responsibility to be a good neighbor and contributor to the common good. What far too many people don't seem to understand is that to have the kind of good life that's truly satisfying, one needs to contribute to the greater good and work hard to 'make' a good life for one's self.
If you want more 'stuff' or a 'more comfortable life', you need to do whatever it takes to become qualified for higher-paying work. So that you can not only take care of yourself and your family but so you can contribute to the good of the community. We should all work to be a net contributor to society, not a net drag on it. It doesn't always work out well but that should be our goal. Otherwise, when the percentage of selfish individuals reaches a certain point, everyone loses including the selfish ones.
So, back to the Pre-Existing Conditions challenge. If we eliminate insurance companies' ability to use that, those of us who do have insurance will pay A LOT MORE IN PREMIUMS. Insurance companies won't exist if they don't make a profit, right? What WILL happen if we eliminate their ability to disallow coverage of people who come into it with the condition they want to get covered? The SIMPLE answer is it will cost them A LOT MORE MONEY because people will tend not to buy insurance until they're sick so they'll be a huge net consumer of the available health care dollars. Eliminating pre-existing conditions WILL cost the insurance companies a lot more money so what will they do? Maybe increase everyone's premiums? Well, duh!!!
The 'simple' solution is to require everyone to have insurance. Then we could eliminate insurance companies' use of pre-existing conditions. People wouldn't come into insurance pools only when they're sick. We cannot have it both ways. If people aren't required to buy insurance AND we eliminate pre-existing condition clauses our insurance rates WILL GO UP, probably a lot.
I prefer another solution because I don't think requiring Americans to buy a particular product is constitutional. It's at least inconsistent with constitutional principles and principles that make a Republic possible. What I'd do is restrict (not eliminate) the use of pre-existing conditions and to apply conditions on people who start insurance for the purpose of treating an existing condition. They should be required to remain in the pool long after they've gottent the care they seek and they should pay an above average premium until some time after they're cured. People who have insurance while healthy should receive a discount for a healthy lifestyle. Probably several other things make sense to do but you probably get my point.
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