Monday, August 17, 2009

A Pre-existing Medical Condition


Now, can we all agree this poor fellow has a pre-existing medical condition? He would have trouble getting insurance because he's dead. However, you don't have to be this jacked up to have trouble getting Blue Cross to cover a pre-existing condition.

Consider your average 60 year old guy. He weighs 230 lbs. , he has adult onset diabetes, hypertension and a little depression with erectile dysfunction. His medications cost $500 dollars a month, every three months he sees his internist for $240, has $400 dollars worth of lab tests and his diabetic testing supplies cost $80 per month. Now if all these conditions remain controlled, his normal health costs are about $780 a month. Heaven forbid he get the flu, or some chest pain or breaks an ankle, then we are talking really big bucks. This fellow can get insurance to cover all his conditions. It would cost him about $2,000 a month. That is why insurance companies don't cover pre-existing conditions, because the premiums would be exorbitant. Basically the healthy have to support the sick. The trouble is the number of sick is overwhelming the ability of the healthy to support their costly care. Don't blame the health insurance companies. If the motorcyclist with his head in the rear door of the semi wanted to buy some life insurance he would have trouble finding an agent to write him a policy. The best he could hope for is a bailout at the Pearly Gates.

1 comment:

goober said...

Uh-oh, my dad's been youtubing, how very hip of him!