We are hearing that Republicans are considering proposing high-risk pools as part of an alternative health insurance reform proposal to Obamacare.
A high-risk pool proposal would likely mean the Congress giving states the flexibility, and perhaps funding, to set up these risk pools. Risk pools by definition are a place where people can go when they are not able to buy health insurance in the regular market because they have a health problem.
That means Republicans would be turning the clock back to a time when insurance companies could turn people down for health insurance because of their health status.
Presumably, the Republicans are contemplating a market where insurance companies could once again choose just who they wanted to cover––the healthy but not the sick.
Anyone turned down could then go the high-risk pool to be assured of having health insurance. Presumably, Republicans would assure consumers that they would be able to access the same kind of comprehensive health insurance and at the same market rates as those able to buy from insurance companies would be able to get.
Let me be clear at this point that I don’t know of anyone in the insurance industry asking to go back to the days when a carrier could exclude people as a result of their health status and make money just covering the healthy.
Whether it’s Obamacare or a risk pool concept, policymakers are faced with the same dilemma: How do you insinuate the unhealthy and otherwise uninsurable into a health insurance system in a way that benefits are comprehensive and costs are affordable for everyone?