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Posted on 11/01/2009 11:02:27 PM PST by rabscuttle385
Former McCain strategist is about to lose his health insurance.
BY PHILIP RUCKER
If history had taken a different course, Doug Holtz-Eakin would be inside the McCain White House driving the Republican president's domestic agenda, including health-care reform. But now, one year after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) lost the presidential election, the man who was by McCain's side as the campaign's top health-care guru remains unemployed -- and his COBRA health coverage is running out.
Irony of ironies, it gets worse. Holtz-Eakin, who is about to start shopping for insurance on the individual market, is 51. And he has one of those pesky "preexisting conditions" that insurance companies often cite in denying coverage.
. . . . .
Of the bills moving through Congress, Holtz-Eakin said: "I wish the policies were different, and I wish I could've somehow gotten us to a bipartisan place. I think McCain had the capacity to do that.
"But the reality is what it is," he continued. "You can't live your life in the land of what might have been."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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Is this his way of saying that McCain would probably do the same thing 0’s doing vis-a-vis health care?
Eh? For all I can tell this is wishful thinking.
Okay then. And I pray his renal autotransplant holds up until he gets decent insurance that does not exclude his kidney problems or until he's 65 and on Medicare. Godspeed Mr. Holtz Eakin.
That is really nice of the Washington Post, PHILIP RUCKER, to make fun of someone who is losing their healthcare.
"Let's not whine too much about me," he said. "I'm a wealthy, affluent American in the big picture."
He admits that he could (1.)get a job or (2.)can afford to buy insurance.
the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker and Ann Gerhart turned to South Carolina Democratic operatives Don and Carol Fowler to smear Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) in their September 11 front-pager entitled “The Gentlemen From South Carolina.”
Rucker and Gerhart turned to the husband-wife couple — he was a Clinton era DNC chairman and she is the current South Carolina state Democratic chairwoman — to practically tag-team in slamming Wilson. Rucker and Gerhart also acknowledged some Palmetto Democrats’ brushes with political infamy before cuing up Don Fowler to quip that he thinks “it is something in the water.”
Yet nowhere in their story did Rucker and Gerhart note Don Fowler’s gaffe from August 2008, when, on a flight from the Democratic Convention, he made an inappropriate joke involving hurricane victims in New Orleans
Filing his January 2 Style section front-pager, “Hawaii’s Still Waters Run Deep for the President-elect,” staffer Philip Rucker made clear all he needs in life are some cool waves and a tasty Obama buzz:
HONOLULU — In his two weeks in Hawaii, Barack Obama has oozed island cool: the black shades and khaki shorts, the breezy sandaled saunter that suggested he had not a care in the world. Who said anything about the presidency?
He strolled shirtless near the beach, enjoyed a shave ice and a local seaweed-wrapped delicacy called Spam musubi. One day, the president-elect flashed the friendly “shaka” sign, shaking his pinky and thumb in a local surfing gesture.
I think I’m to conclude that under Obamacare, his existing condition would be covered.
And treatment unavailable.
The author’s theory seems to be that the preexisting condition will make it impossible to get coverage. In reality, that’s not true. At the point when this gentleman maxes out his COBRA, he can select an individual policy from any company that sells one in his state. HIPAA will require them to issue it to him. It won’t be as cheap as an underwritten policy would be, but cost doesn’t seem to be a major issue for him.
So, basically, what the author’s ignoring current health insurance laws in his effort to make a case for reform.
Depending upon the policy he gets, the pre-existing condition may be excluded from coverage for the first 6 months, the first year, the first 5 years, or the condition may never be covered at all.
So as long as Holtz-Eakin's renal system doesn't deteriorate during the period of excluded coverage, he'll be okay. If he starts to go into renal failure, needs dialysis, or needs a transplant dring the period of excluded coverage, then he's really screwed -- unless he's a multimillionaire who can afford to pay the medical bills out of pocket.
But Holtz-Eakin doesn't seem to be too concerned about his medical condition or money, so good for him. That's a great way to live your life.
Not a bad guy, all in all.
“Not a bad guy, all in all.”
Not one of Palins’s detractors?
Somebody had to support Palin in the McCain camp, otherwise she wouldn’t of been picked. I think later there was resentment against Palin because of jealousy that Americans like her so so much more than McCains cheese weasel bi partisan, not straight talk express. They( the Mccain people, F’d up. They trusted themselves.)
HIPAA policies do not have pre-existing condition exclusions. They’re ‘shall issue’. All he has to do is remember to use up all his COBRA and any company that writes individual insurance in his state has to cover him without exclusions. Of course, most of them won’t volunteer that information...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
Not correct. If you have renal failure, you fall under Medicare (Medicare is secondary for the first 30 months on dialysis, if you have other health insurance).
Bingo. I think Republicans have found the "victim" role, and they like it.
I have long suspected that a great many of the "uninsured" can indeed afford to purchase their own insurance, but choose not to.
Thanks for your corrections. I hope I never need to use this information, but it’s good to know just in case.
If his earlier "insurance" were really insurance, his insurer at the time of the renal failure would have covered the future costs associated therewith, subject to policy terms and conditions. A policy which is pays for conditions which had manifest themselves before purchase isn't insurance. It may be cost sharing, a prepaid-services plan, or some combination thereof, and it may have some real insurance in it, but fundamentally it's not insurance.
An honest person who buys real insurance should expect that in any given year the most likely amount of payout is zero. If the insurer and insured are expecting that a payout will be necessary, it would be just as well for both of them to simply reduce the expected payout to zero and reduce the premiums likewise.
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