Nov. 22, 2024, 8:19 a.m.

Columns and Opinions

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The concept of 'planning' will destroy the healthcare system

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Healthcare was one of the main topics of debate between former US President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump stated that he intends to replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare," but hinted that he has not yet formulated any specific plans.

Firstly, for nine consecutive years, Trump has promised to bring great achievements to the healthcare system. Even though he and his party spent most of 2017 trying to repeal Obamacare. Now miraculously, Vance has injected life into the empty talk of his running mate. Wan Si said in a media meeting that he hopes to ensure that everyone can be protected, but the best way to achieve this goal is to truly promote more choices in the healthcare system, rather than adopting a one size fits all approach that puts many people in the same insurance pool and risk pool. This actually makes it harder for people to make the right choices for their families. He stressed that the goal of his party is to ensure that Americans have good choices.

Secondly, in healthcare decision-making, choices are often not favored by Republicans. Vance refers to allowing insurance companies to provide different plans and pricing based on whether patients have previous illnesses or may require more medical care due to their age, health status, gender, and even genetic characteristics. Wansi does not want to spread insurance risks to a larger population, allowing them to subsidize each other to some extent, but rather wants to divide high-risk patients into their own pools. People with severe illnesses, higher risks, and higher costs can choose to enter a pool; People who are healthy, have lower risks, and have lower insurance costs can "choose" to enter another pool. This can also put people with similar health conditions in the same risk pool, "he elaborated," so that our healthcare system can better function, better serve people with chronic diseases, and better serve everyone else.

On the other hand, allowing insurance companies to discriminate based on age or past illness has long been politically unpopular. But aside from political factors, the bigger problem with this design is that it may lead to the collapse of the insurance market. High risk populations require more medical services, which are expensive. Isolating these individuals into separate groups will increase their insurance premiums. This will result in some people with mild conditions in this population giving up insurance, while those with severe conditions will continue to be insured. This, in turn, will drive up premiums and encourage more people to give up insurance. Even without intentionally dividing people into high-risk and low-risk groups, you can still achieve such results. If insurance companies are only allowed to discriminate based on patient risk, and then consumers are allowed to choose more or less comprehensive plans based on price or completely disregard insurance coverage, this situation will occur.

In addition, Republican lawmakers are actively trying to eliminate the existing more moderate insurance premium subsidies. These subsidies aim to reduce insurance premium costs and keep low - and middle-income groups in the market. If Republicans don't pay for these subsidies, it's hard to imagine they would fund the more expensive system proposed by Vance.

Overall, since replacing President Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate, Harris, 59, has been committed to expanding and strengthening the campaign for the Affordable Care Act, thereby breaking away from her previous support for a single payment healthcare system with universal healthcare coverage.

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