Page 34 - Risk Pool News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Waiver, which if they apply for a waiver, they can -- if somebody lets their insurance lapse for more than 63 days, they could then charge those people a higher premium. you say, look, don't let your insurance lapse for 63 days, right? the problem is that 30 million people last year let their insurance lapse for close to three months because it is expensive because they lost their job, because of a variety of reasons. so a lot of people would suddenly be penalized who would be diverted to this high risk pool, no longer protected against pre-existing conditions. >> and people with pre-existing ...

If you think that's expensive, you're right. the concern has been how much does it really cost. and what they found in the past was that states that have tried really could not afford it and they dismantled these pools because they were very, very difficult to maintain. both for the people administering it and for the patients as well, really expensive, didn't offer as much in terms of health care and again, john, these are people who actually utilize the health care system. these are people who need the health care system. so they expect about 5% of people who are on the individual market to ...

People who then would be charged too much on the individual market for their health care insurance. they could go to a high risk pool, which is a subsidized pool. the government is helping subsidize their care and that's one of the things they're leaning on. part of the problem is these have been tried before. they're really expensive. you're taking the highest risk patients and putting them in one place and as a rule they were generally underfunded and the people part of those pools couldn't afford the insurance they were getting any ways and these are the people that actually need health car...

To create this high risk pool, operating for more than three decades but it isn't cheap for the public or the patients. premiums skyrocketed. what lessons were learned there? >> well, i think we had one of the oldest and largest high risk pools and even with the largest high risk pool we only had 26,000 people enrolled. that enrollment stayed pretty steady over the last ten years. what we have learned is there are high costs. so the costs kept going up, the premiums are relatively high so not everybody who has a pre-existing condition can even afford to enroll in the high risk pool. >> okay. t...

About the tax cut real quick? the criticism from democrats is that republicans only wanted this because they needed it for a tax cut and they're using thi to get a tax cut? >> well, i don't speak for the republican party, but i can tell you on behalf of my organization, faith and freedom coalition, that had absolutely nothing to do with our support for the legislation. it is good to cut taxes and lift the burden of regulations and taxes on small business, which this does. it is good to lower premiums. and by restoring some of the high-risk pools in many of these states, don, that were done awa...