bizarreville

Continuing coverage of the President’s health care summit with a bunch of very smart 5th graders.  Laura Laxatiff responds for the class on question 3.

Q3.  Some insurance companies won’t cover what they call “pre-existing conditions”.  That means if someone has a medical problem before the company starts insuring them, the company won’t pay the bill.  What can we do about that?

Laura:  Well, if you ever had a cold, does that mean they would never cover you for colds?  Or if you had an earache before?

President:  I’m not sure, but I think it just applies to things that people have wrong with them.

Laura:  Just about every old person I know has something wrong with them.  Cindy’s mom has sore knees, Jacob’s dad takes 6 pills a day for something, Chelsea’s dad is always complaining about his sore back.

President:  If they leave one insurance company and go to another, they might not be covered for those old knees and bad back problems.

Laura:  That’s not very fair.  They should definitely be covered for whatever problem they have.  Why wouldn’t an insurance company cover them?

President:  The insurance companies are worried that people will stop paying for insurance…but then when something goes wrong, they’ll hurry up and sign up for insurance.

Laura:  Seems kind of silly to me.  Do you think that would really happen very often?

President:  No.  Probably once or twice in a blue moon.

Laura:  Then why are they so worried about it if it would hardly ever happen very much?

President:  It’s complicated.  I personally think they’re just trying to get out of paying for different things.

Laura:  Yeah, I know.  My friend Marty Mopeburger is always tring to get out of work his mom tells him to do.  Even easy stuff like taking out the garbage.  He’ll do all kinds of stuff to get out of taking out the garbage, when it would be so much easier to just do it and get it over with.  He’s a pretty weird kid.

President:  So you think we should tell them to just cover pre-existing conditions?

Laura:  Yeah.  Some people are sick, some aren’t.  If you try to get too picky on stuff, it will drive you nuts.  They should all just say:  “Come on, join us.  We’ll take care of you.”  Stop trying to be so weird about little meaningless stuff.

President:  How should we go about tell them to do it?

Laura:  I’d say just tell them to do it and that’s final.  That’s what my mom tells me when she wants me to do something.  If she’s allowed to do it, I guess you’re allowed to do it, too.

 (to be continued)

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.