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Jon -- IIRC, and I might not as it has been years since I've seen it, Moore was focused on people with insurance purchased on the individual market. Pre-ACA, individual market insurance was a nightmare re: "preexisting conditions." Famously, people would get dropped for having preexisting conditions that had nothing to do with the condition that the insurance company didn't want to treat (rescission). But employer-based insurance, for a variety of reasons, was (again, to a first approximation) never risk-rated, and generally excluded preexisting conditions only under very limited circumstances, and only for relatively short periods of time. The writers could have told some convoluted story re: why Walt didn't have insurance through his employer as a teacher, but since they didn't, and the story would have to be pretty convoluted, I don't feel compelled to make it up for them. The problem that you note re: in/out of network providers, this changing year to year, and people seeking care being told wrong information, etc., was and still is a problem. So, yes, the show could have gone that route.
In my defense, I said nothing and just went along w/ the story until we'd finished watching the series. :)
There is a story told about “Breaking Bad”* and our healthcare system, and it goes like this: “Breaking Bad” demonstrates what’s broken (less so now with the ACA perhaps, but perhaps not) about the healthcare system in the U.S. Walter had to go in the meth business in order to... Continue reading
In a post last month for Demos, Matt Bruenig argued that if one in fact cares about childhood poverty, a recent conservative position promoting marriage as a means of reducing childhood poverty rates is as cruel as it is misguided (http://www.demos.org/blog/4/14/14/single-mother-child-poverty-myth). In a nutshell, Bruenig notes that countries with low... Continue reading
My friend Alan Nelson recently posted a link on facebook to the following article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/business/economic-view-when-the-scientist-is-also-a-philosopher.html with an appropriately snarky note that the author, N. Gregory Mankiw (the Chair of the econ department at Harvard, natch), seemed to be arguing that the only changes to the status quo permissible are those... Continue reading