Are you Pregnant or are you an Athlete? With Blue Shield Health Insurance, Texas, you can Forget Individual Cover
If you get your health insurance coverage at work, like 60% of America does, you'll find it hard to truly appreciate how terrifying it is, when like what 10% of America is going through now, your health insurance provider raises its rates by nearly half, like they are doing California and Maine. If President Obama's new health care plan does come through, it won't make that much of a difference to those with workplace coverage. The 15% or so in America that has no cover of any kind - their lives will change forever. That puts the figure at about a quarter of the entire population of the nation, of people who either pay out of their own pockets or just do without. Health care reform would be wonderful for these people; and not an inconsiderable number they are too. But really, how bad is it dealing with a health insurance company of your own, and not going through the company you work for? The Blue Shield health insurance companies of Texas, Florida and California have their individual insurance policies published online, and if you read them, you would know.
Here's an interesting statistic; BlueCross Blue Shield of Texas is the biggest player in that state. And also, Texas is the state where there are the most people who have no insurance whatsoever - a full quarter of the population. Let's say that you get by on doing freelance landscaping jobs around your town in Texas. You want to get your individual insurance, and you sit down with an agent who represents Blue Shield health insurance. The first thing he does is, check you through a list of more than 100 health conditions that will disqualify you from getting any kind of care if you answer in the positive. If you are pregnant right then, you can forget it. If you have had an organ transplant or Addison's disease, or have had some kind of minor stroke, the agent will just get up and leave. And if you happen to be a little overweight, they will still accept you, but at a big jump up in the premiums.
In patriotic Texas, a war veteran who has had an amputation suffered fighting a war, can right away be refused any kind of health care policy with Blue Shield health insurance. You can however get something at higher rates, if you only had a partial amputation. At least this makes some kind of crazy sense; but why would they deny you anything if you have acne, or varicose veins? And oh, don't forget that if you happen to be a minor or an athlete or an oil driller working offshore, you had better keep walking. This is the craziest policy anyone ever saw - why would they deny someone in the fine physical shape of an athlete, health insurance cover?
So basically, Blue Shield health insurance only wants to offer you health insurance if you have practically no disease whatsoever, and don't work on a job that might one day give you something. It certainly makes a lot of business sense for them, but it doesn't make any business sense for the customer. With President Obama's healthcare reform, denials like this would be illegal; and yet no Texas Republican, supports it. But things are coming to a head now. All these health insurance companies are raising their rates through the roof, and there may be no option but to accept reform.
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