Bipolar Today

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The Republic had an interesting feature yesterday about the problem that Americans with pre-existing conditions, including bipolar disorder, have in getting private health insurance. A number of factors can easily come together for bipolar Americans:

They are too young for Medicare.

They are too wealthy for Medicaid.

They do not have insurance through their employer.

They have a pre-existing medical condition.

When these factors come together, as they are increasingly doing for a number of self-employed Americans or those who work on contract, many bipolar Americans find themselves “practically uninsurable.” There are risk pooling plans currently in place, but those plans tend to be very expensive. As a result, many bipolar Americans find themselves without any health insurance.

Commentary

The situation for bipolar Americans really shows the weaknesses of allowing purely-market-controlled insurance to provide health care for a society. Once people are not in the same insurance pools, health care insurance quickly becomes unaffordable for the ill, who really need the insurance more in the first place. Bipolar disorder finds itself on the list in part because of the kinds of health problems that medications (especially lithium) can have on the body. At the very least, universal risk pooling is needed to offset what turns out to be de facto if not de jure discrimination against the disabled.

Fortunately, assuming the law isn’t struck down in the courts, health care companies will be disallowed from asking about pre-existing conditions in 2014, which should, in principle, stop this from occurring. Effectively, by preventing companies from asking, the risk is pooled among every American who purchases health insurance. Until then, however, many bipolar Americans will continue to be unable to get health insurance.

Related posts:

1. Ruling Could Extend Benefit Parity
2. Singapore Extends Medisave to Bipolar Treatment
3. State Mental Health Funding Cut By $1.1B Since 2009
4. Study Links Bipolar Suicide to Impulsivity and Abnormal Frontal Cortex
5. Bipolar Children May Assess Faces Differently