Are you sure about that? Plenty of medical conditions are the result, at least in part, of decisions a person makes.
A person with lung cancer seeking health care could very well have smokes for decades. A person with type 2 diabetes may very well have eaten poorly for decades. Obviously those aren't always directly linked to life choices, but they often can be.
Nobody _intentionally_ signs up for a pre-existing condition.
Whether a past action caused a condition, sure, but where do you draw the line? If you become disabled in a car accident, despite knowing full well that accidents can happen, should you be denied insurance in future because you did something risky? What if you were a smoker for the decades when cigarette companies suppressed the research about how bad it was?
Also, how would you even prove that a condition was self-inflicted? My old dog had lung cancer despite (to my knowledge) never smoking (and nor did anyone else in the household). I lost a close family member to liver cancer despite being a lifelong teetotaller, but how would anyone even prove that? The moment you start means-testing people, you're adding a whole lot of extra cost to taxpayers and stress for patients.
Denying healthcare to the most vulnerable members of society is simply cruel. It is kicking them when they're down. Having the condition is punishment enough. We can do better than that.
That's simple though. For insurance the line is drawn at how expensive it will likely be for a private company to insure you over the course of your policy.
It doesn't matter if someone intended for a decision to lead to higher risk, the only question at the point of signing an insurance policy is how risky that private company views the policy.
The whole insurance debate often feels misplaced. Many people simply don't want healthcare to depend on an insurance system. And I get that, I also would rather people be able to get the care they need regardless of their individual risk.
As long as we have anything claiming to be insurance that simply isn't how the system works. If the game is insurance the insurer should be able to consider individual risk. If we don't want that, build a system that isn't dependent on an insurance scheme at all.
Are you sure about that? Plenty of medical conditions are the result, at least in part, of decisions a person makes.
A person with lung cancer seeking health care could very well have smokes for decades. A person with type 2 diabetes may very well have eaten poorly for decades. Obviously those aren't always directly linked to life choices, but they often can be.