Discussion project. Short-term health insurance policies

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Discussion 7
Word Count: 702
1 Thesis Statement
Short-term health insurance policies are once again emerging in the United States. Health insurance is complicated and hard to understand. This is what insurers and agents bank on to promote the short-term policies which are no difference from the policies during the days before Obamacare policies. The public should be careful with these policies because there is more than what meets the eyes.
2 The structure of traditional argument (deductive logic)
The article talks about the pitfalls and shortcomings of short-term policies that Americans may not be aware of. The author said that the new policies are not better than what is offered by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and as such cannot be an alternative to Obamacare policies as they purport to. Another issue brought up in the article is that their coverage is limited to people without pre-existing health conditions. They are also not bound to cover the 10 essential benefits that include maternity coverage, mental health benefits and prescription drugs. The question of how much the public know about the brochure for marketing popular short-term plan is also raised in the article.
3 The claim, warrant and support (Toulmin Model)
Claim:
Trudy Lieberman states that:
These policies are not required to cover anyone with preexisting health conditions, a key point not well understood by the public, which has gotten used to the fact that those requirements are included in Obamacare policies. The short-term policies are returning to the pre-Obamacare days when insurers could deny coverage for conditions like asthma, diabetes, and glaucoma. (n.p)
This is to say that these policies are not offering anything unique to what is provided by Affordable Care Act.
Warrant:
Lieberman says, because the existing framework allows insurers to do a careful scrutiny of applicant’s health, the possibility of selling the cheap policies like the one promoted in the internet cannot be ruled out. As such Lieberman argues that if anyone falls into the trap and rushes to purchase these policies, they are likely to be in trouble in event of sickness.
Support:
He used a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation which studied the products/plans of various health insurers selling short-term policies. The study found that some plans do not cover maternity care and only 57 % of the plans surveyed by the foundation covered mental health. They also showed that what is paid by some policies in terms of claims ranges between 30 to 40 percent of the premium paid. By contrast this is very small compared to Obamacare policies paying at least 80 percent. Another fact demonstrated by the author is the skewed arrangement that cater for drugs purchased by policyholders. The author states that the “arrangements are not the same as a full-fledged drug benefit, which pays a far greater share of someone’s drug cost.” On a similar note, consumers are likely to lose money spent on these policies since insurers have many ways of denying claims.
4 Rogerian elements of argument (the problem, opponent’s position and validity found by the author of the article).
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