{"id":931,"date":"2009-06-17T14:43:11","date_gmt":"2009-06-17T14:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html"},"modified":"2009-06-17T14:43:11","modified_gmt":"2009-06-17T14:43:11","slug":"its-the-pre-existing-condition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s The Pre-Existing Conditions, Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The health care discussion seems to assume that for most Americans the big issues are either lowering cost or covering the uninsured.  But to me, the part of the health care system most people seem most bothered about is the common practice of denying coverage based on pre-existing condition.      If you have cancer or diabetes or any other illness that&#8217;s either chronic or recurring, you are treated as a pariah by the health care system. A job loss goes from being damaging to devastating. Those most in need of insurance&#8211;the sick&#8212;are the least able to get it. It&#8217;s the most inhumane part of the system.<br \/>\nThe biggest news of the debate so far is that the health insurers have pretty much agreed to eliminate this provision as part of a broader reform.  In our focus on the issues that still divide, we should pause to reflect on that monumental development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The health care discussion seems to assume that for most Americans the big issues are either lowering cost or covering the uninsured. But to me, the part of the health care system most people seem most bothered about is the common practice of denying coverage based on pre-existing condition. If you have cancer or diabetes&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>It&#039;s The Pre-Existing Conditions, Stupid - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It&#039;s The Pre-Existing Conditions, Stupid - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The health care discussion seems to assume that for most Americans the big issues are either lowering cost or covering the uninsured. But to me, the part of the health care system most people seem most bothered about is the common practice of denying coverage based on pre-existing condition. If you have cancer or diabetes&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-17T14:43:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"It's The Pre-Existing Conditions, Stupid - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"It's The Pre-Existing Conditions, Stupid - Steven Waldman","og_description":"The health care discussion seems to assume that for most Americans the big issues are either lowering cost or covering the uninsured. But to me, the part of the health care system most people seem most bothered about is the common practice of denying coverage based on pre-existing condition. If you have cancer or diabetes&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2009-06-17T14:43:11+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html","name":"It's The Pre-Existing Conditions, Stupid - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-06-17T14:43:11+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-17T14:43:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/its-the-pre-existing-condition.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"It&#8217;s The Pre-Existing Conditions, Stupid"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}