Awareness of pre-existing conditions likely came to the public awareness during the ongoing debate over health care and made visible the issue of whether the government has a role to play as insurance companies are allowed to deny coverage. Pre-existing is used in reference to characteristics of individuals, perhaps based in unfortunate genetics, making specific problems more likely and as a consequence making such individuals statistically more expensive to keep healthy. Of course, poverty is also a pre-existing condition predicting greater health risks and greater difficulty purchasing health care coverage. Such situations are convenient to ignore unless you happen to be or know someone falling into one of these categories.
I was thinking about the plight of those in Texas and Florida as they struggle to recover from the recent hurricanes. Even though a good deal of the financial burden will fall to home and business owners, the government, translation tax payers, will pump billions of dollars into the region to support recovery. My point here is not to speak against all of us making this contribution rather it is to point out how unaware we are of inconsistencies in our thinking when it comes to statistically unavoidable life consequences. Building close to warm water is a pre-existing condition for hurricane damage. The odds of being outside the 100 year flood plain (I understand this situation from being flooded while living outside the 100 year flood plain in Grand Forks) doesn’t guarantee you will avoid costly damage and doesn’t deny you government support.
Pointing this out is mostly intended to target all of the southern Republican politicians willing to vote against the Affordable Care Act and now expecting the rest of the country to fund the unique pre-existing conditions they fail to recognize as such. In my opinion, ignoring pre-existing conditions is basically selfish and is an issue the government must address. Politicians may pick and choose their issues without regard for the inconsistency in what makes them look good. Perhaps bringing this inconsistency to their and their constituents attention will be helpful.