Havn't we seen this before?

Proof that government needs to get their stinkin' noses out of business. 1) AIDS medications are VERY expensive, so it makes sense to discriminate against pre-existing conditions, otherwise it is a service plan, not an insurance policy. Affordable service plans should be affordable, but they are still totally different. 2) She wasn't looking for an insurance policy to protect her against AIDS, which sadly she is at abnormally higher risk, but a health insurance policy for her general health and well-being in the future. 3) I would speculate that while she may still be concerned about the AIDS herself that she would be willing to buy a policy that excluded treatment coverage of AIDS if she contracted the disease, and of course subsequent harm that may be caused by the disease. If she is still HIV free in 3 years, have them take a look at her health and keep to their word of coverage without the exemption. You could probably get a bit of a cheaper rate considering you are not buying insurance against it, and they are happier to let you pay a little more when you do want the insurance again.

Now the million dollar question here is why hasn't this been thought of before? TRICK QUESTION! It has been and while the insurance companies would love to tailor your policies to exactly your needs, it is illegal. ILLEGAL! Not big bad insurance companies stopping you, but the law! Who writes the law? The government, sticking their noses in where they don't belong.

Why did the government do this? Well it was to protect people against the big evil insurance companies that were making it too complicated for people to understand what they were buying. So they made all health insurance virtually identical so people wouldn't get confused. For example, some people wanted catastrophic illness insurance, but then complained that it didn't cover antibiotics for ear infections. The really sad stories were those that bought health service plans like checkups, medication discounts, broken arm insurance, but NOT catastrophic illness insurance, and then got very sick. I remember a story of a guy that had a health service plan he bought for his whole family. After having paid premiums for him, his wife, and 12 year old daughter every month for over 12 years, his daughter was sadly diagnosed with brain cancer. The father was devastated when he "discovered" that the plan he had been paying into his daughters entire life wasn't going to help her when she was sick because as the insurance company said that while they were sorry about his daughters illness, brain cancer wasn't covered by the policy.

This story and many others like it were important anecdotes to support health care reform in the 80's. Insurance companies were demonized for selling predatory policies, and the government made insurance policies "regular", in addition to other regulations.

So maybe, like last time, instead of outlawing "confusing" policies, give people the resources necessary to make informed decisions, because no matter what the law is, if you are paying hundreds of dollars a month to someone, government, business, friend, whatever, and you don't know what it is really for, you are going to be totally screwed. And nobody loves to keep bigger secrets about how they do business for you a secret than government.

This article proves to me that government can't do anything right and need to get out of places they don't belong like economics. Actually, there are a few things the federal government might be able to do reasonably well. I think someone wrote them down once in a blog or something. Here's the link if interested: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html

And just to note, making trade regular and regulating trade or planning the economy are NOT the same thing open to interpretation as one group of people see fit when it pleases them. If you don't like the constitution, repeal it... of wait, already being done. Never mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMe5dOgbu40