Travel insurance and depression

Sandtree

[Deleted User] said:

Sandtree said:

[Deleted User] said:

Sadly things like depression become life-long black marks against you when it comes to insurance. You might want to write to your MP about it, there should be a time limit or ideally just make it illegal to consider it at all because it discourages people from seeking treatment.

In theory the same could be said of cancer and a large number of other conditions. 

You could legislate that pre-existing conditions cannot be considered (any other type of cap again encourages non-treatment etc) but then what you are saying is that everyone's insurance should triple in price so that the minority dont have to pay increased premiums and/or cannot get cover.

I doubt it would triple prices, but maybe that would be worth it. With the pandemic and austerity there are a lot of people with mental health problems now, so a lot of people are probably already paying more.

The same argument could apply to the NHS, everyone pays the same NI contribution regardless of their medical history or what dangerous activities they participate in. Perhaps politicians might consider funding travel insurance for health that way (not for cancelled booking etc, just health costs).

There are things which you can't really avoid treatment for, and there are things like depression where it's often hard enough to seek treatment in the first place.

Taxes are predominately no longer segregated in that way and the vast majority of the NHS is funded out of general taxation and NIC makes a very modest contribution.

It could be possible that government decides to increase taxation to enable free overseas health cover however given holiday is a luxury rather than necessity I suspect there is little appetite for it. I think there are many who would argue there are other domestic issues that are more worthy of additional funding inc mental health care.

You could equally argue that Motor and Employers Liability as compulsory insurance should be delivered via taxation to eliminate any uninsured events (and in some countries it is) but to date most feel that those that drive and employ should pay a risk based fee to a commercial entity (or mutual) instead.

As to the fundamental fairness of a public healthcare systems... ask half the US population and they'd argue paying based on income (directly via income tax and indirectly with VAT and corporation tax on your purchases) rather than likely need isnt fair. Thankfully in the UK we have a social contract and whilst paying taxes is never fun most accept its necessary.