Unborn Jindal was "pre-existing condition" when parents immigrated to U.S.

[Updated.] (Re: Jindal's speech.) I don't know what Jindal's point was exactly. Jindal was four months in the womb when his parents immigrated here from India. The parents got jobs but their insurance wouldn't cover the costs of Jindal's birth, since he was a "pre-existing condition." So his parents had to pay for the costs of Jindal's birth out of their own pockets.

Is Jindal trying to say that having a pre-existing condition that prevents a person from getting health coverage isn't necessarily a bad thing? And he is living proof? (According to the WSJ, having a baby costs around $10,000 these days.) You have to watch Jindal's speech, if you haven't seen it.

I think Jindal made the sad state of our health care system here look worse. (But it's still better than India's, I guess.) So we should just be thankful for what we have, since (as Jindal's father pointed out to him after he was birthed) they don't even have groceries on the shelves in India. Now the Republicans are comparing us (favorably) with a country that has horrible slums and widespread, abject poverty and huge discrepancies in income (and which still has a caste system)? And we look better for that and should be proud? I don't think so. It makes the U.S. look like its standards are slipping. I'm doubt that if the Jindals had emigrated to Europe, say, they would have had to pay out-of-pocket for Bobby's delivery because he was a "pre-existing condition."

I think the point that was inadvertently made here is that health insurance companies -- big players in our health system in the U.S. -- do everything they can to avoid covering people who actually need of health care.

We'll see how universal health care plan that Obama has called for and begun to fund in his budget works out. Watch the insurance companies try to get the government to pay for the sick people while they reap big profits covering only the well people.

(I have nothing against India, by the way, and trust that they'll do the right thing in addressing their social problems.)