They’re baa-ck!
In spite of their recent failure to pass their hideous bill, the GOP Congress and Trump are not giving up on slashing our healthcare. They simply will not leave it be, no matter how strongly We, the People, support Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid.
They withdrew Trumpcare from a House vote recently because it wasn’t devastating enough to satisfy the Freedom Caucus, so now they’re in a race to the bottom.
That means they’re going to remove even more consumer protections than before.
If the GOP Congress doesn’t stop attacking our health care, they may find that politically, they are “the walking dead!”
What will they slash this time?
According to Matt Fuller, writing for the Huffington Post (4/3/17), the GOP is talking about cutting the 10 essential health benefits, which was key to Obamacare’s insurance policy standardization and a critical consumer protection.
They are also talking about bringing back pre-existing condition discrimination. Instead of outright coverage denials, however, they’re talking about charging sick people more. According to Freedom Caucus Mark Meadows, (R-NC), this would mean sick people “may be picking up the slack so that premiums of the healthy would go down.”
“Picking up the slack”
That means “sick people facing unaffordable rates for their health insurance.”
Yep. Straight from Freedom Caucus Meadows’ mouth:
The fundamental idea is that marginally sick people would pay the risk associated with their coverage,” Meadows said. “Those that have premiums that would be driven up because of catastrophic illness or long-term illness, we’ve been dealing with that for a long time with high-risk pools.
In fact, Congressman Meadows, we have been dealing with it, but very poorly. Before Obamacare, high-risk pools were a cruel joke on the chronically ill. They were available if you could survive the waiting list, and afford the premiums and keep your healthcare costs below the annual and lifetime maximums.
Of course, as suggested by some conservative think tankers, the GOP could even create “invisible high-risk pools”. How would they work? Simple. We’d go back to medical underwriting, like before Obamacare outlawed it. But instead of denying health insurance altogether, the insurers would offer insurance to sick people at higher rates. These rate increases would be “hidden” meaning that it wouldn’t be obvious to sick people that they were being discriminated against. Nice. . . not.
The Problem: Being Sick Is Nobody’s Fault
What seems to be implicit in GOP thinking is the complete failure to recognize that serious illnesses are generally random events. People don’t choose to be ill. If they did, that would presumably make them to blame and so perhaps they ought to pay more (in somebody’s universe).
In fact, most of the time illnesses and accidents just happen to us, with a terrible randomness. Check out this 3/24/17 Scientific American article by Sharon Begley, Most Cancer Cases Arise From Bad Luck for more information.
But the GOP doesn’t care. Their focus is on reducing taxes for their billionaire buddies. If that means cutting Medicaid, Obamacare and Medicare, leaving millions of Americans high and dry, so be it.
Risk Segregation is Not Insurance
This idea of segregating sick people in a risk pool separate from healthy people is a form of discrimination. It results in sick people being charged more for insurance simply because they might actually need to use it. The problem is, that isn’t how health insurance is supposed to work.
According to Jonathan Cohn, writing for the Huffington Post (4/4/17),
The whole point of health insurance is to protect people from financial ruin just because they happen to be injured or sick. Living with diabetes, battling cancer, recovering from serious injury ― these things are hard enough without having to worry that paying the medical bills will drive you into bankruptcy.
The Affordable Care Act was an effort, however imperfect and incomplete, to protect people from those problems. This Republican proposal would expose them all over again.
But discrimination is not the only issue here.
The Deck is Stacked Against Us
With practices like segregating the sick into high-risk pools, health insurers are gifted with a premium-paying, healthy population which needs little or no healthcare.
Congress is guaranteeing insurance companies a foolproof profitable business model, while we the taxpayers pick up the health insurance for those who are sick, or who cannot afford to pay the premiums for private health insurance.
And it’s not only Trumpcare! Even Obamacare serves the interests of the insurance industry!
As reported by Angelo Young, in his article “Making a killing under Obamacare: The ACA gets blamed for rising premiums, while insurance companies are reaping massive profits” Salon (10/28/16)
While Americans continue to be hammered by rising health care costs, and while congressional lawmakers (with their taxpayer-subsidized health care) do nothing to lower the cost of pharmaceuticals and medical care, one group is reaping a windfall in profit: health insurance companies and their investors.
The Real Walking Dead?
What will it take for the politicians start putting our health first? After all, we’re the ones paying for their ultra-fabulous health care. Simple. We need to be engaged, informed voters! Because if people vote with their health in mind, a lot of members of Congress will find themselves out of office!
After all, 2018 is right around the corner.
The California Difference – Heart!
California is different. Really, we are! We embraced Obamacare and the Medicaid Expansion with everything we had, so that as many Californians as possible could get access to the healthcare they need. And then we built on Obamacare, expanding our Medi-Cal program to cover ALL children, regardless of their documentation status.
Consequently, GOP attacks on our healthcare do not sit well with Californians nor with our leaders! California is thinking ahead.
Not only do we know that we need health care that the Congress can’t take away from us, but we know we need health care that works even better than Obamacare! Even after Obamacare, nearly 4 million Californians do not have health insurance. This is unacceptable.
We need to save money on health care so we can get everybody covered!
The Healthy California Act
And that’s why we’re so excited about SB 562, The Healthy California Act. It establishes the infrastructure for a better-than-Medicare-type system in California that would give access to comprehensive health care to everybody, while saving money at the same time! In the words of Senator Toni Atkins, co-author of the bill introduced by Senator Ricardo Lara, “Obamacare is a floor, not a ceiling.”
Win guaranteed healthcare for YOUR family! Help us get this bill passed! Let’s lead the nation and put the “care” back in health care!
What YOU Can DO
If you agree that California should take the lead with guaranteed healthcare, take action!
- Join us on Twitter and Facebook.
-
Tell your State Senator to co-sponsor SB 562, The Healthy California Act!
- Sign our Open Letter to Governor Brown and Our Legislative Leaders!
- Support our educational campaigns with your tax-deductible donations.
Dear Governor Brown, Senate President Pro Tem DeLeón and Assembly Speaker Rendon:
Californians need and want guaranteed healthcare that covers everybody for everything for life!
We support the Healthy California Act introduced by Senator Ricardo Lara and co-sponsored by Senator Toni Atkins.
Help all Californians fight the heartless and cruel threats to our health care from Washington DC.
Let’s HEAL California with SB 562, the Healthy California Act!
