This whole healthcare “debate” is making me crazy. My opinion of politicians has reached an all-time low. Why do so many Republican politicians seem to hate people and love money so much that they’d cast their neighbors with pre-existing conditions into a living hell? If nothing else, don’t they realize that with time we will all have pre-existing conditions, except the ultra-wealthy of course?
The definition of insanity is trying the same thing again and again while expecting a different result. High risk pools have never worked and throwing $8 billion at them is a cynical drop in the bucket when the real tab is over $200 billion.
In 2010 I lost my first wife to pancreatic cancer. She was the healthiest person alive before she got sick. She ate well and exercised two hours a day. She was diagnosed with a deadly cancer before Obamacare went into effect. The first thing the insurance company did was try to claim it was a pre-existing condition even though we had been continuously insured our entire lives. How could they do that? I don’t know, but they did. It took us months to straighten that nightmare out.
If treatment of a cancer diagnosis is delayed for a couple of months that could save an insurance company a lot of money. If a cancer patient dies before they get their insurance straightened out that could save an insurance company millions.
When you are seriously ill, at your most vulnerable, and have a loaded gun to your head, do you really want to beg a for-profit corporation for help when it will cost them more money to help you? Don’t you think they will try every legal maneuver they can to boost their bottom line? It is after all how all businesses must operate or risk being lynched by their stockholders.
Even if this GOP fiasco never becomes law, they have tortured millions of vulnerable ill people with the fear of losing their insurance… and what about the 12 million who will lose coverage due to cuts to Medicaid? Have we forgotten about them? The red team is willing to do all this damage and more to people just to score a few points for the home team. Now, how sick is that?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/02/politics/republican-health-care-bill/index.html
UPDATE 5/4/2017: I just wanted to add some points to address all the comments on the Facebook copy of this post:
1. Before the ACA, it was standard policy for many insurance companies to deny coverage anyway they could and then let the ill person try to fight it out with them. This was despicable and it happened far too often.
2. All this happened to myself and my first wife. We were insured and had been insured our entire lives and they claimed the cancer was a pre-existing condition and denied coverage. I lived it and experienced it.
3. Back before the ACA, if you had a pre-existing condition you could not move to find a better job because the new insurance company would exclude coverage for your pre-existing condition for 6 months, a year, or forever. So if you had a pre-existing condition you were trapped where you lived and where you worked.
With this new Republican bill there are enough loopholes to take us a good way back to these bad old days where if you got sick, you could be in deep trouble financially because your insurance was going to fight you. Is this where we really want to be as a society? Are we really this selfish and cruel? I know for a fact we are not. Do your homework. Read about what it was like before the ACA and ask yourself is this the right direction for our society.
I know a lot of people want this bill because they think it will save them money. They are wrong. If you are older, the CBO stated your insurance could go up by 200%. It’s in the bill. Obamacare limits charging older people no more than 3 times what a younger person pays. The new improved Republican bill allows them to charge 5 times more, and that is not counting what they can do to jack up your bill with pre-existing condition claims, or who knows what your state may cook up if they get a waiver.
Remember, we all have or will have pre-existing conditions. We all are or will become sick or injured through no fault of our own. Watch out, this bill is not about saving you money. I suspect this bill all about the GOP scoring points with a half-baked scheme fueled by political desperation. We should all be working to improve our healthcare system, not demolish it.
“What is my personal idea for a solution?”
I feel single payer is the best solution, but we can’t get their politically. So this is my idea for the best alternative:
https://kevinbohacz.com/2017/03/28/health-insurance-is-the-wrong-tool-for-the-job
Also, check out this story from 2007 about the games insurance companies played back then. Does the word rescission ring a bell? It was retroactive cancellation of policy after you got sick for any reason that can be cooked up.
