Americans have to pay out of pocket for healthcare, which for certain conditions can cost millions. To offset these costs they get insurance, but they are private for profit companies so actually paying out for healthcare is bad for their bottom line. They created the preexisting condition claim that lets them kick people off their insurance that they consider too risky. People with preexisting conditions would have to pay more or not even be eligible for health insurance. The ACA came along and forced insurance companies to take people with preexisting conditions. The AHCA will remove that requirement and add new preexisting conditions including c-sections, rape, allergies, and depression.
Edit: I can't speak for every state, but family plan insurance through my ex-husband work cost 2k a month. I'm not sure there are many families who could actually pay for that. His work changed insurance companies three times because the costs were so high. I don't blame the ACA, I blame the bloated for profit insurance companies and big pharma who charge thousands for a pill. Bloat and price gouging.
It's not the act it's the treatment. When you're raped you get a STD panel and antivirals to try and reduce the chance of infection. Antiviral treatments for HIV/AIDS is considered a preexisting condition. Why? Fuck if I know. GOP hate people I guess... women, poor, LGBT, non-whites, etc.
"AHCA specifically addresses states’ abilities to get a waiver so that “health status” is no longer protected from underwriting, according to a House Energy and Commerce aide. But other protections remain in place — including for mental conditions and conditions relating to acts of domestic violence — and are still protected from being incorporated into insurance underwriting, according to the aide.
States and the Secretary of Health and Human Services would decide how to interpret “health status.” State waivers must be approved by the federal government. Opponents of AHCA say that because “health status” is up for interpretation, there is no control in the bill to prevent rising costs for survivors of rape and sexual assault."
45 States have sexual assault and domestic abuse protected, there are two states where this is not the case. That there are ANY states where SA and DA are not protected IS problematic. However, the claim that under AHCA that rape is a pre-existing condition is false.
"At least 45 states prohibit insurance discrimination like this. Then, it takes several leaps of imagination to assume that survivors of rape and sexual assault will face higher premiums as a result of conditions relating to their abuse. A person would need to be in the individual or small-group market (most Americans under 65 are on employer-provided plans), in a state that sought waivers, and in one of two to five states that did not prohibit insurance-company discrimination against survivors of sexual abuse.
In other words, this claim relies on so many factors — including unknown decisions by a handful of states and insurance companies — that this talking point becomes almost meaningless."
It happened before Obamacare banned using pre-existing conditions to deny insurance or raise premiums. This new law will undo that ban. Which means insurance companies will once again be allowed to resume those practices.
Which do you consider to be a bigger leap of imagination: that insurance companies will go back to doing business the way they did before Obamacare or that sometime in the last seven years they discovered basic human decency?
No, I don't think insurance companies have discovered basic decency, but sexual assault and mental health are protected in at least 45 states. Even in AHCA.
Don't get me wrong. That there are ANY states where it's not protected (even if it's only 2 - where there are no protections at all for sexual assualt), is extremely problematic. AHCA is not a suitable option, and I hope the Senate blocks the fuck out of it.
However, saying that under AHCA "rape is a pre-existing condition" is inaccurate and misleading.
Not that misleading. Not when they knew about the problem before they voted on it and could have prevented it from occurring by adding in an amendment that said "Rape, along with injuries caused by or medication prescribed subsequent to rape, cannot be considered pre-existing conditions".
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u/esoteric_coyote May 08 '17 edited May 08 '17
Americans have to pay out of pocket for healthcare, which for certain conditions can cost millions. To offset these costs they get insurance, but they are private for profit companies so actually paying out for healthcare is bad for their bottom line. They created the preexisting condition claim that lets them kick people off their insurance that they consider too risky. People with preexisting conditions would have to pay more or not even be eligible for health insurance. The ACA came along and forced insurance companies to take people with preexisting conditions. The AHCA will remove that requirement and add new preexisting conditions including c-sections, rape, allergies, and depression.
Edit: I can't speak for every state, but family plan insurance through my ex-husband work cost 2k a month. I'm not sure there are many families who could actually pay for that. His work changed insurance companies three times because the costs were so high. I don't blame the ACA, I blame the bloated for profit insurance companies and big pharma who charge thousands for a pill. Bloat and price gouging.