May 4, 2017

GOP Don't Care bill would put hundreds of thousands with pre-existing conditions at risk

CNBC - The Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare does not allocate nearly enough money to protect people with pre-existing health conditions from potentially higher insurance premiums, an analysis finds.

The bill's $23 billion in funding specifically for such people would cover just 110,000 Americans, according to the Avalere Health study released Thursday.

That's only 5 percent of the 2.2 million current enrollees in the individual insurance market with some type of pre-existing chronic condition.

And even if states were to add in all the other money in the bill's $100 billion Patient and State Stability Fund, only a total of 600,000 people with pre-exisiting conditions could be covered, the study found.

Avalere said the gap between funding and need could leave many people with health problems unable to afford insurance coverage if the GOP's American Health Care Act becomes law.

"Texas alone has approximately 190,000 enrollees in its individual market with pre-existing chronic conditions, nearly 80,000 more people than the funds earmarked for the entire country would cover," Avalere said. "Florida has 205,000, nearly 95,000 more than the funds allotted nationally ... would cover."

The study was released hours before the House was expected to vote on the Republican bill.

That bill would allow states to obtain waivers for insurers that would let those companies charge sicker people more money for coverage than healthier people if they let their insurance plans lapse, as long as the state creates a program to give those sicker people financial aid for their coverage.

To offset some of the cost of those higher charges, the bill also sets aside funding to subsidize coverage for people with pre-existing conditions through high-risk pools in individual states.

But Obamacare defenders have said that past efforts by states that ran high-risk pools for such people have failed to cover enough people, and did not have adequate funding.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Democrats held both chambers of the legislature as well as the executive office, they had the opportunity to craft a substantial health care measure that would be unchallengeable by virtue of its effectiveness and popularity, yet they instead optioned to offer the nation that terrible piece of shit corporate give-away legislation, the ACA. Of course, what appears to follow won't be an improvement, and nobody with half a wit expected anything different from this corrupt government. There's the salient point to be derived from this, the widespread universal rot consuming both the Republicans and Democrats. Each has been captured by the deep pockets. Sam, you wrote about it a few years back, the silent coup, and it appears that has not been an exaggeration.
Is restoration of what preceded even possible anymore? Doubtful.