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AHCA: what is considered "pre existing conditions", and why it's worse than that

Elandyll

Banned
With the other thread apparently nixxed for being a tad fast and loose with the specifics on Rape as a preexisting condition, here is where it currently stands.

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-counts-pre-existing-condition-ahca-trump-obamacare-2017-5

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 27% of Americans under 65 have health conditions that could leave them without access to insurance. Some of the preexisting conditions that insurers declined coverage because of before the ACA, according to the foundation, include diabetes and heart disease, which affects millions of Americans.

These preexisting conditions include:

AIDS/HIV, lupus, alcohol abuse/drug abuse with recent treatment, severe mental disorders such as bipolar disorder or an eating disorder, Alzheimer's/dementia, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia and other inflammatory joint disease, muscular dystrophy, cancer, severe obesity, cerebral palsy, organ transplant, congestive heart failure, paraplegia, coronary artery/heart disease, bypass surgery, paralysis, Crohn's disease/ulcerative colitis, Parkinson's disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease/emphysema, pending surgery or hospitalization, diabetes mellitus, pneumocystis pneumonia, epilepsy, pregnancy or expectant parent, hemophilia, sleep apnea, hepatitis C, stroke, kidney disease, renal failure, transsexualism.

Other conditions that could make it harder to purchase a health insurance plan, according to KFF:

Acne, allergies, anxiety, asthma, basal cell skin cancer (a type of skin cancer that doesn't tend to spread), depression, ear infections, fractures, high cholesterol, hypertension, incontinence, joint injuries, kidney stones, menstrual irregularities, migraine headaches, being overweight, restless leg syndrome, tonsillitis, urinary tract infections, varicose veins, and vertigo.

Denying coverage for abuse, sexual assault or outright rape was common before the ACA, a practice which is now banned by law in several states, but as you can see the provisions include several ways by which Insurances could go in order to facilitate this practice, by a round about way.

With the new bill beeing pushed by the Gop, in theory only states that have a high risk pool may exempt themselves from the preexisting condition clause.

But

1) the pool is severly underfundded at $138b for 10 years, a nearly by a 3 to 1 ratio
http://www.businessinsider.com/ahca-high-risk-pools-healthcare-vote-obamacare-2017-5

"Even under pretty conservative estimates, a minimally adequate high-risk pool could cost $25 billion per year nationwide," Levitt tweeted Wednesday.

Even an estimated from conservative analysts James C. Capretta and Tom Miller said that in order to operate functional high-risk pools in all 50 states, the federal government would need to provide $15 billion to $20 billion annually, leaving the AHCA short even with the proposed money from Upton's amendment.

A separate analysis from Emily Gee and Topher Spiro at the liberal Center for American Progress found that high-risk pools would need $327 billion over 10 years, leaving the AHCA well short under the current plan.

2) high risk pools are nothing new. They existed before the ACA, and were doing next to nothing to help patients with serious conditions whose premiums were skyrocketing way beyond any reason.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/03/news/economy/high-risk-pools-obamacare-pre-existing/

High-risk pools have long been a favorite tool of Republicans, but they have a very checkered past. They were typically severely underfunded, charged participants high premiums, excluded coverage of pre-existing conditions initially and had waiting lists for enrollment.
Some 35 states ran high-risk pools prior to Obamacare. In 2011, they covered 226,000, who racked up $2.6 billion in claims. But premiums covered only about half that amount, forcing states to kick in $1.2 billion to make up the difference, usually through assessments on insurers. However, these levies were usually offset by tax credits, so the funding effectively came from the state revenues.
And the pools only covered a small fraction of those who were potentially eligible, the Kaiser Family Foundation found. The strict rules and high costs dampened enrollment by those who were sick and needed coverage.
"Prior to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, 35 states operated high-risk pools, and they were not a panacea for Americans with pre-existing medical conditions," said Andrew W. Gurman, president of the American Medical Association. "The history of high-risk pools demonstrates that Americans with pre-existing conditions will be stuck in second-class health care coverage -- if they are able to obtain coverage at all."

3) it is also to note that under the new AHCA, being past 45, but particularly 60, would see huge increases in premiums.

http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/advocacy/info-2017/older-adults-pay-more-with-age-tax-fd.html

Premiums for older people could jump to five times the amount insurers charge younger consumers, from the limit of three times the younger consumers’ rate under the current law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Such a change would significantly increase financial burdens on millions of older adults, but the shift in costs would do little to get more young consumers to enroll. Key points to consider include:

Significantly increasing premiums for older adults would only marginally lower costs for younger adults. The Joint Economic Committee paper incorrectly claims that weakening the limit on age rating to a 5-to-1 ratio would not penalize any age group. The burden of such a policy change would actually fall heavily on older adults, according to Milliman research commissioned by AARP. Under the AHCA:

Average premiums would increase for all ages starting at about age 46.
Premiums for 60- to 64-year-olds would increase by an average of $3,200, amounting to average unsubsidized premiums of almost $18,000 per year. Meanwhile, 20- to 29-year-olds are expected to see significantly smaller average savings, of only $700 per year, giving them average unsubsidized premiums of $4,010 per year.

And that's on top of the AHCA obviously considering being a Woman a preexisting condition, with its listing of Pregnancy (which they extended to both parents to be less obvious), but also "menstrual irregularities".

Now Rape isn't actually listed as a PEC, but with the lists above, and what has happened in the time before the ACA, I' m not sure it's a stretch to fear it's coming back, although the act reads that nothing in it shall allow to discriminaye based on gender.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/05/new-healthcare-bill-ahca-sexual-assault.html

The new MacArthur-Meadows Amendment allows states to apply for a waiver allowing insurance companies to raise premiums based on medical history. That would mean reverting to pre-Obamacare definitions of preexisting conditions, which are any medical condition that a patient has before signing up for insurance. However, all but six states have laws on the books forbidding the practice of discriminating against preexisting conditions related to sexual assault.

In addition to PTSD stemming from sexual assault and domestic violence, other conditions like postpartum depression and having gotten a cesarean section could also be considered preexisting conditions.
 
Like fuck man, I don't understand how anyone can be this evil. Why even get insurance if they're not going to cover you for "pre-existing conditions?"
 

Joel Was Right

Gold Member
How are people with pre-existing conditions going to get affordable coverage in a system that continues to have rising costs? I don't see it. The only solution is a single payer system; universal healthcare, or bust.
 
How are people with pre-existing conditions going to get affordable coverage in a system that continues to have rising costs? I don't see it. The only solution is a single payer system; universal healthcare, or bust.

They aren't going to. Health care is for the rich, it's a luxury, not a right for these people.
 

Zoe

Member
Like fuck man, I don't understand how anyone can be this evil. Why even get insurance if they're not going to cover you for "pre-existing conditions?"
That's not quite what happens.

Prior to the ACA, if you were seeking private insurance and had a pre-existing condition that the company didn't like, they would deny you from obtaining a plan at all. The only way to get a plan would have been through your employer, but they wouldn't cover anything related to the pre-existing condition.

With the ACA, nobody could deny you a plan, but if you didn't have continuous coverage, they wouldn't have to cover anything related to the pre-existing condition until you had had the plan for a certain amount of time (usually one year).
 

BitStyle

Unconfirmed Member
So how does this not result in everyone being in pre-existing condition pools?

It seems if you have anything you get put on the list.
 
So how does this not result in everyone being in pre-existing condition pools?

It seems if you have anything you get put on the list.
Before the ACA even though all those things could be a pre-existing condition, you weren't always denied. Obamacare established a plan to cover those who couldn't get a plan until the health insurance exchanges were set up and at the maximum enrollment only ~100,000 people across the whole country were in it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-existing_Condition_Insurance_Plan

Also if you have health insurance through your employer or through Medicare then none of this matters.

Also AHCA is still terrible for many reasons and the CBO hasn't analyzed it yet so we don't even know what it does. I hope the senate tears it up and starts over.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
How are people with pre-existing conditions going to get affordable coverage in a system that continues to have rising costs? I don't see it. The only solution is a single payer system; universal healthcare, or bust.

We're gonna bust.
 

Elev8ion

Neo Member
Less people alive = less opposition

It really is comic book levels of evil

For this to be true you would have to prove the proportionality of the # of "less people alive" that would be opposed to the current administration's proposals etc.

Just sayin'
 
got a pre existing condition? It's your fault.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...sperity-gospel-of-american-health-care/525264

One good answer might come from a recent interview on the AHCA between Alabama’s Representative Mo Brooks and CNN’s Jake Tapper. “[The plan] will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool,” Brooks claimed. “That helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now, those are the people—who’ve done things the right way—that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”
 

rjinaz

Member
The people that voted for this are traitors to the American public. I don't care if they figured it would change some or not.
 
I'll be sure to thank my family members who voted for Trump when I no longer have access to anxiety medication that I need to regulate my panic attacks by breaking my foot off in their asses.
 

Dierce

Member
I can't believe they are trying to make rape and domestic violence a pre existing condition. Just what?
What goes through a republican's mind:
  1. Fewer sexual crimes reported thus a drop in statistics.
  2. Women become more subservient.
  3. Conservatives praise republicans for returning back to their glorified puritan times.
 
Yep, I'm done. I'm done feeling sorry for the republicans every time they vote for something really stupid against their own interest and it screws them in the end. Especially when that stupid thing causes millions to suffers and die because of stupid bullshit like this. My mom is gonna suffer, I'm gonna suffer and everyone in my family will probably suffer because of stupid, ignorant, moronic, HATEFUL, spiteful, sorry ass republicans.
 
24 years ago when my mother was pregnant with me I was considered a pre-existing condition. They couldn't get insurance because of me. You know how fucked that is?

Republicans call themselves pro life. And people just eat it up.
 

neorej

ERMYGERD!
24 years ago when my mother was pregnant with me I was considered a pre-existing condition. They couldn't get insurance because of me. You know how fucked that is?

Republicans call themselves pro life. And people just eat it up.
They're pro life until you pop out of the womb, then you're on your own.
 
I have friends in medical insurance, hospital administration, nurses, and doctors. None of them are happy about this possibility.
 

rjinaz

Member
I have friends in medical insurance, hospital administration, nurses, and doctors. None of them are happy about this possibility.

But did you talk to the Insurance companies?! I mean that's what obviously matters when it comes to healthcare for Americans.
 
It's not really about having less people alive. It's that for a a fascist system like the one the Republicans favor the lower classes have to experience a greate deal of hardship and suffering. They need to keep us in pain and preoccupied mainly with staying alive or we would become educated and politically active and challenge their control. That used to happen naturally, but now that we have worldwide communications technology and are on the verge of a post-scarcity technological state, it has to happen through carefully planned cruelty and fuckery.
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
So they are blackmailing women to not report rape or domestic abuse by threatening to quadruple their cost of insurance.

Handmaiden Tale here we come.
 

Daedardus

Member
So if you have for example diabetes and you would break a leg, you're basically fucked because you couldn't get insurance. At least in my country you can get a health insurance that covers all of the important stuff, but features a lower insured rate for certain pre-exisiting conditions for the first five years you're insured. That way, the risk is slightly lowered for the insurer (although the government obviously subsidises part of it), but you're still fully insured for conditions that have nothing to do with your pre-existing ones. America is truly fucked right now it seems.
 

Apathy

Member
Remember the fear of obamacare death panels? No need to fear the death panels if you don't live long enough to get to them
 

lush

Member
Don't worry, you'll be just fine if you're one of the non-lazy, healthy Americans with a full-time job that offers you insurance, oh wait...

Something something idle hands, devil's workshop, etc.

Many people who obtain health insurance through their employers—about half of the country—could be at risk of losing protections that limit out-of-pocket costs for catastrophic illnesses, due to a little-noticed provision of the House Republican health-care bill, health-policy experts say.

The provision, part of a last-minute amendment, lets states obtain waivers from certain Affordable Care Act insurance regulations. Insurers in states that obtain the waivers could be freed from a regulation mandating that they cover 10 particular types of health services, among them maternity care, prescription drugs, mental health treatment and hospitalization.

That could also affect plans offered by large employers, health analysts said.

Potentially, the new provision could play out this way: If a state did away with a requirement to provide mental health and substance abuse services, employer plans using that benchmark could impose lifetime caps on the amount of mental health coverage they are willing to pay for.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/li...th-bill-could-alter-employer-plans-1493890203
 

Zoe

Member
So if you have for example diabetes and you would break a leg, you're basically fucked because you couldn't get insurance. At least in my country you can get a health insurance that covers all of the important stuff, but features a lower insured rate for certain pre-exisiting conditions for the first five years you're insured. That way, the risk is slightly lowered for the insurer (although the government obviously subsidises part of it), but you're still fully insured for conditions that have nothing to do with your pre-existing ones. America is truly fucked right now it seems.

You'd be able to get insurance through an employer.
 

Tanston

Member
Serious question. At what point does the general population decide to remove this govenment by any means neccesary? When is enough enough? The government has clearly failed the people. This should not be allowed.
 

Tigress

Member
Yep, I'm done. I'm done feeling sorry for the republicans every time they vote for something really stupid against their own interest and it screws them in the end. Especially when that stupid thing causes millions to suffers and die because of stupid bullshit like this. My mom is gonna suffer, I'm gonna suffer and everyone in my family will probably suffer because of stupid, ignorant, moronic, HATEFUL, spiteful, sorry ass republicans.

If it makes you feel better my dad and stepmom are going to suffer and they voted the fuck in. They're both self employed so have to pay for their own health insurance and I know my stepmom has had a bad knee since I was a kid that she only now is getting addressed and my dad at the be least has/had a history of high cholesterol. And they are in the age range of very high price increases (I'm nearing it but I get insurance through my husband's work. Oh I got asthma too).


They're so brainwashed I'm sure they'll pick up whatever excuse the republicans are giving to say that the liberals are distorting things rather than face the fact they just got screwed (and if I hadn't just gotten married and my husband have a job that gives health coverage they would have screwed me too with their vote. But of course they'd tell me I was just listening to biased sources and I'm not being fair to trump and the republicans).

I'm not pissed at my family and friends who voted trump, nah, not me.
 

RinsFury

Member
Millions are people are going to be FUCKED because of this evil bullshit, many will die. There needs to be riots over this. The rich just keep fucking over the poor.
 

RinsFury

Member
If it makes you feel better my dad and stepmom are going to suffer and they voted the fuck in. They're both self employed so have to pay for their own health insurance and I know my stepmom has had a bad knee since I was a kid that she only now is getting addressed and my dad at the be least has/had a history of high cholesterol. And they are in the age range of very high price increases (I'm nearing it but I get insurance through my husband's work. Oh I got asthma too).


Yep, my parents too. Good luck affording the blood pressure and other medications they take. Fuck them though, as they are still both overt Trump worshippers, so they're only getting what they asked for.
 
Serious question. At what point does the general population decide to remove this govenment by any means neccesary? When is enough enough? The government has clearly failed the people. This should not be allowed.

This is how I'm feeling. Why should hundreds of thousands of people be forced to suffer because of decisions made by people they may not have voted for.

Regardless of the democratic process or which party has control, no decisions should be being made that will so blatantly harm American citizens.

These people should be dragged into the streets to face the masses.
 
Millions of Americans, but not a majority, voted to have this. I hope they are prepared to suffer the consequences.

I fucking hate the electoral college.
 
... pregnancy, menstrual irregularities, urinary tract infections...

Might as well outright say that having a uterus means you can't get reasonable* healthcare.



*reasonable for the US
 

Kusagari

Member
So basically the insurance companies have free reign to discriminate against whoever they wish and use things like depression and acne as reasons why.
 
Headt disease and high cholesterol? Looks like Trump's entire base won't have health insurance now.



Serious question. At what point does the general population decide to remove this govenment by any means neccesary? When is enough enough? The government has clearly failed the people. This should not be allowed.
Wait for Trump to start a war so most of the military will be preoccupied overseas.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
It's kind of hilarious without any laughter how literally EVERYTHING Republicans support boils down to: I'm going to use you, fuck you over, and kick you to the curb, then say you deserved it because you're a degenerate failure.

You have acne? What an awful American you are, unworthy of our God-blessed way of life. You should have your citizenship stripped and be ejected from the country. Don't move, I'm calling ICE right now.

Their psychology is entirely predicated on the methodology of a sociopathic abuser.
 

Protein

Banned
It's kind of hilarious without any laughter how literally EVERYTHING Republicans support boils down to: I'm going to use you, fuck you over, and kick you to the curb, then say you deserved it because you're a degenerate failure.

You have acne? What an awful American you are, unworthy of our God-blessed way of life. You should have your citizenship stripped and be ejected from the country. Don't move, I'm calling ICE right now.

Their psychology is entirely predicated on the methodology of a sociopathic abuser.

And then convince you it's the other guy's fault. And you vote for me again because we gotta beat the other team! WOOO! *NFL theme*
 
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