The new healthcare bill.

MagentaYenta

Fri, Jun 23 2017, 8:35 pm

I'm pretty disgusted about the way people in wheelchairs were bound and removed from their protest outside McConnell's office. A friend of mind who is wheel chair bound with use of her upper body only said it would be painful and torturous for her to be bound the same way.

I'm particularly nauseated considering Mitch was the beneficiary of public health care when he was a child afflicted with polio. But it hit's home when I think about all the Imas whose kids are going to go without because of his support of this legislation.
https://patch.com/us/white-hou.....floor

Jeanette

Sat, Jun 24 2017, 10:33 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

The way the protesters were treated is shameful.

That said, McConnell's treatment was funded by private charity, not by taxpayers. I guess that's the model he wants to turn us back to. More tzedaka drives to pay for cancer treatment, yay.

WhatFor

Sat, Jun 24 2017, 11:27 pm

Can anyone summarize the changes we should expect with the new healthcare bill?

Jeanette

Sat, Jun 24 2017, 11:37 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Can anyone summarize the changes we should expect with the new healthcare bill?

Here's a start

http://www.politifact.com/trut.....s-it/

anon for this

Sun, Jun 25 2017, 12:38 am

I find it disturbing as well, but hardly surprising. Paul Ryan has often talked about his dream of dismantling Medicaid completely, and now he can finally make it happen.

anon for this

Sun, Jun 25 2017, 12:43 am

Jeanette wrote:

That's true. Apparently his treatment was funded by the March of Dimes, then known as the National Foundation for Infant Paralysis. The March of Dimes asked to meet with him to discuss their concerns about the AHCA, but he was "too busy" to meet with them or any of the other patient advocacy groups who wanted to discuss the bill.

MagentaYenta

Sun, Jun 25 2017, 12:56 am

Jeanette wrote:

Shame on me for taking the bait and not fact checking first. embarrassed

The Atlantic has a nuanced explanation of what we're facing with regards to pre existing conditions. This is but an excerpt. It's worthwhile reading the whole thing. The bold is mine.
https://www.theatlantic.com/bu.....1375/

"...The Affordable Care Act does allow, through Section 1332, for states to have some flexibility to waive these and other requirements, but only if they meet very rigorous conditions or “guardrails” that ensure coverage remains available, affordable, and high-quality. This is where the new Senate bill makes significant—and dangerous—changes. The bill drives straight through these carefully crafted guardrails. Today, to waive requirements like essential benefits, a state must show that the alternative insurance being provided is “comprehensive,” and “will provide coverage and cost-sharing protections against excessive out-of-pocket spending.” These careful conditions on quality are removed in the Senate bill, replaced with a bare-minimum requirement that the alternative doesn’t increase the federal budget deficit. States will be able to easily waive the requirement to cover Essential Health Benefits, without any careful conditions to ensure the quality and affordability of coverage.

As a result, insurers will offer skinny plans with less coverage that falls far short of the needs of those with serious health conditions. This is how it used to work: Before the Affordable Care Act, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Department of Health and Human Services, almost one in 10 Americans in the individual market didn’t have coverage for prescription drugs. Young and healthy people will opt for those plans, leaving those with pre-existing conditions in their own, much more costly, market. In the end, the effect is the same as if companies could just outright discriminate against those with serious health problems.

Consider, for example, a family with a spouse or parent with cancer whose drug treatment costs thousands of dollars for their drugs. They think they have a victory in that under the Senate plan, their insurance company can’t explicitly charge them more because of their family member with a pre-existing condition. But, unfortunately for them, they find that they live in a state that allows insurers to offer plans that don’t cover prescription-drug costs. This family will face nothing but bad choices.

Because the skinny, incomplete plans are a non-starter for them, they can’t take the cheap option. But everyone who’s young or healthy does. The only people choosing the alternative, signing up for a plan that actually meets their needs, are those with serious conditions. This will further drive up the costs of these plans—the only plans that actually cover the treatment that seriously sick people need—and will further drive the young and the healthy away.

The state may not explicitly say they are making those with pre-existing conditions pay more, but that will be the impact. Many of those families will simply not be able to afford the care they need. And it could get worse. A thoughtful analysis by Matt Fiedler at the Brookings Institution found that where states can waive Essential Health Benefits, insurance companies and employers could reinstate annual and lifetime limits on coverage..."