Friday, May 5, 2017

Pre-existing conditions

There is no end to the conditions that insurance companies can opt out of covering, according the health care bill passed by House Republicans yesterday. That is just some of them; the actual list goes on for pages. It appears that insurance companies are obliged to cover only those who are in perfect health, who never need to make a serious claim, because as soon as a patient needs to collect on payments made to an insurance company, he or she can be summarily kicked off of the plan. That's if the insurance company accepts them into the plan in the first place. This criminal act committed by House Republicans yesterday would kick at least 24 million people off the insurance rolls, and would strip away some $900 billion in funding for Medicaid coverage. Apparently the sick, the poor, the disabled are not deemed worthy of healthcare coverage—and all so that the wealthiest Americans can get a big fat tax break. The obscenely wealthy one-percent of Americans clearly have the House Republicans on a string, and they are pulling hard to ensure that the two-percent tax Obama levied against them to fund Obamacare, will be returned to their coffers, and everyone else be damned. This bill will likely never pass the Senate in its current form, which means there are several more steps that will have to be taken before an actual repeal of Obamacare. And all because insurance companies don't want to insure people. They merely want to line their pockets with kickbacks from the outrageous cost of health care in this country, costs that they drove through the stratospheres and on which they collect without conscience. Apart from calling our Congress people, what can we do to change this state of affairs? It's not a rhetorical question. I'm sincerely trying to figure out how we turn back this blood-red tide.


5 comments:

  1. There's no turning the tide until we vote in an administration that is seriously dedicated to progressive causes. Which, of course, will be harder and harder to do now that corporations and business interests are "people" under the law. Perhaps the Middle American voters who supported Trump will rise up in fury that the benefits of his legislation are -- SURPRISE -- millionaires and billionaires! (I can dream, can't I?)

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  2. Both me and my husband would be denied. I actually shed tears yesterday at the total lack of regard for human life. Oh, wait. Except if it's a fetus. I guess just keep on with the calls, cards and support for those that fight, like the ACLU. It's just insane cruelty.
    Xoxo
    Barbara

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  3. I have no idea what can be done and feel as helpless and hopeless about this situation as I've ever felt about anything in my life.
    I am a human being, therefore I AM a pre-existing condition.

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  4. I only have one of those conditions, however it is life threatening. Thank you Republicans.
    I wonder what those people who voted no in the first round were threatened with now? Only Mister Soulless could come up with a punishment frightening enough to prompt them to give up their own souls. But then again, perhaps it's not so hard for them to do that.

    I have hope that when the elections come up to vote on congress, that so many republicans with be in traumatic disorder that they will turn on their party. I don't know what to do either. Phone calls are an option, of course, but they are not anywhere near enough and the rest of the road seems completely dark.

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  5. It's paralyzingly depressing. Fox News is LYING to its viewers about what's in the bill. They think they're going to have coverage. There is a case going to the Supreme Court to reverse much of the gerrymandering in the red states. If that wins, voting will become more effective. The only thing that we can do is stay angry, yell at our congress people and vote. I am so uninsurable it's pathetic. Heart, ears, feet; pick one!

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