In today's New York Times, Ron Johnson, Republican senator from Wisconsin argues against the Senate health care bill because it DOES NOT remove the protections for coverage of pre-existing conditions (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/opinion/senate-health-care-bill.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/opinion/senate-health-care-bill.html)
Guess what, it already does. I've put together the following explanation of what's going on in the current draft of the Senate bill.
Let’s start with what the bill does not do:
“There’s nothing in the Senate bill that specifically would allow withdrawal of coverage for a person with a preexisting condition,” said Timothy Jost, emeritus law professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia and an expert on health reform. “What it does do is allow states to get waivers” allowing exceptions to rules requiring comprehensive coverage, he said. (http://khn.org/news/promises-
The trouble lies with what some have been calling the “back door” approach, the potential for states to waiver the essential health benefits requirement. The waiver provision in the Senate bill is large enough to drive a truck through (https://www.vox.com/the-big-
The ACA deems ten categories of coverage to be essential, that was a huge step forward for the private insurance market as it made junk coverage a thing of the past (with some exceptions, but that’s for another time). The Senate waiver provisions basically allow a state to eliminate that requirement on insurance plans for no reason. That means plans can (and will) be offered that don’t offer drug coverage, or maternity coverage, or radiation coverage…
Here’s why.
“Once a state waived EHBs, insurers would begin a race to the bottom to provide the most bare bones coverage. Those who provided more comprehensive coverage would attract less healthy customers and see their costs rise accordingly. To avoid this issue, insurers would jettison coverage of expensive treatments and try to cherry-pick only healthier customers. The CBO predicted, “Services or benefits likely to be excluded from the EHBs in some states include maternity care, mental health and substance abuse benefits, rehabilitative and habilitative services, and pediatric dental benefits.” The CBO’s prediction matches the reality of the pre-ACA insurance market, in which the vast majority of plans did not cover maternity care and a significant number of people did not have coverage for substance abuse or mental health services. Under the AHCA, people whose needs were not met by standard insurance would be forced either to buy coverage riders, which would expand the coverage provided by their policy for an added cost or to find a more expensive plan that provided a broader range of benefits.” (https://www.americanprogress.
Basically, healthy people will want a cheaper plan, insurers will offer bare-bones plans that only the healthy will want. Only sick people will want comprehensive plans, meaning the costs will escalate quickly, making them unaffordable.
So while it’s true the Senate bill does not explicitly take away the pre-ex protections, the waivers mean the market still allow (force) insurers to do so.
Here are several sources:
https://www.theatlantic.com/
