My Prediction For The Affordable Care Act
The individual Mandate will remain, after all that is what Republicans wanted for so long.
Pretty much every other regulation/protection within the Act will be "freed" leaving that up to your insurance provider.
- Protecting Your Choice of Doctors: Choose the primary care doctor you want from your plan’s network.
- Keeping Young Adults Covered: If you are under 26, you may be eligible to be covered under your parent’s health plan.
- Ending Lifetime Limits on Coverage: Lifetime limits on most benefits are banned for all new health insurance plans.
- Ending Pre-Existing Condition Exclusions for Children: Health plans can no longer limit or deny benefits to children under 19 due to a pre-existing condition.
- Ending Arbitrary Withdrawals of Insurance Coverage: Insurers can no longer cancel your coverage just because you made an honest mistake.
- Reviewing Premium Increases: Insurance companies must now publicly justify any unreasonable rate hikes.
- Helping You Get the Most from Your Premium Dollars: Your premium dollars must be spent primarily on health care – not administrative costs.
- Restricting Annual Dollar Limits on Coverage: Annual limits on your health benefits will be phased out by 2014.
- Removing Insurance Company Barriers to Emergency Services: You can seek emergency care at a hospital outside of your health plan’s network. Since the Patient’s Bill of Rights was enacted, the Affordable Care Act has provided additional rights and protections including:
- Covering Preventive Care at No Cost to You: You may be eligible for recommended preventive health services. No copayment.
- Guaranteeing Your Right to Appeal: You now have the right to ask that your plan reconsider its denial of payment.
Much easier to legislate.
No need for oversight.
They may even keep one or two protections but not bother to actually enforce them.
The only ones you need to fine/prosecute are the ones that cannot afford teams/companies of fancy lawyers.
Trump said tweeted healthcare legislation was just so hard, I think it will prove to be pretty easy. Damn the Democrats for passing Republican based legislation, laughter must be ringing around the halls of The Heritage Foundation.
Oh they'll call it something like "The Great American Freedom Plan For Patriots" but it will be anything but, it'll be a "pay up and shut up" scheme to help the poor insurance companies.
Single payer/Medicare for all would have been so much harder to screw with, I believe the ACA was designed that [FRAGILE] way on purpose.
Comments
Mandate
I thought I read that the mandate was being pulled back?
They'll call it the freedom to pay clause.
Rest assured whatever changes are made will be to
benefit the corporations/rich people. Remembering the conversations during the creation of the ACA, many of us for single payer said it would be another 20 years before we had another chance at it. This just puts it further down the rabbit hole.
Be interesting to see how many Democrats support
whatever changes are made to improve the lives of the wealthiest
Lots of tax deductions
that benefit people with more expensive plans is my guess.
That and Health Savings Accounts for the poors.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
Just make the health care of the uber rich tax deductable
job done.
The Health Savings accounts are a big part of the grift.
This allows for stable premiums while the cost gouging (caused by the absence of competitive cost controls) is shifted and hidden in very common procedures medications that are no longer included in coverage. Anything that is non-catastrophic will cost you. So the little people will be forced to put every extra cent and their tax refund in their HSAs and pray they don't have to go to the doctor. That way both the banksters and medical predators can profit off of them while rationing care to the throwaway people.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
medical predators
I like that!
This shit is bananas.
Have you seen John Oliver's rant on Obamacare?
He calls out HSAs for what they are; it's a pretty good video:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEGpriv2TAc]
This shit is bananas.
So simple consultants and committees not needed
But there's no hidden money in that. This will never fly (or even crawl). Who could be the lobbyist is Medicare-for-all was the law? Besides, it's much too simple. Think of all the trees that may be spared needlessly! Think of the mass unemployment at the insurance companies. Your plan of Medicare-for-all will cost Amurrikkka thousands of jobs. Plus it will keep tens of thousands of useless Amurrikkkans alive to eat up or precious resources--think of all the CO2 these excess persons are consuming!
Damn I forgot the profit motive.
Even under the ACA...
Healthcare in this country is based on the Mafia business model, pay or die.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Worse than that, it's have insurance or die
I recently had to find a doctor, after decades of not seeing one, and I called around to several primary care physicians to try to get an appointment as new patient. The *first* thing they ask is "what insurance do you have?" -- then, if they are satisfied with your answer, they ask why you need to see a doctor and will see if they can fit you in.
I'm lucky that I do have good health insurance through my job, at least for now, and it sure seems to open doors when I found I needed access to a doctor. Every office I dealt with, from urgent care to radiology to follow up primary care doctor, was very helpful and responsive as soon as they heard my insurance was one they apparently liked. The voice warms up considerably from the cold "what insurance do you have?" initial tone... they are obviously ready to cut you off and curtly hang up if you don't have any, or if they don't accept the one you have.
@CS in AZ agreed! I no longer
agreed! I no longer have health insuance. With out health insurance, I changed from the slow lane to death, to the fast lane....
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
RantingRooster, Welcome to the club.
I have survived 20 years now with no health insurance and no medical care except for minimal dental care and glasses, both paid out of pocket.
Good health habits can help a lot, but especially I keep an eagle eye on the quality of food I eat. And I have never had an above official poverty level income. I began by reading labels. If I don't know what polysomethingorotherdiglicerades are I don't buy the product.
As of right now, Trump ordered IRS to not charge penalties for not having insurance. Keep in mind that, in addition to the corporate interests backing the individual mandate, there factions within the Democratic Party who think they will benefit as well. Those factions want the jobs in insurance companies and HMOs for "our people". Most companies now have what is called a Diversity Officer, or something of the sort. You might think that that person's job is to monitor the hiring of minority and immigrant workers and to make sure those people are fairly treated, arrange for mentoring and the like and do some community outreach. However, besides all of the above, the officer's real job is to secure political support from immigrant and minority organizations for policies which benefit the company.
Mary Bennett
The US economy is based on the protection racket
…when you factor in "defense" and the aftermath, which is more than half of government spending. Then add banking and investing and insurance, which are all protection based schemes, and you've got the bulk of what's left as disposable income evaporates to inflation.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato