They think we are going to give up. Like thieves in the night, they think they can steal our pre-existing conditions protections. Once again, they are trying to trade our health care for tax cuts for the rich. It’s another attempt to replace health care with wealth care.
Equally or more troubling about the Graham-Cassidy bill is the cruel fact of obliterating the protections for pre-existing conditions. From Vox:
The new Republican plan to repeal Obamacare would bring preexisting conditions back to the individual market, allowing insurers to charge sick people higher premiums — or deny them coverage outright.
"You can be charged more for a specific condition," says Chris Sloan, a senior manager at the health research firm Avalere, of the Cassidy-Graham plan that has begun to gain traction on Capitol Hill.
What would be affected? Asthma. Breast cancer. Pregnancy. Depression. All of it. Everything.
Those waivers do have some guardrails. The bill says states cannot tether an individual's premiums to "sex or membership in a protected class under the Constitution of the United States."
Anything else — a cancer diagnosis, a history of breast cancer, a mild case of asthma — is fair game. In states that did pursue and receive these waivers, health plans would have full authority to charge sicker patients higher premiums to offset their costs.
We aren’t talking about a slight bump here. We are talking about massive increases. See this chart from the Center for American Progress. Pregnant? Are you one of the 85% of women who’ve completed a pregnancy? That’ll be a $17,320 increase.
Stop this bill in its tracks. Rumors or not, we have to take this threat seriously. As serious as a heart attack. Take one to two minutes to pick up the phone and call your senator today.
Call your senators at (202) 224-3121 and urge them to vote “NO” on any repeal bill. (After you call, please tell us how it went.)