While a federal judge in Texas is apparently ready to strike down the Affordable Care Act, a new federal suit has been filed to fight back against unindicted co-conspirator Trump's attempts to sabotage the law. A coalition of patient advocates and other healthcare groups is attempting to block the administration from implementing an expansion of short-term health plans.
These plans, which provide bare-bones coverage and do not have to comply with all the patient protections the law have been allowed by it, but for a very limited duration of just three months. Trump wants them to be available for as long as three years. Extending these plans, the groups argue, will harm people with pre-existing conditions and limit access to coverage and care for millions of people who have serious medical conditions, from mental illness and cancer to diabetes and serious heart conditions. "It will be more expensive, and perhaps impossible, for some individuals with preexisting conditions to obtain healthcare and health insurance coverage—undermining the purpose of, and congressional plan embodied in, the ACA," the lawsuit argues.
Allowing these plans to be sold long term hurts both the potential purchasers of these plans in the event that they become seriously ill or injured—they'll be stuck with massive bills, if they can even get the care they need. It also undermines the Obamacare markets, drawing healthy people away from the more comprehensive and expensive coverage there. This could cause sicker people to stay in the markets, and make costs to rise for people pre-existing medial conditions who need the comprehensive coverage.
"This rule change rolls back the clock on Congress' bipartisan efforts to ensure patient protections and fair insurance coverage of mental illness—and will start a downward spiral that leaves people with mental health conditions right back to where we were, excluded from life-saving healthcare," said Mary Giliberti, chief executive of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Her group is one of seven involved in the lawsuit. The others are the Association for Community Affiliated Plans; Mental Health America; the American Psychiatric Association; AIDS United; the National Partnership for Women and Families; and Little Lobbyists, a group representing children with serious illnesses and their families.
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