By shoving through a vote on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act today, Republicans in the House of Representatives are violating their own “Pledge to America,” which states they won't rush bills through without the public getting a chance to read and debate them:
“We will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives.”
What’s in the bill? Aside from weakening insurance protections nationwide, it puts more than 124 million Americans with pre-existing conditions at-risk. States will not only have the ability to opt-out of the pre-existing conditions clause, they are financially rewarded for doing so.
But, there is something else in this rushed bill that constituents need to be aware of—Congress has exempted themselves and their staffs from these changes. Via Vox:
The new Republican amendment, introduced Tuesday night, would allow states to waive out of Obamacare’s ban on preexisting conditions. This means that insurers could once again, under certain circumstances, charge sick people higher premiums than healthy people.
Republican legislators liked this policy well enough to offer it in a new amendment. They do not, however, seem to like it enough to have it apply to themselves and their staff. A spokesperson for Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ), who authored this amendment, confirmed this was the case: Members of Congress and their staff would get the guarantee of keeping these Obamacare regulations. Health law expert Tim Jost flagged this particular issue to me.
A bit of background is helpful here. Obamacare requires all members of Congress and their staff to purchase coverage through the health law’s marketplace, just like Obamacare enrollees. The politics of that plank were simple enough, meant to demonstrate that if the coverage in this law were good enough for Americans, it should be good enough for their representatives in Washington.
Emphasis added.
The Republican promise, led by Paul Ryan and Donald Trump, that people with pre-existing conditions will be protected is a blatant lie. If it weren’t, why would they need this exemption? Rep. MacArthur claims they will pass a separate piece of legislation to close this loophole exemption.Why not include it now? Before they vote?
In the end, insurance companies will have the ability to charge people with pre-existing conditions a higher rate, which is exactly what we had before, and people will simply be priced out of the market. Make no mistake about it, families will go bankrupt, people will die. All so the uber wealthy in this country can get a massive tax cut. And Congress will be exempt from it all.