I said in my original comment that portability can be addressed separately. And they can do it quickly. That means carrying coverage over from one policy to another. If you’re a diabetic and lose your job and your insurance you need to be able to buy similar coverage on the market. But if you go uninsured and find out you’re diabetic and THEN try to buy insurance you’d be out of luck and should be.
“If you’re a diabetic and lose your job and your insurance you need to be able to buy similar coverage on the market.”
Precisely my point.
If they don’t do this either first or at the same time, then it becomes a fight to the death for some people (including friends of mine) who would otherwise support the GOP. I know FOUR people amongst friends and family to whom this applies, 40’s to 60’s. They’ve always held jobs and had coverage. Yank something away that a person has expected their whole life (no matter HOW irrational or ‘socialistic’ or unconstitutional YOU consider it) and expect violent opposition (I mean the general ‘you’, not anyone personally).
Hell I got laid off at 50, a year after being diagnosed with diabetes. Worked 6 crap jobs in the year before landing another one with health coverage, so as with my friends, it becomes a case of life and death. Better ANYTHING, any dictator, any form of government rather than dying slowly piecemeal as one said to me. It would be a different issue if they (or at one point I) could have purchased medical goods and services at a fair market-driven price, but you can’t.
Just saying, the pre-existing coverage issue, IMHO, MUST be addressed first. All the talk about ‘constitutionality’, ‘socialized medicine’ and the like means exactly nothing when the alternative is an untreated serious disease after one has played the game by the rules for nearly an entire adult life.