Posted on 06/26/2017 10:41:17 AM PDT by GIdget2004
Senate Republicans on Monday released a revised version of their healthcare bill that adds a provision requiring consumers with a break in coverage to wait six months before buying insurance.
The Senate bill would make those who had a lapse in coverage for 63 days or more wait six months before obtaining insurance. (Read the bill here.)
The continuous coverage provision was noticeably omitted from the Senate’s draft, but aides said they were working behind the scenes to add it. The provision addresses concerns that people would only sign up for health coverage when they’re sick if insurers can't deny coverage for pre-existing conditions.
The addition of the six month waiting period could make it more difficult to pass the legislation, if the Senate parliamentarian rules the provision violates the complex budget reconciliation rules. Republican leadership was working over the weekend to make sure the provision complies with the rules and can be included.
It’s unclear whether Senate Republicans will have the votes to pass the bill, with at least five Senate Republicans on record as opposing the bill in its current form.
On Monday, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) doubled down that a vote will be this week.
The Congressional Budget Office is expected to issue its analysis of the bill as soon as Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
“If people cannot be denied coverage due to a preexisting condition then the government has to force people to buy insurance. As simple as that.”
Things are never that simple.
Coverage could be denied for that pre-existing condition alone for a period of up to 18 months. That’s the old way.
Another way is to limit the payouts for a period of time for that pre-existing condition to say 80% of the premiums due and paid in full.
If you can live without coverage for a condition for 6 months you in most cases could live without coverage for 18 months.
I could become HIV-positive tomorrow and not gets AIDS for 10 years.
If could get rheumatoid arthritis next month and not suffer severe disability until I’ve been on Medicare for five years.
I could get cancer in October. I might be dead in a year, covered or not.
You’re right, it isn’t a mandate.
There are bankruptcies on the horizon every where you turn, with these horrendous unsustainable welfare programs.
This is reasonable. If someone decides not to have Nazi insurance, that’s fine. But if they get sick and then decide to sign up OF COURSE there has to be a penalty. People not getting insurance have made a decision, one they need to be accountable for. Without this bit of individual responsibility there’s no way insurance is feasible.
Anybody have that “Bake That Cake!” graphic with the Gov’t guy beating the business owner with his baton?
If something is already wrong with someone they shouldn’t be in an insurance pool. Trying to solve the “insurance” problem with people who are already in a position to make claims against it is an exercise guaranteed to fail.
Try this: we have two separate problems:
Problem One: Affordable actual insurance which is actual insurance (no pre-existing conditions).
Problem Two: Paying for the care of people who have pre-existing conditions and are thus uninsurable for those conditions.
Treating this situation as two separate problems is the ONLY route to a solution, which is why all other attempts have failed and will continue to fail. They are simply two separate sets of problems that need separate solutions.
I don’t believe the GOP is interested in putting any stipulations on preexisting conditions.
It’s a bit of a disincentive, but not much of one.
Any "free market dynamics" incorporated into the final version of this bill will be due to the influence of the House Freedom Caucus, and Senators like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.
President Trump is not the Legislature, and he can only sign what 51 senators and 218 house members pass. If Congress passed a conservative health care bill, I have no doubt that the President would sign it.
The bottom line is that we have to trust the HFC—and a couple of conservative GOP Senators—to hold out for whatever positive provisions can be included.
There's no doubt that—even with the votes of the HFC, and Senators Cruz and Paul—that whatever passes as this "first step" will never satisfy the ideological "purists". Until we elect more courageous, Patriotic voices to Congress, President Trump is forced to deal with that body as it's currently constructed.
This Revolution isn't going to be completed merely with the election of a populist/conservative President. There must also be changes in the Congress, starting in 2018 and moving forward. It was the height of naiveté to imagine otherwise...
I have personally been through this several times. I really wish the media would start doing their job and reporting facts instead of DNC press releases. I also wish the pubbies would start explaining the facts.
Have been doing insurance verif for 30 years. Prior to Obamacare most policies had pre-existing ranging from 90 days to 6 months. Created extra paperwork in some instances, but well worth it.
That is exactly the provision that PO’d so many people.
“We aren’t forcing you to buy it, but we’ll penalize you if you don’t” is GD hypocrisy and government overreach.
Traitors to the Republic...exposing themselves in spades.
As with most other issues, all gov’t needs to do is rid us of illegals, then get out of the way and get out of the healthcare business.
If they don’t do anything about the cost of healthcare (not insurance) then it doesn’t matter. A hospital should have to charge the same bed rate (within a narrow band) for everyone. Same for physicians per visits and surgeons per type of surgery, same for drugs. They should have to publish their fees and adhere to them. Not $100 for Medicaid, $400 for commercial insurance, and $2,500 for individual pay.
If this is what the GOP in the Senate is proposing it is good news.
No more delegated power for this regulation than for requiring people to be insured in the first place!
Maybe the federal government should honor the Constitution and nix its involvement in healthcare among the several States entirely?
This part is worse than ACA.
Lipstick on a pig.
Full repeal. Market based replacement. To do otherwise is the end of the GOP.
BTW, HMO's / PPO's / and other contractual plans of healthcare are not "Insurance" under the HMO act of 1974, by Ted Kennedy. Such plans are merely contracts and are exempt from state insurance regulation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.