This isn't comforting for either people who need health insurance (everybody!) or the insurance companies.
Yep, Mitch McConnell doesn't know what's going to happen after he jams an Obamacare repeal through Congress on Jan. 3, readying it for presidential popular vote-loser Donald Trump to make it official. Here's one thing that could happen: 52 million people with pre-existing conditions could lose their health insurance.
Before President Obama's signature health-care law took effect, insurers could deny coverage to people buying individual health plans or charge them higher rates based on their health history, occupation or the medications they took. Through one of the law's most popular provisions, insurers can't deny people coverage — and the factors they use to determine people's premiums are extremely limited. […]
The new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows just how important that provision is to many Americans. The study examined 2015 data to see how prevalent preexisting conditions are and found that 52 million non-elderly Americans could be ineligible for insurance under the old rules.
The analysis can't distinguish what type of insurance those people have now; many are likely covered by an employer-based plan. But if those people were to lose their jobs or have a gap in coverage and found themselves purchasing a health plan on their own, they could run into restrictions, higher premiums or even denials if the pre-Obamacare rules were back in place.
Remember the bad old days, when there was a huge list of conditions insurers would consider grounds for denying insurance—everything from having hay fever or a history of migraines to having survived cancer to having been the victim of domestic violence? Even having the the wrong job or hobby could get you banned from health insurance. Scuba diving? Bannable.
Republicans say they want to keep this provision of the law, but they haven't a clue how they're going to do that. Because once insurance companies have to take on all customers, they have to pay for expensive medications and treatments and other interventions. Or they at least have to plan for covering all those things, which drives costs—and premiums—up. The end result is likely that insurance companies would charge so much for plans that cover pre-existing conditions that they would be unaffordable for many, bankrupting for others, and 52 million people could be blocked from getting insured. Because the health insurance industry isn't just going to roll over and let Republicans do this to them.