Senate Republicans really want you to believe that they want to keep all the popular consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act, like coverage for pre-existing conditions. "Everybody I know in the Senate—everybody—is in favor of maintaining coverage for pre-existing conditions," Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says. "There is no difference in opinion about that whatsoever." The chairman of the Health committee, Sen. Lamar Alexander agreed, saying "Congress specifically repealed the individual mandate penalty, but I didn’t hear a single senator say that they also thought they were repealing protections for people with pre-existing conditions."
So what's Alexander doing sending a letter to the Trump administration, along with 30 other Republican senators, telling Trump to speed up the rules for allowing people to by junk insurance, that doesn't cover pre-existing conditions?
Alexander and team (look, there's Nevada's most endangered Republican, Sen. Dean Heller!) say that allowing association health plans (AHPs) can provide "a lower cost alternative with the same sort of consumer protections and tax breaks that apply to employees who receive health care insurance from large employers." Except as the proposed rule is written, the plans would not have to comply with some of Obamacare's coverage requirements and patient protections. So cheap, skimpy plans that don't cover actual health issues would be allowed again.
Under the proposed rule, for example, AHPs wouldn't have to cover the essential health benefits as required by Obamacare for private plans. That means they could exclude coverage for things like mental health care, or substance abuse treatment, and even prescription drugs. While they wouldn't be able to base eligibility or premiums on an enrollee's health status, they could vary premiums by more than the three-to-one limit set by Obamacare for age and without limit based on gender, geography, and other factors such type of industry or occupation. So they could be structured to allow firms or associations that have younger, healthier employees (or healthier-than-average self-employed people) and charge a lot more for age and tobacco use and gender and geography. Which is pretty much discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions.
All of this is intended to siphon the younger, healthier people into cheaper, skimpier coverage and make the pools in the existing individual markets—under Obamacare—older and sicker and more expensive. It’s a classic "death spiral" that would ultimately end up with the collapse of the law.
This rule from Trump is simply one more route Republicans are taking to the total destruction of the ACA ("root and branch" as McConnell so famously promised back in 2014). And 30 Senate Republicans (see the full list below the fold) are egging that on.
Please give $1 to our Senate and House funds so that Republicans pay the price for sabotaging our health care.
The letter was signed by: Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Thune (R-S.D.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Todd Young (R-Ind.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C).