The Senate has finally released their previously super-secret health care bill and I dare say it was not worth the wait.
Don't even get me started about the deep harm it will do the elderly and people with disabilities through its draconian cuts to Medicaid.
While neither the House nor the Senate Bill technically allows insurers to refuse to write policies to people with preexisting conditions, and while the Senate Bill further removes the House Bill's waivers to allow states to price people with preexisting conditions out of coverage, none of these protections are worth anything because of what the Senate bill left in:
Annual limits.
Lifetime limits.
The Senate Bill leaves in the provision for states to be able to seek waivers from having to provide essential services. That means states can just opt not to require insurance plans to cover the costly medications and treatments - many more costly than any but the Gates family could afford without health insurance - that keep many little babies and other people, like my daughter, who have preexisting conditions alive. Or the plans can cover them up to an annual limit...up to a lifetime limit...
This bill gives expiration dates for people with preexisting conditions who require costly life-saving treatment.
And
That
Is
Not
Okay.
We won't go back. We won't go back. We won't go back!
Please email your Senators tonight and call your Senators first thing tomorrow morning and tell them to vote no on the health care bill if it includes waivers to essential benefits! Lives depend on you making these calls and emails so please make them - there is not much time.
If you live in Alaska, Maine, Ohio, Nevada or West Virginia, your calls and emails are the most important of all. Your Republican Senators do not really want to vote for this travesty of a bill, but they are under enormous pressure from their party to do so. Please call them and let them know you want them to vote no! Thank you, Brothers and Sisters!
No comments:
Post a Comment