Let\u2019s start positive: Here are the best things about the new health-insurance plan rolled out by Republicans in the House of Representatives. It would require insurers to offer coverage regardless of a person\u2019s pre-existing health conditions. It would not allow insurers to place a lifetime cap on benefits. And it would continue to allow children to remain on their parents\u2019 insurance until age 26.<\/p>\n
In other words, the only good aspects of the proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act are the things it would keep from the Affordable Care Act. The rest of the bill is bad news for Americans and the future of their health.<\/p>\n
To be sure, the continuation of coverage, regardless of pre-existing conditions, is especially important for people with diabetes, whose bills often mount over the course of time and who, in the days before health insurance reform, were often refused individual coverage.<\/p>\n
But the would-be ACA replacement leaves plenty for Americans with diabetes\u2014and for all Americans\u2014to fret about if the still-sketchy plan rolled out by Republican lawmakers this week comes to fruition. Affordability would worsen. Millions of people would go without insurance. The people who most need help affording insurance appear likely to get the least assistance. Coverage for necessary hospitalization, mental health services and maternity care, required under ACA, would be left to individual states.<\/p>\n
The defunding of Planned Parenthood, also part of this ideological package, wouldn\u2019t change a thing about how many abortions are performed, because by law, federal funding already cannot be used for abortions. But it would shrink access to affordable mammograms, routine gynecological exams and contraceptives.<\/p>\n
Gone would be the individual mandate, requiring every American to carry health insurance or incur a tax penalty. This is bad news for those with chronic conditions; without abundant numbers of healthier people in the insurance pools, those pools would collapse. The result: spiraling premiums for people with diabetes and other pre-existing conditions.<\/p>\n
And the replacement for the mandate would make things even worse: Insurance companies could demand a steep surcharge\u201430 percent\u2014to people who have allowed a gap in their health coverage.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s simply backward. The people who stop buying health insurance don\u2019t do so because they can easily afford the premiums. They do it because they find the insurance too expensive. An ultra-costly re-entry fee would only discourage them from returning to the insurance market. Sure, healthy young people might unwisely decide not to buy insurance even if they can afford it, but they\u2019re not thinking 25 years ahead to when they might not be in such robust shape and will need that coverage.<\/p>\n