How a Health Bill Can Affect You If You Get Health Insurance for Work
We’ve heard a lot about the 22 million people who will lose coverage under the Better Care Harmonization Act and how much insurance will cost in a particular market. But what if you have insurance coverage through work? It turns out that you are not immune from the consequences of this bill. There is a lot of bad news.
By the way, categorizing this material as bad news is not a biased statement. Only 17% of Americans like the bill , including less than half of Republicans. Also Against: American Medical Association , American Association of Retirees , American Hospital Association , American Cancer Association Action Network , American Association of Medical Colleges , Catholic Health Association , and frankly, I’m sick of typing “Association,” I think you get the point.
Here’s what happens to your insurance at work if the bill passes in the Senate this summer and is confirmed by the House of Representatives and the President:
Your employer will not have to offer you insurance at all
The ACA required companies with 50 or more full-time employees to offer meaningful, somewhat affordable insurance coverage . The new health care bill removes the fine that companies have to pay if they don’t offer one, so the rule is effectively scrapped. Many companies will continue to offer health insurance as a benefit, but we don’t know how much. (The CBO estimate simply suggests that “some” employers will stop offering coverage.)
The service life is refunded
If you paid attention when you signed up for your health insurance, you probably noticed that there is a maximum out-of-pocket cost: no matter how much your treatment costs, you will not have to pay more than, say, $ 12,000 this year. Even if you get cancer. Even if you have a premature baby who is in intensive care for weeks and needs multiple surgeries.
But before the Affordable Care Act, insurance policies were the opposite: a limit on the amount that an insurer would have to pay. If you spend, say, more than $ 200,000 on medical expenses, your insurer may say that we no longer pay.
There were also restrictions on the lifetime . This premature toddler could burn medical expenses for a lifetime even before she even returned home from the hospital. The ACA (“Obamacare”) outlawed these annual and life-long restrictions, and 105 million people stopped worrying about getting cancer and then reaching the limit of life while they were in the middle of chemotherapy. The Senate bill will repeal the law against these restrictions.
Insurance companies can spend more of your premiums
According to the ACA, 80 percent of your bonus dollars should have gone towards assistance rather than administrative tasks and executive salaries. This provision, called the medical loss rate, has helped lower premiums. BCRA is canceling it: insurers can now spend as much of your money as they want on themselves, not on you .
You screwed up if you lose your job
Employer-provided insurance only works as long as you can actually get it. If you lose your job, you can remain insured through COBRA , but premiums are usually high because your employer no longer helps you pay for it.
If you end up without insurance for 63 days or more and then want to buy individual coverage (what you used to call the “Obamacare Plan”), you will be denied coverage for six months . This provision in the health care bill is intended to scare people into keeping their coverage because the law removes the uninsured tax penalty.
And when you do buy this custom plan, it is more expensive – 74 percent on average – than the same ACA plan. (When you hear that premiums will be lower with Trumpcare, that’s for less coverage, not an apples-to-apples comparison.)
Clinics can close or roll back services
Healthcare providers who see many Medicaid patients, including children’s hospitals, will be hit by significant cuts in their Medicaid bill. Dipesh Navsaria, professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, notes that Medicaid pays for most of the care of sick children, so children’s hospitals could lose enough business to close or roll back the services they offer. This applies to everyone: Children’s hospitals play an important role in training new doctors and developing new procedures.
If you are being examined by the family planning department, the law is trying to kill that too. There is a provision that healthcare providers do not reimburse Medicaid or other government payments when patients visit a specific category of clinic . Planned parenthood is the only thing that fits the definition. Planned Parenthood serves many low-income Medicaid people and provides government-funded birth control products . Thus, if this provision is met, the health of these people and the existence of planned parentage will be threatened. Your regular clinic may have to close its doors. Fun Fact: There are over 100 counties where the Family Planning Program is the only clinic of its kind .
More by Goddamn GoFundMes
Nobody wants the sick to be left without care. Ask even an ironhearted Republican senator what should happen when someone reaches their life limit halfway through chemotherapy and they say their church and community might need to step in to help. This is you . Instead of getting medical care guaranteed by their insurer and government, people with huge medical bills will have to beg for money so they can continue to receive medical care. It’s unlikely that anyone would actually be able to pay hundreds of thousands, much less millions, of dollars in healthcare by sharing GoFundMe on Facebook, but what other choice do your friends have? Prepare your wallet.