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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Vos leaves out Maternity, Newborn Care, and Prescription Drug coverage from Preexisting Condition Health bill.

I'm going to get to the jaw dropping bottom line just spewed out by Robin Vos and the Assembly Republicans on their bill to cover preexisting condition and mandated coverages. Really, this is alright with conservative voters? WSJ:

Assembly Republicans unveiled late additions Tuesday to a bill protecting insurance coverage for some with pre-existing health conditions if the federal healthcare law is repealed or struck down in court ... the bill will not include Evers' other request: that insurers be required to cover a list of essential health benefits such as maternity or newborn care or prescription drugs. 

Vos: (Those benefits) "are not part of what we talked about. Unfortunately if people want to try to throw other things into the mix to stop the deal from happening, I think that's the cynicism that people do not want in politics."


Got that, it's those cynical and supposed political "other things," like maternity and newborn care, that will "stop the deal"? Not so "pro-life" after all.


Well if it's not important, then let's remove maternity, newborn care and prescription drugs coverage from those legislators government provided health care benefits, alright? 

Remember, Vos and his plundering Republican pirates also didn't think to originally include the following without a huge push by Gov. Evers...
Changes to the Assembly GOP bill would add to state law … prohibitions on insurers imposing lifetime or annual limits on coverage for people with serious health conditions. That's one of two key provisions Evers said the measure needs to include for him to support it.
But our complicated Rube Goldberg health insurance nightmare prevents the government from helping...
...people on private self-insured health plans, which a UW-Madison expert estimates is about 1.5 million Wisconsinites. That's because such plans cannot be regulated under state law. "For people that are self-insured, the state of Wisconsin has no control over them whatsoever," Vos said.
Note; Universal health care, or Medicare for all, would make every doctor your doctor, every hospital your hospital; with no surprise bills, no paperwork, no co-pays or deductibles. Although I'm not against a very small yearly premium of $50 to $100 for higher income earners so we can afford to include dental, hearing and vision. 
By at least one measure ... about 2.4 million Wisconsinites (have a preexisting condition).
UPDATE: Journal Sentinel:


Ideology vs Will it Work? It won't work: JS looked at the plan from a more practical view point, will it work? No it won't:
(It) would result in much higher premiums and fewer insurance companies selling insurance, said Scott Harrington, a professor of health care management and insurance and risk management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

“You will end up with an extremely unbalanced risk pool, where the bulk of people who are willing to buy coverage in the individual market would be relatively less healthy than average — and that would push up premiums dramatically. So, it might sound well in principal, and people probably will say it is great to do this, but in reality, if the law is declared unconstitutional and nothing is done at the federal level, this would be a Band-Aid at best.”
One more thing...

That’s what happened in states such as Kentucky and Washington that required insurers to cover pre-existing conditions before the Affordable Care Act. Leanne Gassaway, senior vice president of state affairs for America’s Health Insurance Plans, the largest trade group for health insurers, was more blunt: “Their market was a complete disaster before the Affordable Care Act.”

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