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to a bill protecting insurance coverage for some with pre-existing health conditions if the federal healthcare law is repealed or struck down in court ...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.”

Walker's record on Preexisting Conditions...who could afford it or keep coverage?

From the Chicago Tribune...

Part of the (Trump/GOP) bill would allow states to seek waivers exempting insurers from Obama's prohibition on higher premiums for people with pre-existing problems. States could then use federal dollars to fund government-operated insurance programs for pools of expensive patients.

Like Dumb Ron Johnson said, health care is a "privilege:

The state's high-risk pool covered about 21,000 people as of June 2012, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Premiums in 2013 were as high as $1,500 per month for a 60-plus-year-old man with a $1,000 deductible, according to the bureau. The pool ended in 2014 when the health care exchanges began under Obama's law. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that tracks national health issues, about 852,000 non-elderly Wisconsin residents had pre-existing conditions in 2015. That's a quarter of the state's non-elderly population.

Kleefisch says it's Dangerous to trust Evers on Gas Tax Promise till after election, but says Trust Us on Preexisting Condition Coverage after the election?

Sometimes, it's hard knowing where to start.

Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch are running on the promise they will pay for and cover preexisting conditions with some kind high-risk pool that would require notoriously high premium costs, deductibles, and lifetime limits. It passed the state Assembly. There is this one big problem though...

To keep things the same, the state would have to spend (state) tax dollars on pre-existing conditions because federal subsidies would be gone.

Now for the kicker: Walker says, trust him...the details and costs will be hammered out after the election...no problem right?

Dangerous if Evers doesn't provide Gas Tax Details: In what I would call a jaw-dropping moment of hypocrisy and a revealing bit of projection, Kleefisch made an unusual demand of Tony Evers on the gas tax; give us a dollar amount. Then Kleefisch successfully slipped in the name 'Nancy Pelosi" while ironically bringing up the ACA health care bill to make my followup point:

Kleefisch: "He says he's not going to be specific until after the inauguration. That's basically like Nancy Pelosi's well you can read it after it's been passed. I think that's really dangerous that we're supposed to elect someone and then we'll find out his policy view later."

Dangerous if Walker doesn't provide Preexisting Condition Details? NOPE. Kleefisch not only doesn't provide the Walker administrations "policy views" on preexisting conditions but when asked by Mike Gousha if insurance companies would have to cover prescription drugs, she doesn't even know what's in the Assembly bill that passed. Again, you can't make this stuff up, and Republican voters don't care:

Kleefisch: "I would have to look at the bill language that is going to be passed...I can't guarantee what the Senate will pass and the Assembly will pass when he calls the extra session is going to be identical..." 

Beautiful. It's time again for Walker to put Kleefisch in hiding till after the election.

Trump, Walker, Viewk-marrrr...and there's no way Republicans will fund coverage for preexisting conditions.

Trump hit the stump in Wisconsin yesterday for Scott Walker, Leah Viewk-Mar (as Trump would say), and messed it up beautifully, really beautifully, you know what I'm talking, it's a great thing. Right? (lets have a talk like Trump day?)

Trump dragged Walker and Viewk-marrrr up to the mic and each one promised to cover preexisting conditions, with Viewk-marrrr saying she would fall in front of a truck before she let people go without coverage.

Well, we all might have to watch her public suicide, especially when things grind to halt after Republicans refuse to pay for such a costly "entitlement." We'll hang their words around their necks, and that's a promise:

Walker: "I want to reinforce it to everyone here in this state and across the country, we will always cover people like my wife with preexisting medical conditions, don't believe the lies...don't believe the lies, we will cover people with preexisting conditions." 

Viewk-marrrr: "The big lie that Scott Walker talked about, Tammy Baldwin is saying that same lie over and over and over again. We support taking care of people with preexisting conditions. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'll fall in front of a truck before I let people go without coverage for preexisting conditions." 

My favorite part, besides talking like a pirate, arrrr, was Trump's imagined "conversation" if Walker lost the election:

Trump: "He'll call up if he doesn't make it. "Hello, is the president there?" "Oh, who's calling?" "Scott Walker." "Didn't he lose? Yea, I'll talk to him in a few months."

Republicans were so opposed to the ACA that they didn't bother to learn one thing about health care and the major issue writing ObamaCare; covering preexisting conditions. Obama settled on the actual insurance model of spreading the risk by pooling everyone together into the largest group possible.

If Republicans require insurance coverage, with no rate increase, insurance companies will go bankrupt. MSNBC's Business Insider Josh Barro summed it up this way about what we'd have to do for mandated coverage; require a whole list of other safeguards to prevent insurer bankruptcy:

Barro: "...so you have to impose all these other rules, layer them on top of each other, and when you've done it, you've basically rebuilt ObamaCare...if you want the preexisting condition protections, you have to take a lot of the other big government stuff the Republican hate." 

The Dumbest Trump GOP Health Care comments!

I think it's time Democrats start destroying the most ridiculous Trumpian health care talking points making the rounds right now. Come on, these are the easy ones.

From the Tammy Baldwin/Leah Vukmir debate last night:

Vukmir: "The left has glommed on to this as their issue," Vukmir said of pre-existing conditions, adding that she supports that insurance feature.

Response: No, Trump Republicans have glommed onto the issue by adding it to their campaign ads across the country. Reporters, ask them how they'll pay for such a costly benefit. It's easy to say they support it. This was one of the toughest issues when it came to writing the Affordable Care Act and the reason premiums increased the way the did, besides all the threat by Republicans to repeal the law.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Vukmir dubbed "Medicare-for-all" as "Baldwincare," and said, "she wants to turn over the entire shebang to government."

Response: Oops, I guess Vukmir missed the part where even Republicans are calling it TrumpCare now. Second, we're turning the insurance part of health care over to the government, not hospitals or doctors, which will remain private.

__________________________________________________________________________________

"You want everyone to have the same thing," Vukmir said of Baldwin's philosophy on health care.

Response: You can pair that with "states should tailor their own plans." Nothing could sound dumber, and Democrats are letting them get away with it? I have yet to meet a doctor specially trained to treat cancer in Iowa, but not in Wisconsin or Texas. That's because it's laughably ridiculous. We're all human and have the same biology. The only difference is how each person is affected, and that we'll leave up to our hospitals and doctors to decide what to do. 

Republican Empty Promises over Preexisting Conditions they'll never want to pay for!!!

Republicans can't seem to shake their biggest issue in 2016 that gave us Trump; repealing ObamaCare.

They failed badly at repeal because they never got close to an agreement on a replacement plan that didn't take 20 to 30 million Americans health care away, according to the CBO.

Desperate Election Year Hail Mary: They're now promising to support coverage for preexisting conditions, a very expensive requirement that even the ACA had a problem reigning in. Paul Ryan's disturbing and scary looking clone Bryan Steil doesn't mean a word of his support. By the way, Trump is trying to do away with coverage:

Bryan Steil is running to bring Wisconsin style solutions to Washington:1. Protect Pre-Existing Conditions

Republican Howard Marklein pretends he doing something about preexisting conditions, rural broadband, and fixing roads...nice try:



Where would the funding come from? High-risk pools were funded by taxing insurers who then passed that cost onto everyone's monthly premiums. And that made health insurance even more unaffordable to even healthy Americans. It even gave birth to those unaffordable high deductibles HSA's.

Covering Preexisting Conditions Impossible under Republicans, and they know it: WPR put together the best report detailing this GOP created mess, a mess they hope their voters never catch onto:

Republicans have been campaigning against the law known as Obamacare for nearly a decade. Despite all of its difficulties, for many people, the law is better than the health care system it replaced. 

"In so many ways, change aimed at creating more and lower prices for millions of Americans," said Trump during a White House ceremony last October. But short-term plans don't cover much because they don't have to. They're not even considered insurance under the ACA. They were meant to be temporary, used by people in between jobs.

Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has called them "junk plans" and the Wisconsin Medical Society is against them, saying the coverage often isn’t adequate.

Short-term plans don’t have to take people with pre-existing medical conditions or provide benefits like coverage for maternity, mental health, prescription drugs and substance abuse treatment. They can last up to 364 days and be renewed for up to 36 months. 

Republicans say they'd bring back a health care option known as high-risk pools. These high-cost plans were often the only option for people with expensive medical problems before the ACA. Wisconsin Republican U.S. Senate candidate Leah Vukmir says they worked before and they could work again. "I support protecting people with pre-existing conditions. We did it here in Wisconsin before it was even part of Obamacare. I support bringing health care decisions back to the states," said Vukmir during an interview on Wisconsin Public Television’s Here & Now special on the U.S. Senate race.

Wisconsin had a high-risk pool until 2014 that was touted as a national model. But it had high premiums and a lifetime limit on benefits. That worried cancer groups. 

Going back to that system could be especially difficult now, said Nancy Wenzel, the CEO of the Wisconsin Association of Health Plans. That's because more people have pre-existing conditions today compared to when Wisconsin's high-risk pool went away. "If we’re talking about the population today, it’s 10 times that amount. So we can’t just plug and play a solution of the past," she said.

The numbers bear that out. Wisconsin's high-risk pool covered 24,000 people at its peak.Today, 200,000 Wisconsin residents use the ACA's private marketplace today.

AG Brad Schimel feverishly working toward dropping everyone with Preexisting Conditions.

That 19 to 29 percent of unwavering mouthbreathing Trump supporters appears to represent a gathering of the "There's a Sucker Born Every Minute" club.

Remember when Trump's willing dupes believed high deductibles in the ACA's Marketplace Exchanges was just like having no insurance at all because no one could afford to pay those high out-of-pocket costs?

Yet in direct contradiction to that talking point, and I'm not making this up, Republicans are actually trying to make those unaffordable HSA high deductible plans (with no limits), our go-to free market health care system. The thinking is, HSA's high deductibles will eventually price most sick people out of seeking care (self-rationing). Problem solved? If they're going to "die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." -Scrooge

(Trump Party) lawmakers in a House Ways and Means health subcommittee hearing on Wednesday looked at ways to expand use of health savings accounts ... pushed for laxer HSA rules ... Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) suggested "HSAs don't do anything to relieve prices." Industry employers and insurers urged lawmakers to expand consumer-directed plans that pair HSAs with high-deductible coverage. 

And we'll be able to thank Scott Walker and AG Brad Schimel's lawsuit to repeal the ACA for forcing us to take whatever money we saved on taxes and give it to insurers, doctors, and hospitals. And yes, this is all part of Trump's empty/broken promise to provide complete and affordable health care to every American.

The Preexisting Condition Death Certificate: Showing just how much they didn't understand the old unpopular health care system before the ACA, Trump Party Republicans for some reason want to go back to the good old days of losing insurance and bankruptcies.  WPR:

Schimel said his office was taking the lead on a multi-state suit that seeks to overturn the Affordable Care Act, a move he conceded would end protections for people with preexisting conditions.

Schimel: "Without the individual mandate it all fails. It's not going to be able to stand. We've asked the court to stay Obamacare across the board."

...he said with a detached sense of glee.



Oh, and Schimel's sense of urgency to finally rid the state of our costly and devasting opioid crisis? 

Schimel said he would only join a multi-state lawsuit against opioid manufacturers as a last resort.

I know it's crazy, but Democrats think health care should be a shared group cost for every American, where no one goes bankrupt, drains their kid's college savings, or dies prematurely because they can't afford it. It's the kind of socialism Republicans say will destroy our country, right? Democratic AG candidate Josh Kaul took issue with Schimel's "logic."

"Our current Attorney General has made clear that he’s just fine with having health-insurance companies deny coverage to people because they have a pre-existing condition. I’m not. Our AG should be working to improve the lives of Wisconsinites, not using our tax dollars to try to put more power into the hands of health-insurance companies."

Here's a great list of reasons why this is so important:

Georgia Republican Candidate Handel admits, she doesn't support a Livable Wage.

Yes, there is quite a difference between a Democrat, who understands 70 percent of the economy depends on consumer demand. Republicans, who oddly believe supply side tax breaks somehow makes the economy even more "robust," don't give a hoot about buying the things businesses make:   

Karen Handel and Jon Ossoff : Georgia's Sixth District open seat.

After Jon Ossoff came out in support of a minimum wage increase to bring it to a livable wage, Karen Handel said:

"This is an example of the fundamental difference between a liberal and a conservative. I do not support a livable wage. What I support is making sure we have an economy that is robust, with low taxes and less regulation..."

An utterly cluelessness statement.



But Karen Handel would also let her sister, who has a serious preexisting condition, struggle and eventually lose her health insurance coverage because she believes the nonsense her party is spinning. Or she's brutally cruel. You'll notice that Handel mysteriously knew what was in the nonexistent Senate bill. Think she's lying and winging it up there? Jon Ossoff clarifies:

Trump Trolls: Defending insurance companies and telling people with preexisting conditions, it's your problem!!!

There's a reason there are so many stories predicting the end of the Affordable Care Act's exchanges. But the real story is not getting media coverage; insurers simply found out they can't compete with each other by lowering their prices, the underlying free market idea that would make Paul Ryan's supposed "patient centered" reform so successful.

So over the weekend, I responded to the story below with a few comments of my own:

Taxpayers on the Hook as Obamacare Exchanges Near the Edge of Collapse: UnitedHealth is pulling out completely, Humana is pulling out of 88 percent of counties it was in, and last weak Aetna strongly suggested it will be exiting, too, unless it gets bribed to stay with a huge, annual infusion of direct corporate bailout payments from taxpayers. Obamacare supporters need to be held accountable for the law’s manifest failures – not permitted to paper them over with billions more of our tax dollars.

Of the two rightwing rants, the last response pretty much encapsulates the survivalist world view of conservative voters everywhere. It's been that one thing that divides us on health care; do we save people or let them die. It's enough to give you a chill:

1. Democurmudgeon • 2 days ago

No one’s talking about the elephant in the room: Insurers are dropping out because they're losing money competing, lowering their prices to gain customers. The marketplaces simply proved insurers can't survive by competing and dropping the sick to boost their bottom lines. Now what, junk policies under the Republican plan that covers fewer medical issues and includes small print exclusions? Yup.

DanB_Tiffin  Democurmudgeon • 2 days ago

The liberal is pulling out the 'pity, pity, pity' statements and complaining about the 'evil insurance companies'. Same worthless emotional arguments those snivelers always have.

These sniveling liberals could still (plenty of rich ones!) start their own insurance company or mutual company or something to provide health insurance at a ‘‘fair’’ price. Wow, without the obscene profits, they could compete in the open market at a very low price. Obviously, besides serving themselves, they could take all sorts of current customers away from the bad, evil, big insurance companies.

That is, of course, if the liberals are capable of taking real action. Maybe they are only good at whining, sniveling, and wanting their Mommy (government) to fix everything for them.

2. Democurmudgeon  Crucisnh • 2 days ago

Who covers and pays for those with preexisting conditions...oops, forgot to think past your ideology.

Crucisnh  Democurmudgeon • 2 days ago

That's the problem of the person with the pre-existing condition, not some insurance company that you're trying to force to pay for something that's not their responsibility. And the only insurance company that should be covering a pre-existing condition is the insurance company that the person was with BEFORE the condition existed, since for them, it wasn't a pre-existing condition. And if you didn't have insurance before the condition existed, then it's your own responsibility to pay for it, no one else's. This is the problem with you libs. You're always trying to get someone else to pay for things that are YOUR responsibility to pay for. You're all OPM addicts, as in OPM = Other People's Money!!!

Didn't need to "think past" anything on that. The answer was self-evident.