People with preexisting conditions are going to lose their healthcare, because they’ll be priced out of the system. I don’t want that to happen, but it is going to happen. I think maybe the healthy people should give the finger to this unethical insurance industry until they agree to build a system that works for everyone. Continuing to pay into it after they implement the AHCA is telling people with pre-existing conditions “Sucks to be you, but I gots mine (for now, until I actually get sick).”
Specifically, there’s nothing Democrats can do right now to stop it. What I want them to do is take a page from Trump’s playbook and start rallying their base. Hold rallies, rile people up, call out the GOP on their bullshit. Don’t mince words. This is unethical, it’s greedy, it’s fucking evil. Stand up and shout it from the hilltops, and get the people behind you.
In other words, stop being weak and start fighting back before your party is completely annihilated.
I guess I don’t understand your protest tactic. Healthy people should drop out of the system? Then, if they get into an accident…? That benefits people with preexisting conditions by…?
First, if you live in a blue state then it’s unlikely you will be affected by pre-existing conditions at all, since the state needs to actively apply for a waiver to screw those people over.
If you live in a state that applies for a waiver AND you don’t have insurance for more than 2 months, then when you try to get insurance you may be charged extra for pre-existing conditions in the first year. After you’ve had a full year of coverage, you go back to community rating (ie no penalties for pre-existing conditions).
It’s like a boycott. You stop buying the service until the provider changes their tactic.
Before the ACA you could get kicked off your insurance plan if you got sick. There were stories of this happening, someone gets a cancer diagnosis and the insurance co looks for any reason they can find to deny them care. Is that coming back? If so, what’s the point of even having insurance? I broke by foot a couple years ago. I had pneumonia as a kid. If I get cancer under the AHCA, what’s stopping my insurance company from kicking me to the curb?
@Wallapuctus and @ArmandoPenblade - Right. I get the basic concept, but it still doesn’t make any sense. Even back in that bad ol’ days of pre-Obamacare, sometimes health insurance actually worked. I know, I know, but bear with me. Sometimes, they actually did pay out. These companies were utterly shitty and evil, but every now and then they signed a check and did what they were supposed to do, I guess because they had to or everyone would catch on to the scam.
So, when you say healthy people should drop out of the system to stick it to the man, you’re asking them to literally increase their chances of going bankrupt or dying due to not being able to afford the care they need. Even for things like treating the flu and getting a prescription for that flu.
I admire your political will, I guess, but the majority of “healthy” middle-class Americans aren’t going to go down this road, even for a protest. It’s unrealistic.
For what it’s worth, I don’t disagree with you, @Telefrog, and since the overwhelming majority of the more unhinged portions of my deep-seated loathing for Republican healthcare policies stems from an incredibly painful, agonizing 2.5-year span where my girlfriend was wracked with diseases mental and physical that we could not afford to treat due to our state’s politics, to the point that I very literally nearly lost her at at least one point she’s admitted to, it’s not a jump I’d be personally willing to make, however much righteous indignation I feel.
The second part of the plan is you throw your hospital bills in the garbage. Go get treated, get on a payment plan, then tell them the check’s in the mail.
Attack on both fronts. It’s not like the pharma companies and provider networks are any less greedy. Blow up their finances.
I mean it will never work. I won’t do it because I won’t subject my family to the risk, but like I said if it was just me I’d cancel my health insurance the day the AHCA became law. I don’t know what other options exist. The “pray” option seems less likely to succeed. You’re praying that Republicans will suddenly start caring about the sick and the poor.
I don’t know if giving the finger to the hospitals and insurance companies is an effective protest, but I can’t imagine “middle class” individuals like myself being able to continue to survive in a country where insurance premiums are 40% of your income. It won’t be a protest, we will just will be priced out of the system and then be ruined by medical bills and the subsequent bankruptcies.
That works about as well as throwing your electricity bill in the garbage. At some point, you will be cut off and life will become unnecessarily hard.
As I mentioned above, the people hit by the AHCA are mainly those who could not afford insurance before the ACA. If you have the luxury of deciding whether to pay for insurance, then you will be least affected by the AHCA, and have an even greater incentive to pay up because foregoing insurance will be even more painful than before.
No amount of protests or non-payment or whatever that’s aimed at hurting the insurance and health care providers will make any difference. They’ve got lots of practice already at ignoring people in need, and the political system is in their favor as long as Republicans are in power.
What will help is getting people who already support improvements in health care to vote. Young people, healthy or otherwise, support the ACA (or more extreme changes like single payer). Low-income people, naturalized immigrant citizens, children of immigrants, etc…all those growing demographics that led pundits to predict the rise of the Democrats in the next decade or two. That can happen sooner if more of those people actually vote. Maybe the disaster that is the Trump presidency will help in that respect.
The whole point is to help those people, not tell them they’re on their own cuz I gots mine.
But, it’s probably pointless anyway because as @ineffablebob points out, the industry would shift to selling even more Propecia and Cialis to make up for the losses.
Of course. But dropping your insurance doesn’t help those people. Furthermore, dropping your insurance and expecting the hospital to write off your debt actually hurts those people, because hospitals can only write off a limited amount of debt. You are basically planning to take someone else’s charity care for yourself.
Without the mandate, the risk pool is smaller, so prices go up, so more people will have to drop their health insurance because of the rising rates. The moral? Don’t be poor.
The risk pool is smaller if people drop their insurance. Some may be forced to do so, due to decreases in federal subsidies. But those that choose to do so, as Wallapuctus was considering, will actually be contributing to increased premiums.
