Proof of why we need a stand-alone law on pre-existing conditions and a PO

[sabrina 1]

The ink isn't even dry on the new Health Care Bill, and already the banning of denying treatment to children with pre-existing conditions is being challenged by Private Insurance:

Coverage For Sick Kids Under Question In New Law

The DeSoto, Texas, mom had hoped the new health overhaul law that President Barack Obama signed Tuesday would immediately stop insurers from denying coverage to children with pre-existing medical conditions. Several speeches by Obama and explanations of the bill issued by congressional Democrats left the impression the law would do just that.

But health advocates and some insurers say the law does not clearly state that such protection starts this year. If it doesn't, uninsured children with pre-existing conditions might not get help until 2014, when the law requires insurers to issue policies for all applicants regardless of health condition. There is no doubt that for children who are enrolled in insurance plans, the new law bars insurers from excluding coverage of any pre-existing conditions.

Yes, let the children die for profit! And these are the people we are trusting to take care of the health of Americans. We need a law stating clearly that it is a criminal act to be in the business of health care and then refuse to give that care when needed. And the punishment should be severe.

America's Health Insurance Plans, the main insurance lobbying group, says through a spokesman that it interprets the new law as not requiring insurers to cover all child applicants this year.

Health insurers worry that if they're forced to cover all children regardless of health condition, higher rates will result, because only the families of sick kids would apply. That problem, they say, could be largely avoided if the requirement went into effect in 2014, when most Americans will have to have coverage under the law. AHIP says higher rates resulted when New York and a handful of other states enacted "guarantee-issue" laws requiring insurers to offer coverage to all applicants.

No, the problem could be avoided with a Single Payer, not-for-profit system like every other democratic nation has. That they can even talk about this as if it is in any way acceptable, to be willing to let people die because they view them as a commodity. Where is the outrage?

The White House responds:

Responding to the concerns, Obama administration officials said Wednesday the law does prohibit insurers from denying children coverage starting this year, but they will issue clarifying regulations. "The law is clear: Insurance plans that cover children cannot deny coverage to a child because he or she has a pre-existing condition," Health and Human Services spokesman Nick Papas said. "To ensure that there is no ambiguity on this point, the Secretary of HHS is preparing to issue regulations next month making it clear that the term “pre-existing exclusion” applies to both a child's access to a plan and to his or her benefits once he or she is in the plan.”

Is there some reason why letting children die when it is your responsibility to provide them with health care, is NOT a major crime?

The issue mainly involves parents who buy coverage for children on the individual market and whose children have been uninsured more than two months. Federal law requires insurers to cover children who do not have a large gap in coverage.

One thing is clear: The law does nothing to stop insurers from charging higher rates for children with pre-existing illnesses until 2014 when insurers can no longer use health status in setting premiums.

Earlier this week, some health advocates said they worried the health overhaul might not do what was intended. "This could be a large loophole," Janis Gurney, public policy co-director of Family Voices, said Tuesday. The organization, based in Albuquerque, N.M., represents families of children with special needs.

Joan Alker, co-executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., is among those worried about the language. After learning of the administration's comments Wednesday, she said, "It is clear they are looking at this, which is good, and it is a very complex and technical issue so I think at this point we will wait and see what happens."

This is what happens when you hand over the health and well-being of the public to a for-profit business. And it is the reason why no other modern democracy does so.

[sabrina 1]

1. Did people really not anticipate this?

Already they are finding the loop-holes, which many people warned about. I must say I thought it would take a little longer. The greed has no bounds:

Randy Kammer, a vice president for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, the largest health insurer in that state, said she interprets the law as allowing insurers to reject coverage for children in some cases until 2014.

They aren't even careful with their words ~ 'allowing insurers to reject coverage for childre'! Asking once again, where is the outrage?

[Edweird]

3. Those of us that saw the bill as the RW garbage it is saw this coming.

[sabrina 1]

5. When winning is more important than

saving lives, which it is apparently as this post which is merely reporting news, has already been unrec'd, people lose their sense of perspective.

Something I just noticed in the article which I was not aware of:

Federal law requires insurers to cover children who do not have a large gap in coverage.

That seems to mean that if you didn't have coverage for your children for, it seems to say over two months, but I"m not sure, the law doesn't apply to them. If this is true, this is a huge loophole unless people immediately sign up for coverage while they are healthy.

[saracat]

13. NPR ran a special Q=A on HCR and many people who think they will be covered will not be.

[laughingliberal]

14. The HIPAA laws have always defined 'significant gap in coverage' as 60 day.

That said, I don't think they can avoid going back and closing this loophole up tight. If this becomes known I can't imagine any lawmaker coming out in favor of keeping the loophole. We have some real asshats on both sides of the aisle but I can't imagine any wanting to be seen as advocating against care for sick children.

[sabrina 1]

17. Thanks, I reread the article to see if there was a clarification

of that statement. If that is how the bill is written, that anyone who has not had their children covered for the previous two months (you were correct btw, that was the time given in the article) is not covered by the law regarding children with pre-conditions, they BETTER fix it.

But how could they have left such a glaring loophole by accident? Even if, as someone in this thread said, the bill was written by Insurance Corps, surely someone on the WH staff read it, even if Congress didn't bother?

I am not surprised though, this is exactly why you do not deal with predators, when you do, you get hurt. I can't believe that Democrats are really that stupid, particularly the supposedly best of the brightest on the WH staff.

[laughingliberal]

20. Truly, when the lobbyist writes the bill & it's 2700 pages, it's easy to believe it's an oversight

But, it's hard to say. It would be stupid of them to be touting this so much if they knew. However, I can't be sure. What I do believe is once the MSM gets this out there it will be fixed quickly. A lot of other loopholes that beed to fixed but "m thinking this is a no-brainer. I would be wrong but I think they can't avoid doing something about this one.

Can't say the same for a public option but every time they kill it, it shows back up again. Let's hope won of these times it will make it.

[sabrina 1]

22. It's possible they trusted the insurance corps

to wait a while, or to actually show some integrity. Or, they didn't know it was there as you say. That doesn't look too good either. What else is there that they don't know about?

It would explain however, why no one could ever answer questions about the bill, specific questions.

Like this issue. Does the bill allow Ins. Corps to refuse treatment to children for the next six months, even those with coverage? That is not clearly answered in the article.

And does it allow them to refuse COVERAGE to children who have not had coverage for the previous two months? If the answers are yes to both questions, that is an awful lot of children going without health care. Unless they can get coverage some other way.

And we were slammed for asking questions about this bill. I can't count the number of times that people posted links with information about THIS part of the bill in defense of it! I don't see any of them here explaining this now, other than silent unrecs ~ :-)

[laughingliberal]

23. That's been the problem with talking points

As that crazy, old Ross Perot told us, "the devil is in the details." Talking points, with which we have been bombarded here, are insufficient regarding most legislation but, especially, legislation as complex as this. All kinds of poison pills generally show up at some point and those who believed the talking points wind up more cynical. "I should have known," becomes the thought of those who seek help and find it's not the help they thought was there. Whether passing to bill as a 'good first step' was wise or not remains to be seen. And it will depend on whether they get in there and start cleaning it up so the reality in people's lives matches the PR.

[Odin2005]

33. The length of the bill is done intentionally, the complicated legislation allows loopholes.

And what Corporate Scum wants Corporate Scum gets.

[Foo Fighter]

9. Well, it's easy for the health insurance corporations to find the loopholes

since they wrote the bill in the first place.

I suspect this is only the tip of the iceberg.

[kath]

31. Ding, ding, ding, ding!

We have a winnah!!

[Bluebear]

2. k/r

[Edweird]

4. The more this happens (and it will) the worse November will be.

[sabrina 1]

8. It's hard to understand how, after all the time and effort

they put into this, they could have left an opening on what was one of the good parts of the bill, for the Insurance Ghouls to step right into, and so soon also. But yes, this is just the beginning ...

Funny how many on DU simply want to censor the news ~ unrecs won't stop this news from circulating and I can't imagine why anyone would want to stop it. This one part of the bill was something everyone could support.

Blind partisans don't even know when you are actually trying to defend their bill, at least this part of it.

[slipslidingaway]

6. They knew this yesterday and since this is going back to the House

this should have been fixed today, there is no reason for this to be left open to interpretation.

And who knows what else is lurking when a large item like this is not clear.

[sabrina 1]

7. Yes, and maybe they have fixed it, I don't know.

But the statement from the WH is not all that clear either. Is it immediate or six months from now 'when the bill goes into effect?

And, what is the penalty for an insurance company who turns down a child?

Also, does the law only cover children who have not had 'a long lapse in coverage'?

Most of all, the fact that this is even being discussed, that children's health is being argued over based on a law, is simply an outrage. People should be boycotting those Corps, NOT handing them MORE money.

Are people just immune to this kind of unhumane treatment in this country? Clearly the Ins. Ind. is not shy about letting people know what their intenstions are.

And this is the thanks Democrats get for bailing them out. They didn't even give them time to celebrate before searching for loopholes to exploit.

[TorchTheWitch]

10. the industry WROTE the loopholes

They know every one of them and how to exploit them. The industry gave lobbyists millions upon millions of dollars to get the loopholes they wanted written into the law in precisely the language they wanted.

Bills aren't written by Congresspersons, they're written by lobbyists. Geez, our Congresspeople don't even READ bills before voting on them and few of them would understand what they read if they did anymore than Joe or Jane Public.

[sabrina 1]

12. Well, that was revealed early on in the process with the Baucus

bill. They are blatant about it. And their blatancy has revealed that no only are our Representatives compromised, but ordinary people who cannot claim not to have been made aware of all of this, are willing to overlook it so long as their team wins.

What difference would it have made if Democrats had used their mandate from the people and gone for a Single Payer system right from the beginning? Republicans would have screamed 'socialism'? That never made sense. They are still screaming 'Socialism' even though, as Bill Maher and others have pointed out, this is a bill that includes more Republican ideas than progressive ideas.

No one can pretend they were not informed, so why are people who once supported a PO, now opposing it? I can understand politicians doing so, but I cannot understand ordinary people falling for the games that were played, considering all the available evidence of what was really going on. I guess it's a phenomena that many of us thought was peculiar only to the right. As it turns out, it is not.

[laughingliberal]

15. I don't see it as something which can be fixed in reconciliation

No way I see it is germane to budgetary concerns. It's going to require a separate bill, I think. That, or a strong statement from HHS defining the regulation.

[sabrina 1]

19. Strong statements won't stop the Insurance Industry from

taking care of their bottom line. It has to be a law that is clear, and it looks like this one isn't.

I think you're right about not being able to fix it now.

I am really for a separate law to deal with this. And not just children.

To allow tens of thousands of people to die each year without anyone batting an eye, is simply horrifying. It IS a crime. People are NOT commodities, it is at the very least, criminally negligent manslaughter.

We have laws against murder, theft, and manslaughter. This threat to the safety of Americans requires a law and it's way past time that we got one.

Imagine any politician opposing such a law when the public understands it is to protect their lives and their children's. I would love to see a Republican try to use that as an issue.

[laughingliberal]

21. True. This should be an easy pass for our legialators

Maybe it will inspire them to take on some of the other loopholes.

[earth mom]

11. The insurance robber barons are going to take our money AND give us all the finger.

Many of us have been warning of this for months and getting nothing but grief and arguments for our trouble. :argh:

[eridani]

16. Yes, CIGNA literally gave the Sarkisians the finger

[sabrina 1]

18. Can't wait to see the big bonuses they'll be getting.

Judging by what they have already done just a day after the bill is signed, refuse to cover sick children for as long as they can get away with it, I think we'll be hearing about the bonuses pretty soon.

Sometimes I think a large portion of this society enjoys being screwed by their government. There is just no other explanation for why any Democrat supported giving billions more to a corrupt and failed industry.

Nice graphic, btw ~ sad but tru.

[kath]

30. +10

[Gravel Democrat]

24. " This is what happens when you hand over the health and well-being of the public

sabrina 1: "This is what happens when you hand over the health and well-being of the public to a for-profit business. And it is the reason why no other modern democracy does so."

Nailed.

Sad, really to see so many eagerly buy this bullshit.

Really.
A Bush admin has single payer doctors and nurses arrested at the senate hearings?
A Bush admin talks public option, while already making a deal that would eliminate it?
A Bush admin then saying they didn't say that?
A Bush admin claiming the Commerce Clause to Initiate Commerce?
A Bush admin rahmming a law that had, by any number of polls, 40% approval?
A Bush admin mandating the purchase of a faulty "product" from a for profit company?

This. Board. Would. Be. Outraged. But...
This is kookville. The Inmates have taken over and run amok. Now we're "Freeloaders"
IF we don't have a policy from a private company. Only a (D) could have done this.
I see "arguments" from people that literally have not a single clue as to how this government works.
They're proud.

[sabrina 1]

29. "This. board. would. be. outraged".

Yes, it would. Wasn't there outrage over Romney's Mandated Insurance ideas and dire predictions, which have come true btw, of rising costs of premiums and other horrors?

What scares me about how easily manipulated people are on the left is, the Democratic Leadership will be emboldened by their support.

How will they use this momentum? I hope it isn't on Social Security. When Bush tried to privatize it, I remember the outrage from the left. But after watching the capitulation on Health Care, if Democrats tackle that next, it will be interesting watching both Republicans and Democrats scrambling to switch positions without seeming to be flip flopping yet again. Partisanship will be the death of this democracy. It destroys the whole idea of how a democracy is supposed to work.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

25. Expect more of the same for YEARS ---

The Industry will find every single miniscule crack in this bill and work those cracks as best they can to their financial advantage.

COUNT. ON. IT.

People will still have to fight against the Health Insurance Industry for their treatments, their coverage, and their lives, long after this law goes into effect. :(

The idea that this bill changes anything is merely an illusion.

[sabrina 1]

28. Did people really think that the same predatory

corporations who had no qualms letting people die for decades would change their ways after this bail-out? I can't believe people could be that naive.

Whistle-blowers have exposed this industry for what it is. And in the movie 'Sicko' which the industry spent a fortune trying to discredit, especially with Democrats according to Wendall Potter part of whose job it was to create a poor image of Michael Moore, he exposed the heartlessness and callousness of the industry including, shamefully, doctors who rubber stamp their denials of treatment.

I can't believe anyone thinking that they were going to allow anything to interfere with their profit margins.

But to do this so publicly right after the signing of the bill, to state openly that they are willing to allow children to die and are already working on exploiting the loopholes they find to do so.

You are right, this will change very little, but there will be lots of court cases over it.

[librechik]

26. Yup, so much of this needs to be confirmed by courts. I hope we get a friendlier SCOTUS

can't trust the current config to find for the people and against the profit vamps.

[hayu_lol]

27. Former CEO of Cigna just left the company with a 30 million...

severance package.

Newborn in Texas--just breaking--needs surgery to correct a birth defect of reversed arteries to and from the heart. Insurance coverage denied Dad...pre-existing condition says the ins co.

What the hell happened to the millions stolen from smokers specifically for children's health care? Was that spent on elaborate bonuses and parties too?

[Odin2005]

32. The PTB don't care about laws, they just bribe a few politicians and judges.

The Health Insurance parasites must be destroyed.

[Echo In Light]

34. k/r