These Six States Want To Allow Health Insurers To Deny Coverage To Sick People

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/08/07/2428801/texas-obamacare-reforms/

These Six States Want To Allow Health Insurers To Deny Coverage To Sick People

By Sy Mukherjee on August 7, 2013 at 2:57 pm



Officials in Texas and five other GOP-led states are refusing to oversee even Obamacare’s most basic — and popular — consumer protections and insurance market reforms. That includes the law’s ban on denying coverage or charging more because of a pre-existing condition and discriminating against women on the basis of gender. The decision could present major hurdles to Americans who buy health insurance through federally-run marketplaces in the Lone Star State, Arizona, Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

A majority of states haven’t set up their own insurance marketplaces, opting to let the federal government set one up for them. But every one of those states (other than the six in question) have at least said they will police the insurers that sell plans on their federally-run marketplaces to make sure that they aren’t giving consumers short shrift. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will instead be responsible for enforcing Obamacare’s insurance industry reforms and reviewing consumer complaints in the states refusing to do so on their own.

snip//

Officials in the Lone Star State certainly haven’t been shy about their opposition to the health law. Gov. Rick Perry (R) dug in his heels against reform in 2012, saying he wouldn’t “be a part of expanding {the} socializing of our medicine.” More recently, Perry denied basic health benefits to 1.5 million of his state’s poorest residents by forgoing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Evidently, that wasn’t going far enough.

National Republicans have also been stepping up their efforts to to undermine Obamacare. Reps. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) are refusing to help their own constituents if they have questions about the health law, and the Tea Party-affiliated advocacy group FreedomWorks has been telling young Americans to forgo signing up for health coverage under Obamacare entirely.

[PoliticAverse]

1. The PPACA doesn't require states to do the enforcement. Would you rather Texas do it or the Feds? nt

[PsychoBunny]

2. I think I would rather have the Federal Govt oversee

the programs rather than the individual states. Then at least we could expect consistency. We complain all the time about how the different states provide necessary services differently. Why would we want to see them oversee health insurance? This is the rationale to federalize it.

[indepat]

3. Do these mf'ers just want the sick to die needlessly? I take back the mf'ers: much too

nice a moniker for these mf'er-heads.

[jwirr]

28. They may not be thinking that far ahead. They probably think the sick will just pack up and move to

a state that does take care of their citizens. I saw this happen between Iowa and Minnesota over various issues. Iowa citizens living in the border areas would hear about some good thing that was happening in MN and move there. I did it many years ago. My daughter is a special needs patient and MN has always had a better program than Iowa.

[Doctor_J]

4. ACA is the law of the land

arrest these people and send them to Leavenworth

[PoliticAverse]

14. The ACA doesn't require the states to do the enforcment, they can pass the task to the Feds. n/t

[AlinPA]

18. That's the way I look at it.

[demwing]

5. No, I think this is a good thing. Hear me out...

If the Red State governors can't get their Red State shit together, then the Fed will be forced to provide an alternative. A national, public alternative.



Please proceed governors...

[Gravitycollapse]

7. Seriously? Do you support screwing me over?

[demwing]

8. absolutely not

but wouldn't you , and the country, be better off with a national public insurance alternative? With such a thing, State involvement -- or the lack thereof -- becomes moot.

I don't mean to minimize your position at all. I apologize.

[Gravitycollapse]

9. Yeah, I would. But if I'm going to be stuck with the shittier option, I'd at least like to have it.

[kestrel91316]

11. Look, the RW IS going to screw you and a lot of people over, just as they have been for decades.

They're just ramping it up now. And when they do, people will demand Single Payer in numbers that no one will be able to ignore any longer.

I think you know we all would prefer Single Payer RIGHT FUCKING NOW, but we do not have it. Flaws in ACA will be how we get it.

[Gravitycollapse]

12. So I'm collateral damage? Great.

[kestrel91316]

13. Don't look at me. I didn't create the situation. I've wanted Single Payer for many years now.

MANY people have been collateral damage in the War on America, and many more will be before we get where we're going. I might yet be one of them.

[Sirveri]

35. we're all collateral damage. Sometimes the just thing is to take the bullet for others.

We have a overtime pay, 40 hour work week, etc etc etc, because good men were shot down like dogs for it. Now is the time to stand up and fight, take pride in your position and duty, you're doing more to fight the good fight than you realize.

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. Before the Democratic party went into super-spin cycle, 70% of Americans wanted it in 2009.

How do you think that is going to change this time around?

[Egalitarian Thug]

19. How do you imagine that the federal government will be forced to provide an alternative? n/t

[demwing]

22. Wishful thinking, but here's my logic:

1. The Fed requires every individual to carry health insurance

2. Red states governors look the other way, making it possible for insurance carriers to operate
outside the law

3. Red state citizens, therefore, do not have equal access to the legitimate resources required to
fulfill their individual insurance coverage mandates

4. The Fed fulfills the promise equal protection under the law by providing equal access (and
this is the wishful part) in the form of a national, public, alternative.

I don't pretend to have a crystal ball, and admit I'm speculating. But, it's decent speculation, as speculation goes...

Put Sam, Toby, and Josh on it

[Egalitarian Thug]

23. LOL! If only Sam, Toby, and Josh existed.

The reason I'm skeptical is that the law has a built-in exclusion for all the people too poor to pay for their insurance even after the supplemental credit from the government, thus the expected 10 - 15 million this travesty admits from day one will still not have access to health care.

I have no faith that this is going to result in any significant change for those who need it the most. I expect that it will be just another huge burden on the poor who, even though they will now have a card that says they are insured, still won't be able to afford to use the care they are paying for.

One thing is sure, we will all see the reality of this just in time for an election.

[demwing]

24. Tell me your understanding of this built-in exclusion /nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

25. Sections 1401 (a) & (c), if I'm remembering the nomenclature correctly.

Basically, it comes down to the federal supplements for low income individuals. There are quite a few pieces of it that are relevant, but they are tax credits which are of no use to people who make so little that they are useless and for those that make nothing they don't even figure in. There is no enforcement mechanism for the state exchanges and all of it rests on the assumption of medicaid for those at the very bottom, which is already inadequate in the best places and nonexistent in the worst.

There are also no requirements for health care delivery organizations to accept what is offered, insurance or Medicaid now or in the future, and again, those that do are already strained beyond capacity so the idea is that this is going to put an additional 16 million people into a system that already can't handle the people it has.

There are quite a few studies and reports out there if you want more detail, but just tracking down the provisions as written is far more of a job than I'm going to do again for no purpose or money, especially since arguing about it is completely pointless. Sooner or later this will be implemented and all of us are going to see the results.

[n2doc]

27. Just who is going to 'force' them?

I wouldn't hold my breath hoping that CONgress will do so. Neither will the brainwashed people who vote R constantly in those states. Meanwhile the sick will suffer.

[demwing]

30. Egalitarian Thug asked the same thing already in post #19

I'll refer you to my answer in post #22:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023423785#post22

[n2doc]

31. If wishes were horses, Beggars would ride n/t

[demwing]

32. I bet that when MLK delivered his "I have a Dream" speech

there were people in the background, clucking their tongues and calling him a dreamer.

A wish is just a hope or a desire for action. Every action started out as an idea...some beggar hoping for a better way.

[n2doc]

33. Sure. And he died for that dream

Millions marched for that dream. We had 2 Presidents sign up for that dream, and one was willing to blow up his party (Johnson) to make it happen. Where are the folks ready to do so for single payer?

I guess I'm just a cynic. I don't see the push from enough Americans to make it happen. May it come.

[demwing]

34. I'm a cynic as well

but not enough of one to give up on hopes and dreams

[Gravitycollapse]

6. I will leave Arizona if this isn't resolved.

[PoliticAverse]

16. It is resolved. The Feds will do the enforcement as the PPACA requires them to

in the case that the state declines the option to do it.

[ceonupe]

10. Bad article

The spin it puts on is so unneeded and is very inaccurate.


We all get it some states with red politics don't want to do the expansion. It's a good thing their is a federal override so the Feds can run the programs and the Feds are already the ones overseeing compliance.

This article like lots of what you find on thinkprogress goes pass the facts into spin.

[leftstreet]

15. Do states have the right to drop the mandate?

[PoliticAverse]

17. States aren't enforcing the mandate, that's the IRS's job. n/t

[Mr. David]

21. Both Huelskamp and Chaffetz should be permanently denied health care as should the R's in Congress

and given the WORST ever health care known to man. Ignore them for three months before they give you an appointment, then it'll be another 24 months before they bother to care.

1000% markup on the R's. Make that 30 cent tongue depressor worth $799.95 plus tax and service fees for the Republicans.

[RC]

26. Maybe if we called it Romney-care.

Reminded them that the idea came out of one of their own think tanks, The Heritage Center. That it was their own idea in the first place. That it was written with heavy input by the insurance companies themselves.

A better idea is what the rest of the world is doing: Single Payer, Universal Health Care. Get the private health insurance companies out of the parasitic business of being middlemen, skimming the cash flow and pricing health care out of reach for millions of Americans.

[Conium]

29. Sounds like an illegal strike.

If state legislators won't do their jobs, then the federal government should send in troops to do the job. That's what they would do if miners were on strike.