Community Chat

[traveler]

Came upon this and if you are a woman you pay way more.

"

In an effort to make their effort to kill and replace the Affordable Care Act look more legit, Republicans have decided that it might be a good idea to actually have a healthcare alternative outlined in a physical bill instead of just being all talk as the GOP has been over the last four years.

The Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment (CARE) Act is a carbon copy of what Mitt Romney proposed during the 2012 Presidential Election. As you’ll recall, Americans overwhelmingly rejected Romney, including 55 percent of women voters.

Well, Romney may not be running for president again, but that isn’t stopping Republicans from throwing women under a bus in their alternative healthcare plan.

Prior to the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies considered pregnancy a pre-existing condition and only about one-third of private plans covered maternity care. Under the AFA, however, all of that changed and now private insurance plans are required by law to cover maternity care and pregnancy is no longer considered a pre-existing condition. But the Republican alternative rolls back these protections, allowing insurance companies to once again refuse to pay for care women desperately need when they are pregnant, including pre-natal care that helps keep prospective mothers and their babies healthy throughout the pregnancy. Before ObamaCare, many women would choose not to seek pre-natal care because of the expense. You know, because having to choose between good health and bankruptcy is somehow a thing in America. And that’s exactly what Republicans want.

Republicans also want women to be discriminated against by health insurance companies once again. Just being a woman used to be considered a pre-existing condition. As a result, insurance companies would charge women more for their plans. A whole lot more. Like 84 percent more than a man would normally pay. While ObamaCare prevents this discrimination from taking place, the Republican alternative does no such thing, which places a heavy financial burden on women who already do not get equal pay for equal work.

Perhaps the most egregious part of this Republican alternative is the fact that it also kills contraception coverage entirely. That’s right, Republicans are h*** bent on taking away contraception that would prevent pregnancy in the first place, thus preventing women from avoiding the lack of maternity care coverage.

To recap, Republicans want to make it harder for women to prevent themselves from getting pregnant, and then they want to deny women the maternity care they need when they do become pregnant while at the same time making healthcare more expensive for them. And Republicans wonder why women choose to have abortions. One would think the GOP would actually want to help pregnant women take care of the fetuses they carry.

All the things that the Affordable Care Act currently does for women are stripped from the alternative, which was crafted by Republican Senators Orrin Hatch, Fred Upton, and Richard Burr.

[Qwackertoo]

Always paid for my own BCP.

They aren't that expensive.

In the grand scheme of things.

[Qwackertoo]

Always worked for Fortune 500 companies. Usually in the Fortune 100.

BCP was NEVER covered.

Paid for it myself.

[madzonie]

This proposed "alternative" plan is SOOOO MUCH MORE than BCP!! The "plan" will do away with mandatory maternity care, will allow insurance companies to charge more for women, more for older people, put serious restrictions on pre-existing conditions and on and on. It does not appear to be customer/patient friendly - it is insurance company friendly

[kittymomNC]

They also want to eliminate the Medicaid Expansion which covers millions of people who otherwise could not afford insurance.

It's apparently 8 or 9 pages long, and doesn't spell out any specifics so it can't be evaluated by the CBO on how much it would cost, if it would save on anything, how many people it would eliminate from coverage, how many people it would actually cover, in other words, it's the same old ideas with no way to evaluate anything about it. It was referred to by the Speaker as "a place to start". It's been the same old same old for years now. And it would eliminate most of the subsidies so it would throw more people off the insurance rolls, again.

[traveler]

exactly, madzonie

[betteb]

[Qwackertoo]

Ortho 21.

And yes women usually cost more health care wise as they actually go to the doctor when many times men don't.

When doctors quit accepting new medicaid patients is when the rubber meets the road.

Health care coverage means nothing IF you can't get an appointment and a doctor to take you on as a new patient.

[goodstuff]

I haven't reviewed the Republican proposal, but I surely will.

In the meantime, women's insurance realistically should be more expensive, because women's healthcare is more expensive! Women go to the doctor more and have more medical costs associated with reproductive health.

Birth control? Why should the government or anyone else be expected to pay for your family planning? We always paid for our own birth control without complaint, and it makes perfect sense to me for people to handle this very personal responsibility themselves. Many effective forms of B.C. are not expensive. Somehow, in a few short decades, we have moved from a time when B.C. wasn't widely available to "the pill" and multiple modern forms of B.C.......to somehow expecting that society owes everyone the cost of having s*x without consequences. Why should anyone expect this? This isn't "throwing women under a bus". It's fiscal reality and expecting personal responsibility and accountability.

[kittymomNC]

The ACA is actually working, bringing down overall healthcare costs, covering millions of people who couldn't otherwise be covered, and a lot of people STILL don't know there is no difference between "O" ca^re and the ACA. And it seems as though many just cover their ears and their eyes so they cannot see the truth because they don't want to.

They just voted again to repeal it and "eventually" replace it, and nobody seems to know exactly how many times now that they've taken this vote - some say 67 times, some say 56 or 57! What a total waste of taxpayer money!