Image Source Pink/iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — A new amendment to President Trump’s health care proposal does not go far enough in keeping protections for people with pre-existing conditions, according to analysts and a spokesperson for the AARP.
The protections are the source of a rare bi-partisan agreement on the Obamacare law: Even President Trump has said he wanted to keep that key feature.
But under the current bill, states could seek a waiver so that insurance companies could discriminate against these people, rate them separately and charge them much higher premiums.
It is unclear how many states would opt to do that. Before the Affordable Care Act, the majority of states though did not have protections for people with pre-existing conditions, instead the sickest and most expensive patients were often helped through state-run high risk pools.
As a compromise to allay fears from lawmakers who were uneasy about gutting these protections, a few members today unveiled a new amendment that would allocate $8 billion in additional funds to help states run these high-risk pools.
Critics of efforts to said the $8 billion in additional funding to help states with high-risk pools is just a drop in the bucket and would not cover a majority of people with pre-existing conditions at risk of seeing their premiums skyrocket under the proposed Republican bill in the house of representatives, according to several think tanks and health care experts.
Under the bill, states could seek a waiver so that insurance companies could charge people with pre-existing conditions higher premiums, though it is unclear how many states would opt to do that. Before the Affordable Care Act the majority of states though did not have protections for this group with pre-existing conditions.
The AARP was quick to tweet that they are still opposed to the bill, even after the amendment was announced Wednesday morning. They are urging their members to call their representatives and urge a no vote.
Upton amendment = “protection” for patients with pre-existing conditions in name only. #NoAHCA https://t.co/G6igiiwlrw
— AARP Advocates (@AARPadvocates) May 3, 2017
Upton Amendment: $8 billion giveaway to insurance companies; won’t help majority of those w/preexisting conditions. We remain opposed. https://t.co/pmLg3hcfbf
— AARP Advocates (@AARPadvocates) May 3, 2017
Karen Pollitz, a senior Fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation focused on health reform and private insurance markets, said that $8 billion “is not a lot of money.”
Pollitz estimated that was enough to cover a couple hundred thousand people, nowhere near the 5-10 million people with pre-existing conditions that KFF estimates receive insurance through the individual markets.
The most expensive 10 percent of the population, makes up 50 percent of the costs, said Pollitz.
“High risk is ‘high-high.’ These are not people who need a Band-Aid for a scraped knee, they need chemotherapy and organ transplants and hospital bills.”
Matt Fielder, fellow for health policy at the Brookings Institute, agreed. He said the $8 billion was “far short” of what states would need to avoid large premium increases for people.
Fielder estimated that the total claims in individual marketplaces accounted for about $500 billion and that just over half, he thought, came from people with pre-existing conditions who would have been denied or priced out of insurance markets before the Obamacare law.
“You have to fill a hole that is much, much larger than $8 billion,” Fielder said in a phone interview.
Fielder added that additional money Republicans included in the House bill was supposed to be used in the Senate to improve the law and help states in other ways, such as boosting tax credits. He said that by moving pieces in one place they may be “worsening problems somewhere else in the bill.”
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