runawaymarbles:

pbrim:

twodotsknowwhy:

I think some of you who were young when Obama care became law maybe dont get what the horror of pre-existing conditions meant. It wasn’t just you disclosed your condition and insurers didn’t cover you, its that they would cover you, you would pay them, live your life and then one day, you’d need medical care and the insurance companies would comb through your past history LOOKING for an excuse to tell you that actually, because your GP told you twenty-five years ago that you might consider making lifestyle changes to avoid developing high blood pressure (changes which you did, and which worked), that stroke you just had is a pre-existing condition and you’re shit out of luck

And with the invention of social media and the ability to buy consumer’s data, if this practice is allowed to resume, a lot of people are gonna be so screwed over

A good friend had insured their family (2 parents, 3 kids) for several years, paid their premiums regularly.  Then their eldest son developed diabetes, and the company claimed that he had been overweight all along, and thus had not ever actually been eligible for their policy.  Not only would the company not pay for his treatment now, they demanded back all the money they had paid for treatment in the past.  They did not, of course refund any premiums paid because it was a single price for a family with 2 or 3 kids covered.

In the 90′s I was working as a contractor in IT and getting my insurance through my husband who was a regular employee.  I was secretly make plans to leave my abusive husband, and was looking for private insurance.  But it had been recently discovered one of my heart valves is mal-formed.  It is a birth defect, discovered accidentally, that I had had without problems for 40 years.  But there was a chance that at some point it would need to be replaced. The best deal I could find for private insurance was a policy for which I would pay the same as everyone else, but there would be no coverage at all for ANY problem with my circulatory system because of my “pre-existing condition”,  (Other companies refused to insure me at any price.)  Not just no valve replacement surgery, no coverage for a heart attack, no coverage for high blood pressure, no coverage for anything that in anyway affected my circulatory system.  I had to remain with my husband for several more years until I could shut down my company and find a job with my own employee insurance.  (25 years later, and still no issues from that mal-formed valve.)

My best friend has several complex medical problems.  She was lucky enough to get coverage from the state under a high-risk pool (not available in every state), and that kept her alive.  But it cost almost half of their income every year for premiums and co-pays.  Her husband was not eligible for the pool, and could not afford to take a job that offered insurance, because that would make her ineligible for the pool.  He was fired early on from a job that did offer insurance, but it was a small company and his wife’s conditions were driving the premiums up for everyone in the company.  The insurance company rep flat out told them, “We doubled your premiums this year, and we will double them next year, and every year until you fire X.  Do that and the premiums for everyone else go back down.”  So he didn’t go to the doctor for anything for 10 years so they could keep the insurance that was keeping his wife alive.  He was afraid to get a checkup for fear they would find some “pre-existing condition” that would mean he could NEVER be able to get insurance.

This is what they want to go back to.  This is what they want to go back to in the middle of a pandemic.  This scares the shit out of me.

and COVID is creating a LOT of pre-existing conditions. Some of which we aren’t going to know about for years.