Employer-Backed Insurance Could Take a Huge Hit from GOP Healthcare Plan

[Ms. Toad]

12. You're still not answering the question.

Please point to the specific language in the proposal that would permit employers to charge more for pre-existing conditions.

I am not suggsting that in 1966 insurers were not permitted to charge people with pre-exisiting conditions more - I have a daughter whose medical expenses each and every year run between $40,000 and $60,000. It is a real problem, and one I have lived with personally, every year, since 1994. I pay very close attention to what is, and is not, permitted in every current law - and every proposal - including reading the entire ACA in the era when lawmakers alleged that it was impossible to know what was in it until after it passed.

Based on my reading of the AHCA proposal, it does not permit discriminatory charging based on pre-existing conditions, and it does not remove protections that existed in employment situations (since at least the late 1990s when HIPAA was passesed - by now, my memory of exactly when that change occurred is fuzzy, but I know exclusion of pre-existing conditions in employment or continuous coverage has been around at least that long).

It is important to fight the demons in front of us - not to create demons that do not (at present) exist. I'm asking you to identify the language in the proposal that would retract protections in the law that existed for employment based health insurance long before the ACA was passed.