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You are here: Home / Anderson On Health Insurance / The old days pre-ACA

The old days pre-ACA

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The Cruz and Trump plan is to restore the insurance industry to the pre-ACA status quo:

And what does that look like?

Here is a brochure targeted at insurance agents in 2006 for an exciting new individual market product in Arkansas:

Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield now offers a new health insurance plan for individuals and families that provides policyholders the ability to select benefit features that fit their unique needs and budget….

BlueChoice provides an array of deductible ($500 to $25,000)…. BlueChoice provides up to $2 million in lifetime
benefits for each covered family member.

may select optional maternity coverage….

medical underwriting is required; however, it can be a bit more flexible because of the higher deductibles associated with the plan structure. Considered a “limited benefit” policy, BlueChoice doesn’t offer coverage for treatment for alcoholism, drug addiction and psychiatric conditions (including Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder); and there are limits on home health care, outpatient therapy, occupational therapy, respiratory therapy and speech therapy

These types of policies are dirt cheap for young, healthy males who can easily pass underwriting screens as their dominant expense risk involves the phrase “Hold my beer.” For anyone else, they either are being underwritten out, expected services are not covered or they are significantly uprated.

That is the bad old days that the BCRA wants to go back to.

Reader Interactions

17Comments

  1. 1.

    evodevo

    Ayup … AND where are the Dem commercials shouting this? I have seen exactly none on my Cincy TeeVee stations ….

  6. 6.

    p.a.

    @Baud: They have Fox ‘News’ and hate radio 24/7. We have… Can some ads counter the puke funnel? Doubtful. But maybe it keeps the message out there.

  9. 9.

    Jeffro

    So now these lousy Republicans are talking about straight-out repealing the ACA now, with some sort of replacement TBD at a later date. Oh helllll no.

    And GOP? While you’re at it, you can go fuck yourself over your stupid tax cuts for the folks who’ve been sucking up every last bit of growth in income/wealth for the past 3 1/2 decades, too.

  10. 10.

    Victor Matheson

    To be fair, even under the ACA every state benchmark plan for policies sold on the exchanges has pretty significant limitations on home health care, outpatient therapy, OT, speech therapy, and respiratory therapy.

    Most plans I have examined, and I have pretty carefully looked at about 2 dozen states, limit PT/OT to 30-50 sessions per year with a similar limit on speech therapy. Home health care is typically limited to a single short visit per week.

  11. 11.

    MomSense

    I’m going to call my Senators again today and thank them for killing McConnell’s death bill. I’m also going to tell them it is way past time to put an end to the trump family corruption and profiting off the office of President. And shouldn’t they get Kushner the hell away from the PDB given that he lied about over 100 foreign contacts on his SF86?

    Hell yes I’m feeling emboldened.

  12. 12.

    rikyrah

    @Jeffro:

    So now these lousy Republicans are talking about straight-out repealing the ACA now, with some sort of replacement TBD at a later date. Oh helllll no.

    But, they will do the tax cuts right away…..sociopaths.

  13. 13.

    Brachiator

    @evodevo:

    .. AND where are the Dem commercials shouting this? I have seen exactly none on my Cincy TeeVee stations

    Jebus Freaking Christ. Social media is free. A word to a friendly reporter is free. Krugman columns ain’t free, but they are pretty cheap.

    We can give Democrats some time to catch their breath and fight back, but push back ain’t rocket science.

    Hell, every time Bernie Sanders bloviates about “single payer, just like every developed country,” an angel gets his wings.

  14. 14.

    Nicole

    I think there were dozens of articles about people pre-ACA getting wiped out by health care costs after discovering their insurance didn’t cover squat. If anyone can find some, post links here and there? I’ll happily keep sharing them on my own social media pages to remind people why the freaking ACA was passed in the first place.

  15. 15.

    trollhattan

    Wow, that’s glorious. Love how “choice” and various other terms are in scare quotes, like the author realized how much turd-gilding was occurring at the time.

    “The list of shit not covered shall include every malady you may experience.”

  16. 16.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    So the hard right considers this uptopia? Small wonder, since they think slavery was a good thing too.

  17. 17.

    Kylroy

    @Victor Matheson: It’s worse than the pre-ACA market, in that most states had (woefully underfunded and inadequate but nonetheless existent) programs trying to help the uninsurable. After the ACA passed, all those programs phased out because they were redundant – and they won’t magically spring back into being if the GOP finds a way to stop tripping on it’s dick and pass this idiocy.

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