ACA Repeal

I voted for the candidate who got the most votes.

Icemantoo

Thanks for the reminder. I went to the individual websites for my senators and representative and used their e-mail "contact me" page to send them a comment. 

If the ACA is repealed, I'm most likely going to have to be self-pay for a while. Excluding pre-existing conditions?  Probably the same. It won't be pretty.  Somebody had better hurry up and develop a low-cost at-home CT scanner that works with a tablet or laptop computer and links conveniently to a radiologist.  The downside:  If you have toddlers or cats in your home, your CT may end up photobombed with a babygram or kittygram. 

Some years ago, long before I had any inkling of RCC and when I was quite healthy, I had to change insurances, and got double-clobbered with the pre-existing condition exclusion.  FIRST they refused to cover treatment for my pre-existing conditions. So I decided I'd do my best to get NO medical care for my pre-existing conditions for whatever the rediculous period of time was before they'd consider them no longer pre-existing. THEN when that time was almost up, they informed me that since people with my particular pre-existing conditions tended to rack up more health care costs in general, they were jacking up my premium payments.  They went from a little over half my income to 80% of my income. Then, thankfully, the ACA kicked in. 

I'm not concerned for myself, but I am concerned for a couple of relatives, one of whom is in remission for nasopharyngeal cancer, a cancer that appears in the back of the throar and nose.  His treatment was not surgical.  It involved three months of daily targeted radiation therapy and four doses (once a month) of chemotherapy.  Because the radiation targeted his neck area, an area with a lot of nerves in it, he has pretty constant nerve pain that can only be addressed with gabapentin.  He was in between jobs at the time, so he was on a program that insured uninsured residents of the city in which he resides.  I'm concered that if the ACA is repealed and nothing is put in its place, then he might not be able to continue to receive ongoing monitoring scans (which he has every six months) and I'm also concerned that without the requirement that insurance companies must insure those with pre-existing conditions, some bad things could fester and explode into something serious.  One of the unforunate side effects of radiation therapy can be cancers in different areas due to the exposure to the radiation.  Trump has at least made noises about wanting to keep the pre-existing condition requirement, but who knows what the ultimate program will look like or if they'll even be able to pass one.

The whole idea of the Republicans looking to repeal it and then work on something else seems very analgous to Nancy Pelosi's infamous "we have to pass it before we know what's in it" statement.  I'm not optimistic.

dhs1963 said:

My coverage is from work...but...l

Obamacare looks like it will be repealed next week. When they started it, people like me -- ones who get their health insurance from work, the majority of americans -- were told that there would be no change. Only there were changes. Sure, prices went up, but so did coverage. Preventative medicine/procedures are covered 100%. Birth control is mostly covered...

But, that is a relatively minor impact. For me, the impact that mattered the most is removing the life time limits. Before Obamacare, my company had a lifetime limit of something like $1,000,000 for an individual. That seemed like a lot of money. But, I have been at the same job for 21+ years. My lifetime medical expenses are approaching that number (I think). 

So, without Obamacare, or specifically the lifetime payout, there is almost no way I would finish my life with medical coverage from my current employer.

 

Great point I had completely forgotten about.  Those of us on this thread (and on this site in general) are far more likely to reach a lifetime maximum given our conditions.