The GOPs Health Care Bill Could Make Being a Woman a Pre-Existing Condition

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http://motto.time.com/4766878/gop-health-care-bill-hurt-women/?xid=time_socialflow_facebook

The Republicans’ proposed health care bill, which the House approved on Thursday, could make it more difficult for women to get low-cost health insurance by allowing states to again define sexual assault, domestic violence and C-sections as “pre-existing conditions.”

In 2008, the National Women’s Law Center issued a report, “Nowhere to Turn: How the Individual Health Insurance Market Fails Women,” which found that women often have higher premiums than men and that very few insurers cover maternity care. The report also found that insurers could refuse to cover survivors of sexual assault or domestic violence by characterizing their past trauma as a “pre-existing condition.”

“They could tell sexual assault survivors, ‘Because you require preventative HIV medication and antidepressants, you’re too expensive. We can’t make a profit off of you, we’re not going to cover you,’” Janel George, the director of Federal Reproductive Rights and Health at the National Women’s Law Center, told Motto.

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The amendment, inserted into the bill this week, would allow states to opt-out of an ACA provision barring insurers from setting costs based on individuals’ health or pre-existing conditions. It would also allow states to opt-out of the ACA’s requirement that all insurers cover the Essential Health Benefits.

Depending on a state’s choice to opt out of those requirements, it could soon very well be legal for an insurer to charge women and survivors of domestic abuse higher premiums, or deny them coverage altogether.


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[gratuitous]

1. You forget this stuff pretty quickly

But pre-existing conditions covers a disturbing number of things (like a c-section or being sexually assaulted), and it extends to an astonishing number of things you could be treated for. Naturally, any ladyparts stuff, like pap smears, cancer screenings, endometriosis treatment, but also things like mental health treatment, prescriptions for anti-depressants, birth control in any form, and a whittling down of what is considered an essential health benefit, like preventative examinations and treatment.

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2. I had to have a breast biopsy in December. It was a benign tumor, but I would probably have

hesitated to do it right away if I was stuck with the whole bill. They want me to have a follow-up in the fall.

I am super-pissed today.