
If you have cancer or diabetes, President Trump's 'across-state-lines' healthcare proposal might concern you
If you have cancer or diabetes, President Trump's 'across-state-lines' healthcare proposal might concern you
Prior to Obamacare, states told health insurance companies what they absolutely had to cover. President Donald Trump wants a new system that encourages selling policies across state lines, but healthcare advocates say it will cause problems. (Gerry Broome, Associated Press)
WASHINGTON -- Before Obamacare, what your health insurance covered depended on where you lived.
"For the most part, what state you lived in determined how easily you could purchase a health plan, the price you would pay, and what the plan would cover," says a new study from Georgetown University's Heath Policy Institute.
But by requiring certain essential benefits and by capping annual and lifetime out-of-pocket payments, Obamacare made the state differences much less relevant, whatever disease you were dealing with.
In post-ACA world, what kind of protections will ppl w/ pre-existing conditions get? Depends on where they live. https://t.co/RjXyHB65IB
-- Sabrina Corlette (@SabrinaCorlette) January 25, 2017
This is just one of many studies to point this out. For example, nearly 30 million Americans have diabetes. Before the Affordable Care Act, Ohio, which has 675,000 diabetes patients, was one of four states that didn't specifically require insurers to cover diabetes, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Ohio cancer patients fared better -- although prior to Obamacare, it depended on the kind of cancer, according to a different state-by-state comparison by the stat
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