Nancy Pelosi: GOP Health Care Plan Would Make Being A Woman A Preexisting Condition
Obamacare made it so all health insurance plans on the marketplace have to cover maternity care. The GOP wants to do away with that.
WASHINGTON ― Republican leaders are eyeing last-minute changes to their health care bill in order to attract votes from conservative lawmakers, including removing the requirement that insurance companies cover maternity care for everyone.
Before the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, the insurance market was a bleak place for women. They often had to pay more than men for the same coverage. Only 12 percent of individual market plans covered maternity care. And it was completely legal for insurance companies to refuse coverage to women who were pregnant or might become pregnant in the future.
One of the ACA’s most celebrated features is that it attempted to fix this gender disparity. It created a list of 10 essential health benefits that all plans on the marketplace must cover. Pregnancy, maternity and newborn care are on that list. It also said that insurance plans must offer contraception at no cost, along with breastfeeding equipment and services.
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In 2009, during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, then-Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) argued, “I don’t need maternity care, and so requiring that to be in my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”
“I think your mom probably did,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) shot back.
More recently, Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said it wasn’t fair to make men “purchase prenatal care.”
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) also seemed skeptical of the whole idea of essential benefits on Thursday.
Link to tweet
(For the record, mammograms also test for breast cancer in men.)
Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nancy-pelosi-maternity-care_us_58d3de49e4b0b22b0d1a6c7a?yh181kh7qb2t65hfr&
Gawd I hate these bastards!
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