The chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee incorrectly claimed Thursday that the only people who have to worry about rising costs under Republicans’ health bill are the “very tiny segment of the country” that “waits until they’re sick to buy insurance.”
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) made that claim in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday; his characterization of the bill is shaky at best.
Walden correctly said that the removal of Obamacare’s pricing protections would only apply to states that opt out of the protections, called “community rating.” He correctly said that those states would have to attempt to cover people with pre-existing conditions in order to opt out. And he correctly said that technically only individuals who do not “have continuous health insurance coverage” would lose that protection against medical underwriting, or charging higher premiums based on health status.
However, far more people would be affected than those who wait until they are sick to buy insurance.
The Meadows-MacArthur amendment to Republicans’ bill specifies that anyone without insurance for longer than 63 days during the previous 12 months would lose those protections — that includes unemployed people who used to be covered by their employer, or individuals in the marketplace who could no longer afford coverage for that time.
Even individuals who maintain continuous coverage could face higher premium costs. The loss of community rating encourages separate markets for healthy and sick people, with the former taking advantage of the loss of community rating in order to receive lower-cost care, and the latter bearing the financial burden.
Watch Walden’s claim below:
