GOP: Back to Health Care-Gutting Business

Rep. Henry Waxman (R-Calif.)Andy Holzman/Zum

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


With all the Medicare-privatizing and debt ceiling hostage-taking this year, Republicans haven’t had much bandwidth to spare on the priorities of last session—like killing health care reform.

But now they’re back in the swing of things. House Republicans on the powerful energy and commerce committee released draft legislation this week that takes square aim at the patients’ bill of rights and other bedrock consumer protections written into the Affordable Care Act. The bill would change the law so that insurance plans that existed before the passage of health care reform—i.e., the majority of private health care plans—don’t have to comply with new consumer protection rules. 

So, under the Republican draft, what protections would no longer apply in grandfathered plans? Here are a few:

  • Insurance for Young Adults under the age of 26: Under the GOP bill, people under the age of 26 could no longer stay on their parents’ plans if those plans existed before health reform passed.
  • Prohibition on recession of insurance: Grandfathered plans would be able to cancel coverage for people who get sick or make a mistake on an insurance application.
  • Prohibition on preexisting conditions: Plans could deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions or charge them more.

The bill would also impose lifetime and annual limits on coverage, dramatically restrict patient choice, and eviscerate patients’ right to appeal denial of coverage. The GOP’s push to undo what ACA did appears to be glommed into its overall anti-regulatory push. The title of Thursday’s hearing on the draft legislation was “Cutting The Red Tape: Saving Jobs from PPACA’s Harmful Regulations.” In a nutshell: The bill looks to preserve the status quo for health insurance companies. 

The benefits of the patients’ bill of rights are already being felt, and it is among the most popular parts of health care reform. But will Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) and the other Dems on the committee win the spin war?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate