It used to be, if you got diagnosed with something, then lost your insurance, you couldn't be insured again.
"Pre-existing conditions."
I'm glad folks don't remember. I'm glad this is ancient history. But there's a *reason* it was a big deal.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-exi...
kind of weird to see the “ACA is useless” bs pop up again in 2024. it’s not great but like. y’all remember how much birth control pills cost pre-ACA???????????
I remember looking at my state's "high risk" insurance pool - which no longer exists because the ACA made it unnecessary - and seeing that the monthly rates for me getting medical insurance would be $900+ (in ~2007). And crying, because that was never going to be within my reach.
If you needed medical insurance, but had certain pre-existing conditions, it used to be that you had to go to the high-risk pool for coverage.
And their rates were *even more* usurious than those of regular health insurance. Insurers KNEW you had no other options, and *they liked it that way*.
Premature babies could easily hit the lifetime cap with a few days in the NICU. A friend of mine broke down in tears when the ACA passed and she could finally insure her son and not have to pay for asthma treatments out of pocket.
Yep. My husb & his brother both immigrated here & built families but couldn’t bring their parents til after ACA. Old folks were just literally uninsurable. Still so grateful that it passed, and his mom’s last 15ish years were here, surrounded by her grandkids.
It’s never enough. It’s like that metaphor of “the dragon from the LotR” sitting on more money than god.
There’s literally a Jacobin article, I think, I dunno sometimes I space out.
Yes, we had friends whose baby reached “lifetime limit” in matter of weeks. They were advised by hospital to divorce, make themselves destitute (sell house, cars, etc), and apply for Medicare, as their only option to keep their child alive. When ACA passed, friend wept, “We can have a life again.”
It was so bad, so inhumane. It’s still pretty bad but the difference is unfathomable to anyone who hasn’t seen or experienced how horrible it was before.
There was nothing quite like waiting 6 months after a new job before going to the doctor with any new chronic complaints so it couldn't be considered retroactively a pre-existing condition. Had to time these things carefully.
Rescission is my favorite to show how uninformed the "ACA is useless" crowd is. Insurance biz literally had secret teams of detectives going thru every medical record you have to see if ever said something even once to a Dr that you didn't disclose or if got a date wrong.
bsky.app/profile/kenm...
If you get cancer or need a transplant or other expensive treatment, a team would go thru the extensive medical history you provided and if even got a date wrong (surgery in May 87 not March 87) then entire policy is retroactively rescinded for false info on your application.
ACA made that illegal.
Oh yeah- and if you were younger, just entering the workforce, you went years w/o coverage and would ignore health issues bc you knew diagnoses could be a lifelong weight that limited your job options and possibly made you uninsurable
My friend was young, healthy, and in his 30s when he lost his job. COBRA was expensive, and he figures he can risk it. That's when he got the renal cancer diagnosis.
You know the trope of "the can't turn you away from emergency rooms." Well, emergency rooms don't do chemo.
The "high-risk" pool made it so that I had to decide between rent & medical care. I aged out of Tricare when abroad. Got blamed for "letting my insurance lapse" even though there WAS no way to file for medical care when abroad. The ACA saved my life. Is it great, no, but. It was SO much worse.
I had to put up with sexual harassment, sexual assault, and a boss threatening me with a gun just to keep access to a neurologist and epilepsy medicine before Obamacare.
pre-ACA, MrsAware was charged higher insurance premiums for having had a precancerous mole removed
also her c section for LilAware cost >$5k out of pocket
good times.
Indeed, but I do want to gently point out that what makes fatness different is that "fat" is not an illness or disease or disorder. It is a measurement, specifically the amount of adipose tissue one has, or more typically, a height/weight ratio used as a (poor) proxy measure of same.
Are we pretending it isn't a health risk? 🤷♀️ I'm fat. And I'm aware of the risks due to it, some of which are realizing themselves in my case.
Doctors shouldn't dismiss everything as being down to fatness, the way they love to do, but that's another issue. This is about insurability.
And even though I know it's not allowed any more, I still worry about it, because it was that fucking traumatic! (I was insurable via work, but there were huge parts of my insurance that if I tried to use it they'd refuse to pay... pre-existing conditions you see...)
I think it’s totally fair to still be worried, since Trump and co. seem very interested in dismantling it, they say to replace it with something better but we all know “better” is for the CEOs and insurance companies, def not us
Shit it’s less certain than abortion rights were- much easier for the GOP to get the majority in one election than it was for them to stack the court strategically over multiple administrations in coordination with a senate majority
My dad accidentally missed one bill payment two weeks before he found himself in the ER with a cancer diagnosis. His insurance cancelled and wouldn’t let him reapply because he had cancer. Then no other insurance would take him. It was a death sentence.
The ACA/Obamacare literally saves lives.
one of my pre-existing conditions in 2003 was Hashimotos thyroiditis aka underactive thyroid. 14 million ppl in the US have it, mostly women. People need to know about pre-existing conditions bc they probably have a bunch of them & don't know it bc they've never been denied coverage for them
I'm old enough to have been in the workforce pre-ACA and at one point (pre kids/marriage) had dreams of freelancing. Searching for private health insurance as a childhood cancer survivor put that dream to bed real quick.
Here's a copy of a letter I received in 2012 when I tried yet again to apply for health insurance, before the ACA's pre-ex protections kicked in.
I'd been uninsured for a decade prior to this letter, just one of many rejections I've kept on file. The 'allergies', btw, are just seasonal hayfever.
When I went out on disability for two years, except it was denied and I was fighting it, the one thing I paid every month was cobra so I wouldn’t lose coverage. Had to sell my home and couch surf for a couple years but I kept insurance until I could switch over to uni so I’d stay covered.
It was once so important to sign on for insurance when we got a new job just because that was the only way to get health insurance if you had *any* pre-existing conditions. And/or life insurance. In 2006, I got married in December bc it fit in my school schedule before I turned 25.
1/2
Was that even a thing pre ACA? I’m pretty sure I was off my parent’s insurance once I went to college, had college based coverage, and was for sure uninsured after I graduated. I was 21 in 2000, I don’t think I knew anyone my age who had health insurance. A young adult with coverage was an outlier
It varied by employer & state. My dad's employer allowed me to remain on his insurance indefinitely, as long as he claimed me as a dependent on his federal taxes.
I think our share of the premium increased (maybe we paid it all? idr), but it was insurance and it covered some expensive medications.
Yep. My family worked for different departments of Florida state government until recently. The state’s insurance was similar to your dad’s, but with a cut-off age and education requirement.
Had to switch to my husband’s insurance plan, for a lot more money, before having kids because pre-ACA my employer-offered plan didn’t include pregnancy (or birth control, or annual OB/GYN preventative care) as a covered condition. Totally legal, totally cool.
I don't think that's the argument being made - just that insurance companies are still garbage goblins trying to shaft their customers, which I think we're all on the same page about.
Excluding people from coverage was dramatically and tragically far easier and more frequent. Premature babies could use up their lifetime limit of insurance before leaving the hospital. Mental health coverage sucked far worse than today. Ongoing weekly therapy? You’d never get coverage. Etc. Etc.
When I changed jobs, old job shafted me on COBRA, and as a result of lapsed coverage, new job’s health insurance refused to cover me for 1yr because “preexisting condition”, so I was forgoing prescribed “keep me breathing” meds because I could not afford the out-of-pocket cost. Fucking nightmarish
I have a chronic condition that is cheap to treat and easy to manage. I can, in fact, pay for it myself.
But ACA repeal would make it infeasible for me to get insurance. If something happened to my husband or his job...
