Doug Nadel: Only caring for healthy

Regarding the March 9 news article “Ryan downplays GOP health care plan backlash”: Paul Ryan made a startling admission. During a long presentation, he stated that the “fatal flaw” in the ACA is that it is based on the idea that the healthy subsidize the care of the sick. That is, of course, how all health insurance works.

This manufactured inequity, he reasoned, is justification for a punitive approach to illness and aging where those with pre-existing conditions, meaning those who would actually use their insurance, should be shifted into high risk pools with significantly higher premiums.

Under his proposed replacement bill, the the sick and the elderly, those with the most limited resources, are left at the highest risk, despite having health insurance. The bill adds complicated tax issues, health savings accounts, seemingly arbitrary tax credits and other obstacles including the re-institution of rescission, that make having to deal with already debilitating health issues exponentially more complex and difficult.

It is clear now that the reason the mechanisms in the proposed health care bill do not provide for adequate coverage of those who actually need coverage is that to Republicans, “health care” means “care of the healthy” and that those with chronic health issues are not worthy of care.

This story was originally published March 18, 2017 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Doug Nadel: Only caring for healthy."