Remember Obama Saying People With Pre-Existing Conditions Shouldn’t Pay More? Yeah, Well…






Along with Barack Obama’s promise of “if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan,” was his declaration that “people with pre-existing conditions shouldn’t be penalized.”

Yeah, well, that was then and this is now. People with serious pre-existing diseases, precisely those Obama said the “Affordable Care Act” would help, could find themselves paying for expensive drug treatments with no help from the healthcare exchanges.

Those with expensive diseases such as lupus or multiple sclerosis face something called a “closed drug formulary.” Dr. Scott Gottlieb of the American Enterprise Institute explains:

“If the medicine that you need isn’t on that list, it’s not covered at all. You have to pay completely out of pocket to get that medicine, and the money you spend doesn’t count against your deductible, and it doesn’t count against your out of pocket limits, so you’re basically on your own.”

But didn’t Obama pledge — multiple times — to help those with pre-existing conditions, a: get covered, and, b: control their cost of healthcare? Here’s the reality, according to Dr. Daniel Kantor, who treats MS patients and others with neurological conditions:

“So it could be that a MS patient could be expected to pay $62,000 just for one medication. That’s a possibility under the new ObamaCare going on right now.”

Moreover, Dr. Kantor worries that “this may drive more patients” to not buy their medicines, “which we know is dangerous,” he says. “We know MS can be a bad disease when you’re not treating it. When you’re treating it, for most people they handle it pretty well, but we know when you don’t treat (it), it’s the kind of disease where people end up in wheel chairs potentially.”

And so it continues. What began with the botched rollout of a website, continued with millions of health insurance cancellation notices, and will undoubtedly face a year when the other shoe continues to drop, we are in the midst of doing exactly what Nancy Pelosi infamously said before the bill became law: we are “finding out what’s in it” — and we don’t like it.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/02/115318-remember-obama-saying-people-pre-existing-conditions-shouldnt-pay-yeah-well/