Warner Campaign Rips Ed Gillespie’s Health Care Repeal Plan

The following press release is from the Warner for Senate campaign. I'll have more on this later, but in short Gillespie's “plan” is a really, really bad joke on a whole bunch of levels (e.g., a one-earner household with a 33-year-old parent can't even come CLOSE to affording health care coverage with just $100 per month). Also, $3,000 a year for people over 50? As a really smart friend of mine put it, “hahahahahahahahahaha.” 

• End the current outright prohibition on denying coverage or charging more for individuals with pre-existing conditions, which could include anything as routine as having once had an abnormal pap smear.
• End the requirement that insurance companies fully cover preventive care with no co-pay, such as mammograms, pap smears and contraception.
• End the current prohibition on insurers applying annual and lifetime limits, meaning that your coverage can be cut off right when you need it most.
• No longer require insurance companies to allow kids to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26.
• Allow children with pre-existing conditions to be denied coverage.

• Resulting in higher premiums and less coverage .
• Providing fewer tax credits than under current law, and they would be refundable, meaning families would have to pay upfront and wait for a refund, an unworkable option for many working families.
• Rolling back Medicaid eligibility.

—— 

P.S. More absurdity and Big Lies: 1)  Gillespie's claim that “benefits almost exclusively the near-poor and the near-elderly” (uh, Ed? the “near-elderly” do vote, you know? as for the “near-poor,” not sure how you figure 4 times the poverty level is “near-poor,” but whatever); 2) Gillespie's claim that “Obamacare actually bans people from saving money by buying insurance for their family that doesn’t cover a 25-year-old child” (in fact, that's the whole point of community rating; it's not a bug, it's built into the policy architecture as its defining feature — everybody goes into the pool); 3) as for “health savings accounts,” let's just consider how well 401(k)s and the defined-contribution retirement architecture have worked – uhhhh; 4) Gillespie's vow that under his plan, “Medicaid would revert to pre-Obamacare eligibility levels — which vary by state — and anyone who’s been added to Medicaid under Obamacare would get a tax credit with which to purchase personal insurance” (that's both heartless AND stupid, a huge step backwards – thanks “Enron Ed!”). In sum, this thing is stinking pile of rotting…well, whatever smells the worst when it rots. Just avoid it like the plague.