IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
“Nothing could demonstrate more clearly how damaging Representative MacArthur’s health care record is to his reelection prospects than the fact that he’s using thousands of tax dollars to try to cover it up,” said DCCC Spokesman Evan Lukaske. “It won’t work. Voters know that MacArthur authored a bill that would have gutted protections for pre-existing conditions, caused premium hikes, and imposed an age tax on older Americans. Make no mistake—Democrats will make sure that MacArthur’s disturbing record on health care remains front and center in this race.”
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N.J. Republican who tried to kill Obamacare faces heat for claiming his plan wouldn’t hurt patients | Star-Ledger
By Jonathan Salant
July 22, 2018
Rep. Tom MacArthur told constituents that he acted to “make the coverage of pre-existing conditions sacrosanct” in his amendment that paved the way for House Republican repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
MacArthur, R-3rd Dist., made the claim in his latest taxpayer-financed mailing, where he also pledged to “protect health insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions who are trying to obtain affordable health care.”
Health care experts, medical groups and the Congressional Budget Office say he did the opposite.
“For people with pre-existing conditions, this amendment very much would have affected them,” said Chris Sloan, director of Avalere Health, a research group. “It allowed states to apply for waivers to allow health plans to vary premiums based on their health status. That means people with pre-existing conditions will have to pay more in premiums.”
MacArthur’s mailing reignited an issue that has weakened his re-election prospects. Inside Elections, a Washington-based publication that tracks congressional races, on Friday rated MacArthur as more endangered, calling the district a “credible takeover opportunity” even as the incumbent remained favored.
His Democratic challenger, former national security aide Andy Kim, has made health care a major issue.
“Congressman MacArthur is abusing our tax dollars to spread misinformation,” Kim said. “He wrote the amendment that gutted pre-existing condition protections and he can’t run away from it. His name is on it — the MacArthur amendment.”
[…] The amendment, though, also paved the way for states to allow insurance policies to exclude some of the benefits they now must contain, as well enable companies to charge higher premiums to older or sicker patients.
A state could, for example, allow the sale of insurance that no longer covers prescription drugs, forcing someone with diabetes to find a supplemental policy to help cover those costs. But that policy could be priced out of range, or have a high deductible, or limit how much a company would pay.
“It could easily make coverage not meaningful for those with pre-existing conditions,” said Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow with the Kaiser Family Foundation. “There are not any requirements in the amendment that those programs keep people whole, and there isn’t enough money set aside for those programs to ensure that that would be possible.”
The CBO, which found that the House Republican bill would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 23 million, also said that despite the MacArthur amendment, sicker individuals, including those with pre-existing conditions “would be unable to purchase comprehensive coverage with premiums close to those under current law and might not be able to purchase coverage at all.”
And James Madara, chief executive officer of the American Medical Association, told House leaders last year that the pre-existing condition provision “may be illusory as health status underwriting could effectively make coverage completely unaffordable to people with preexisting conditions.”
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