This is a hypothetical argument.
BCBS, under the ACA, can also charge working class Americans, who have to buy their own insurance, $5000 per month, with a friendly $10,000 deductible for major surgeries. Which would bankrupt, and even kill, working class individuals who developed a serious condition while they were covered.
It's not a hypothetical. Under the ACA, those with pre-existing conditions are treated the same way employees with insurance at work are treated, which is they are not charged more for having pre-existing conditions. A cancer survivor pays the same rate as a person with NO health issues in his or her past, and there are no lifetime limits on care.
Under the GOP plan, BCBS can charge whatever it wanted to a cancer survivor, which is roughly what BCBS could do pre-ACA. Telling BCBS that it must not "deny" coverage but can charge whatever premium it wants to cover cancer survivors isn't protecting that woman with a history of breast cancer, at all. It's a hollow, worthless "guarantee."
And I suppose BCBS theoretically "can" charge people $5,000/month in premiums, just like your local restaurant "can" charge $900 for a cheeseburger. What's your point? BCBS don't charge that to individuals or families, and everyone insured on that plan in that age group pays the same premium. That's what real protections for those with pre-existing conditions looks like.
Finally, there isn't any question that the ACA expanded the number of "working class" Americans with health insurance. Sure, premiums are expensive if they're not subsidized. They were expensive pre-ACA and are afterwards because healthcare in the U.S. is expensive.
What's Trump's plan to bring those premiums down and make them affordable? Who pays the subsidies for these people who would be bankrupted or even killed (!!!) under the ACA but wouldn't be under the non-existent Trump plan? Healthcare is expensive. If the insureds don't pay the full premium, that means higher taxes, basically.
Who will pay higher taxes under the Trump Plan to be Named Later?
The point is it is easy to throw rocks at what someone else did, but apparently impossible for the worthless GOP and Trump to come up with a better plan. It's easy to promise lower premiums, full coverage, protections for everyone with pre-existing conditions, but until we know who pays for all that, those promises are as worthless as my promise, which I hereby pledge, to deliver every family a LearJet.
All Obamacare does is shift the financial burden from the most financially needy to the working class whose insurance is not covered by an employer.
More importantly, Stephanopolous did not tell Trump he was risking higher rates for those with pre-existing conditions. He claimed that Trump wanted to “strike down” the pre-existing condition guarantee.
1) He's suing to repeal the ACA in its entirety.
2) He has offered
NOTHING as a replacement.
So he's objectively acting to kill off those protections, and there is nothing you can cite to show us how or whether the Trump Plan to be Named Later will do as promised. If you want to believe the empty, worthless, broken promises and ignore what Trump is DOING, that's fine. The rest of us are not that gullible or stupid.
