What’s Killing People On Health Costs? It’s The Pre-Existing Conditions Rules, Stupid

Christopher Jacob writes about “what the media won’t tell you” about what’s killing people on health care costs — unfortunately, because they don’t know how to fight the information war, Republicans and conservatives don’t tell you either:

Why did people ‘wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half?’ Because of the pre-existing condition provisions in Obamacare.

The new House Democratic majority is bringing to the floor a resolution on Wednesday seeking to intervene in Texas’ Obamacare lawsuit. The House already voted to approve the legal intervention, as part of the rules package approved on the first day of the new Congress Thursday, but Democrats are making the House vote on the subject again, solely as a political stunt.

I have previously discussed what the media won’t tell you about the pre-existing condition provisions—that approval of these Obamacare “protections” drops precipitously when people are asked if they support the provisions even if they would cause premiums to go up. I have also outlined how a Gallup poll released just last month shows how all groups of Americans—including Democrats and senior citizens—care more about rising premiums than about losing their coverage due to a pre-existing condition.

Bill Clinton Got This One Right

But perhaps the most articulate explanation of the problem comes from none other than Bill Clinton, Democrats’ “explainer-in-chief.” A few weeks before the 2016 election, he gave a speech on behalf of his wife’s presidential candidacy in which he said the following about Obamacare:

The current system works fine if you’re eligible for Medicaid, if you’re a lower income working person, if you’re already on Medicare, or if you get enough subsidies on a modest income that you can afford your health care. But the people that are getting killed in this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies. Why? Because they’re not organized, they don’t have any bargaining power with insurance companies, and they’re getting whacked. So you’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care, and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world.

Read more: The Federalist