Obamacare is easy to misunderstand. It’s complex, confusing and heavily demagogued, and those things all plant seeds of doubt in a lightly informed citizenry. Given the barrage of lies flying around, it astounds me that a majority either still want to keep it or make it stronger.
But as Senator Ted Cruz and many others can tell you, it is very easy to whip about a third of the population into a fervor over Obamacare. Listening to Cruz, Boehner and the boys discuss Obamacare, you’d think the End Times are nigh.
One of their favorite tactics is the ritualistic burning of the Obamacare Card. Though there is no such thing as an Obamacare Card, a conservative group called Freedomworks printed up a batch of faux cards so they could burn them in the public square.
The minority intent on repealing Obamacare has created a good visual with the card burnings. Now, the majority of Americans who either want to maintain or strengthen Obamacare need to create a memorable counter visual.
I nominate burning insurance rejection documents. For decades, insurance companies have been denying health coverage for seriously ill Americans, because seriously ill people are expensive and unprofitable to cover. I’m not blaming insurance companies for doing this, because we have built a system that effectively requires them to deny coverage to those with expensive medical needs. After all, any insurance company that started covering the most sick, expensive patients would be run out of business, because they wouldn’t be able to compete against competitors who reject the most sick, expensive patients. Unless all insurance companies are mandated to cover these folks, none will.
Everyone agrees that these denials have tragic consequences for an enormous group of ailing Americans. According to research by the Commonweath Fund:
An estimated 9 million were turned down or charged a higher price because of a health problem, or had a preexisting condition excluded from their coverage.
The tragedies that stem from such denials are widespread. Non-treatment. Under-treatment. Inefficient and ineffective treatment. Bankruptcies driven by mountains of unpayable medical bills. Cost-shifting to the rest of us.
No more. Starting with the insurance policies going on sale October 1, 2013, Obamacare makes it illegal for any insurance company to ever again deny coverage based on a preexisting condition. As a result, 9 million of some of the sickest Americans finally will be eligible for coverage, and if you get sick or hurt in the future, so will you.
This Obamacare-mandated change is revolutionary for those who have been rejected in the past, and for any of us who could be denied in the future, which is all of us. It is a vastly under-appreciated aspect of Obamacare.
So to celebrate this momentous occasion, let’s burn some insurance company rejection documents. Since there are 9 million lives impacted, let’s burn 9 million denial documents. Just as fake Obamacare Cards needed to be produced for theatrical effect, symbolic rejection documents would have to be recreated. (Most people don’t save their rejection letters to put into their baby books.)
Imagine what that blaze would represent. Coverage denial for victims of all types of cancer, diabetes, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, quadriplegia, Parkinson’s disease, AIDS/HIV and countless other ailments? Up in smoke. Coverage denial for patients in desperate need of doctor-recommended medications? Burn, baby, burn.
Think about it. Never again will any of your desperately ill family members, friends, co-workers and neighbors receive a coverage rejection letter again. The banning of pre-existing condition denials is now a reality, thanks to Obamacare. Let’s tell that story. Let’s create that visual. Let’s have that celebration. Supporters of Obamacare should quit cowering in the shadows of the Obamacare Card burnings, and let that light shine brightly.
– Loveland
Note: This post was featured as a “best of the best” in MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.