Trump's Health Care Bill Passes House. Women, We're Screwed

Trump’s health care bill just passed in the U.S. House. Everything is terrible

Republicans just passed a bill to replace and repeal Obamacare. Now it heads to the Senate, which is also Republican-controlled, so women should probably start planning for how fucked we’re going to be. Really, ladies. Just prepare yourselves.

We’ve voted in a woman-hating, woman-assaulting, woman-insulting president, so it was just a matter of time before he started really eroding the quality of our lives. And he’s never made any excuses for any of it or any apologies, so trust — everything is terrible. And it’s going to get worse. Am I being alarmist? Let’s talk about all those “pre-existing conditions” everyone has been ranting about.

Under this bill, RAPE can possibly be a pre-existing condition. So can DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. So can a C-SECTION. Do you see common threads with these situations? They either solely or predominantly effect women. The war on women is on — in full swing. And they played the “Rocky” theme after they passed it.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Before Obamacare, rape survivors who got treatment for their injuries could be denied health care later on. Can you believe that? Insurance companies could actually refuse to cover you because you’d been raped. The new MacArthur-Meadows Amendment that is attached to this horrific bill will turn the power back over to states and allow them to discriminate, based on medical history.

Before Obamacare, “Chris Turner was a health insurance agent who asked insurance underwriters she worked with whether rape survivors would get coverage,” reports CNN. “She said the underwriters told her no. Medical treatment associated with rape made the person too high a risk.”

Postpartum depression is also considered a pre-existing condition. So if you’ve sought treatment there could potentially be an insurance company who could discriminate against you based on that information. Been treated for injuries due to domestic violence? You’ve got a pre-existing condition, too. So not only are you a survivor, you’re marked for life — and may be an undesirable candidate for coverage.

Jody Neal Post is a domestic abuse survivor. Before Obamacare, she applied for insurance and disclosed “that she was the victim of a crime, had a severe concussion then and ‘was strangled momentarily to unconsciousness.’ She included that she got private counseling through a police department program for abuse survivors and, as part of treatment, was given a six-month prescription for Valium to help her sleep,” reports CNN. “The insurance company rejected her application. By law, it didn’t have say why, but she says she was otherwise healthy.”

These horror stories were common pre-Obamacare. And insurance companies didn’t have to disclose why they rejected someone.

The Los Angeles Times reports that new bill “would let states escape a requirement under Obama’s 2010 law that insurers charge healthy and seriously ill customers the same rates. The overall legislation would cut the Medicaid program for the poor, eliminate fines for people who don’t buy insurance and provide generally skimpier subsidies. Critics have said the approach could reduce protections for people with pre-existing conditions.”

So it wouldn’t deny coverage, but it may make the premiums so expensive, women can’t afford them.

Quartz put it perfectly when they wrote, “Historically, being a woman in the US has basically been a pre-existing condition, considering 33% of American mothers have had a C-section, 20% of American women will experience sexual assault in their lifetimes, and 25% of women experience violent domestic abuse.”

Yes, the war on women is on.