Except the law doesn't say that. Whoops.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gap-in-health-care-laws-apf-4272209396.html?x=0&.v=1
Hours after President Barack Obama signed historic health care legislation, a potential problem emerged. Administration officials are now scrambling to fix a gap in highly touted benefits for children.
Obama made better coverage for children a centerpiece of his health care remake, but it turns out the letter of the law provided a less-than-complete guarantee that kids with health problems would not be shut out of coverage.
Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill Obama signed into law Tuesday.
However, if a child is accepted for coverage, or is already covered, the insurer cannot exclude payment for treating a particular illness, as sometimes happens now. For example, if a child has asthma, the insurance company cannot write a policy that excludes that condition from coverage. The new safeguard will be in place later this year.
Full protection for children would not come until 2014, said Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, another panel that authored the legislation. That's the same year when insurance companies could no longer deny coverage to any person on account of health problems.
Obama's public statements have conveyed the impression that the new protections for kids were more sweeping and straightforward.
PresBo and company have done more than IMPLY it, they've outright SAID it.
"Starting this year, thousands of uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will be able to purchase health insurance, some for the very first time. Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions."
And if you listen to the news coverage, they're STILL SAYING IT!
Even though it's not true.
So now it comes out that even DEMOCRATS have no idea what is really in the bill! I guess Pelosi was right when she said we'd have to wait until it was passed to find out what was really in the bill... not that anybody should be happy about THAT.
FIRST: This is an example of an unintended consequence that comes because bills are rushed through before legislators have time to study their content. Those who rushed the bill through and voted for it should have to live with what they rushed through and voted for.
ReplyDeleteNEXT: The following is the text of an email I sent yesterday that relates to this topic in a way:
“Under the Democrat's Health Care "Reform" legislation, people with pre-existing medical conditions must be allowed to have medical insurance even if someone else has to pay for it.
Thousands of children with a pre-existing condition are born every year in border states like California, Arizona, and Texas, so much so that it is straining the resources of medical facilities and even causing some hospitals to go out of business. Their condition is that their mothers are illegal aliens who came to the USA to deliver their "anchor babies".
Now, President Obama, with the help of "Chucky Cheese" Schumer (D-NY) and "Limp-Lindsey" Graham (R-SC), has vowed "to do everything in my power" to get immigration legislation moving in Congress this year" which, if he succeeds, will only make a bad situation worse.
No doubt the Democrats are confident that these “anchor babies" will grow up and vote for Democrats out of gratitude.
Now you know the rest of this sad story.”