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发帖数: 4174 | 1 WASHINGTON -- Cancer patient Kathy Watson voted Republican in 2008 and
believes the government has no right telling Americans to get health
insurance. Nonetheless, she says she'd be dead if it weren't for President
Barack Obama's health care law.
Now the Florida small businesswoman is worried the Supreme Court will strike
down her lifeline. Under the law, Watson and nearly 62,000 other "
uninsurable" patients are getting coverage through a little-known program
for people who have been turned away by insurance companies because of pre-
existing medical conditions.
"Without it, I would have been dead on March 2," Watson said of the Pre-
Existing Condition Insurance Plan, known as PCIP. That's when she was
hospitalized for a life-threatening respiratory infection.
It's not clear how the Supreme Court will rule on Obama's law, but Watson's
case illustrates the potential impact of tying everything in the far-
reaching legislation to the fate of one provision, the unprecedented
requirement that most Americans carry health insurance.
The law's opponents say if that insurance mandate is found to be
unconstitutional, the rest of the law should also go, since courts should
not be picking and choosing policy. The administration defends the insurance
requirement but says if the court decides to overturn it, most of the rest
of the law should stay.
State officials who administer the federal pre-existing condition plan in 27
states are trying to make fallback arrangements in case the law is
invalidated and coverage suddenly terminates.
"Some of these individuals are critically ill and are being treated for very
serious illnesses, whether it be cancer or HIV-AIDS, and we feel a
responsibility to them to do what we can to see they don't lose access,"
said Amie Goldman, who oversees PCIP in Wisconsin.
Federal officials who administer the plan in the remaining 23 states and
Washington, D.C., remain mum on what might happen there if the law is
overturned.
The White House line is that Obama is confident the Supreme Court will
uphold the Affordable Care Act, and his administration therefore is making
no contingency plans for a reversal. None of that sounds reassuring to
Watson, who owns a medical transport service in rural north-central Florida.
"It's scary," she said. "They need to look at this carefully because it is
going to affect a lot of people with a lot of bad conditions who are not
going to have any health care coverage."
Before PCIP, Watson had been uninsured since 2003, originally turned down
because of elevated white blood cells. About three years ago, she was
diagnosed with a chronic form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the
immune system. Unable to afford medications, she relied on the emergency
room to treat flare-ups.
She tried applying to a major insurance company for a small business plan
for her and her employees, and was quickly rejected. Then she heard about
PCIP.
The temporary program is meant to serve as a patch until 2014, when the
federal health care law will require insurers to accept all applicants,
including cancer patients like Watson, regardless of medical history. The
law's controversial mandate for individuals to carry health insurance is
related to that guaranteed acceptance provision. By forcing healthy people
to buy insurance, it would help keep premiums in check.
Initially, Watson could not afford the $800 monthly premium the government
was asking for PCIP. High premiums are part of the reason the program has
not attracted more people.
But officials retooled to make coverage more affordable. Watson applied
again and was accepted. She met the basic requirements: uninsured at least
six months, turned away because of pre-existing conditions, having U.S.
citizenship or legal residence. Her premium is $363.
In March, Watson went to the emergency room with what she thought was
pneumonia. She was admitted, and quarantined the next morning when tests
showed she had an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, highly dangerous
. She spent five days in intensive care.
Without her PCIP coverage, Watson is convinced she would have been sent home
from the emergency room after initial treatment to ease her shortness of
breath.
"I'm not a candidate for any for type of indigent program, and without
insurance they would not have put me in ICU," she said.
"I would have gone into cardiac arrest and probably died," she added.
Emergency rooms must treat the uninsured, "but they are only required to get
you stable. And then they release you and tell you to go to the health
department."
A government report this year found that people in the pre-existing
condition plan tended to be middle-aged patients with no access to employer
coverage and with medical conditions that require continuous care. The top
five diagnoses: cancer, heart disease, degenerative bone diseases, organ
failure requiring a transplant and hemophilia.
If the federal law is struck down, some state officials are considering
taking the patients into their own, separate, state high-risk insurance
pools. Wisconsin, for example, has decided that PCIP enrollees would be
automatically accepted into its pool. But not all states have them. In the
35 that do, premiums would generally be higher, and there might be waiting
periods.
Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have long favored
insurance pools for high-risk patients. And Congress could take emergency
action to keep PCIP going. But no assurances have been offered. Michael
Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, says Republicans are
ready to work on "step-by-step, commonsense" approaches.
Watson says she still disagrees with Obama's requirement that individuals
have health insurance, either through an employer, a government program or
by purchasing their own plan. "I approve of some of it," she said of the law
, "I don't approve of the mandatory ... insurance."
But she doesn't want to go back to depending on the emergency room.
"I have no problem paying my insurance and paying my copays," she said. "I
just think I should have the right to purchase insurance." | g********d
发帖数: 4174 | 2 典型傻X，没有mandatory insurance，那来的钱治疗有重病的人? |
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