WOW! It only took a weekend to add “Waiting Periods” to the Senate GOP plan, but don’t call it a “Mandate” nor will the change help reel in the 5 defecting Senate GOP’ers – PB/TK
The Senate just released a new draft of its health bill. Here’s what changed. – By Sarah Cliff and Dylan Scott/ June 26 2017
The Senate health care bill will aim to penalize Americans who have breaks in insurance coverage, an updated draft released Monday shows.
The new bill includes a six-month waiting period for those who want to purchase individual market coverage but have had a more than two-month break in coverage at some point in the past year. Vox broke the news Saturday that Republicans planned to include this provision.
The six-month waiting period fills a big policy gap in the first draft of the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which required health plans to accept all patients — but didn’t require all Americans to purchase coverage, as the Affordable Care Act does. Experts expected that this would cause a death spiral, where only the sickest patients purchase coverage and premiums skyrocket.
The new six-month waiting period aims to fix that problem. It is meant to nudge healthy people into purchasing coverage because they may fear the consequences of getting locked out of the market down the road.
Continue to vox.com article: https://www.vox.com/2017/6/26/15874688/senate-new-draft-health-repeal
