With all the talk of “protecting” the preexisting conditions in the AHCA, I’m not convinced the GOP definition of protection means anything but allowing the free market to reign over the misfortune of their constituents.
So, what is protection anyway? The online resources I see all include it in a financial sense. For example (of an insurance policy), a promise to pay someone an agreed amount in the event of loss, injury, fire, theft or other misfortune, or “in the event of your death, your family will be protected against any financial problems that may arise.” So I am at first comforted in knowing I will be protected from financial ruin should the unthinkable happen.
But wait: Noticeably absent is a framework for my protection. Without that, we have just blind faith in the free market for the healthy, and risk pools for the rest. Without essential protections that define our rights as purchasers of lifesaving access to health care, without protection from financial demise, why call it insurance?
We need to call it what it is: a plan to fix health care and limit spending by limiting access for the sick, while offering a tax break to the wealthy for health savings account contributions.
Tracie Wollman, Plymouth
Star Tribune, May 5, 2017