The Trump administration has unveiled it's healthcare program meant to replace Obamacare. This program claims to help prevent health care providers from discriminating and withholding coverage based on gender. This new plan will also have lower premiums and deductibles while taking care of/treating preexisting conditions.
For the sake of the length of this, I'll link some articles that explain some of the more important pieces of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) better than I could.
The MacArthur-Meadows amendment allows insurance providers to search through your medical history before deciding whether or not to provide you with coverage. Also allows providers to eliminate key health services and even impose annual or lifetime limits on the benefits they provide.
The amendment above allows health care providers to see your preexisting conditions. I would love to list them all out for you, but we're just going to look at five conditions you will most commonly be turned away from coverage for, and five that you probably don't know about
1. AIDS/HIV (Commonly contracted from sexual assault)
2. Cancer
3. Mental Disorders (Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, OCD, etc.)
4. Pregnancy or expectant parent (this includes men as well)
5. Organ transplant
Onto the more surprising, but documented, preexisting conditions providers could be able to find in your medical history and use against you in the future.
1. Acne
2. C-Section
3. Postpartum depression
4. Hysterectomy
5. "Sexual deviation or disorder" (In none-BS terms, this means not being heterosexual)
I know at least one person in my life who has one of these preexisting conditions. As a matter of fact, there's a common theme in these people that I know. They're women, imagine that.
Has anyone mentioned to Trump that a lot of the people who are sexually assaulted, have babies (not always willingly), sometimes need C-Sections, and experience postpartum depression are women? Like a lot of them. What a coincidence right?
The man who famously said "Grab 'em by the pussy" wants to put up yet another farce about not discriminating against women, and then continue to discriminate against women.
Women should not be afraid to report sexual assault because of the fear that they may not be able to get health care coverage from a provider years after their assault because they were on precautionary AIDS medication.
People are going to die because of this plan. Most of them, unfortunately, are going to be lower-income women.
When I began reading up on this new plan, I couldn't help but think about the 45% of white, college-educated women who voted for Trump, who voted for this plan. I cannot fathom how that makes sense to them right now. You could argue that he said he would protect us, that he said that no one respects women more than he does.
But how many ways and how many times does he have to contradict himself and show you that he is a liar before you, the women who helped make our current world a reality, understand what it is that you have done? I guess he has to come for your rights before you truly start caring.
I sure hope you never need affordable birth control, a safe place to be tested for a STD, or ever need an abortion in a state (or a country) that no longer allows you to have one. I hope your insurance provider doesn't turn you away because you're pregnant, or because you were raped in college (because 1 in 5 women will be).
If any of these things happen to you, I hope you can find reliable, safe, and affordable health care where you are. I hope this plan doesn't pass, I hope we, as women, can hold onto our basic human rights for a little while longer.
I surely hope that you can see and understand what is happening in our country before it's too late and there is no one else left to defend you and your rights.
Preexisting conditions are useful for you and your doctor. They are useful when deciding what medications to take, how to treat an illness you may have, and understanding why your body works the way it works.
Preexisting conditions should not limit your access to affordable and reliable health coverage. It's honestly that simple.
Keep your politics out of my uterus. I am not just a womb. I'm an American and I have the right to have the same access to healthcare as any man does.
My gender is not a preexisting condition, and if I can do anything to stop this, it never will be.
