Zombie Trumpcare rises, now without pre-existing condition protections

Popular vote loser Donald Trump can't get enough losing on Trumpcare, so he's been at it again, first with Sen. Rand Paul on the golf course and then with the Freedom Caucus he had spent last week bashing on Twitter. Apparently the tweet-bashing worked, he got the maniacs to talk to him, and they're reportedly agreeing on a plan that would break Trump and the Republicans' biggest promise: protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

The terms, described by Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and the head of the Freedom Caucus, are something like this: States would have the option to jettison two major parts of the Affordable Care Act's insurance regulations. They could decide to opt out of provisions that require insurers to cover a standard, minimum package of benefits, known as the essential health benefits. And they could decide to do away with a rule that requires insurance companies to charge the same price to everyone who is the same age, a provision called community rating.

The proposal is not final, but Mr. Meadows told reporters after the meeting that his members would be interested in such a bill. To pass the House, any bill would need to find favor not just with the Freedom Caucus, but also with more moderate Republicans. It would also need to attract the support of nearly every Republican in the Senate to become law.

This is what happens when you have a bunch of Republicans who've never cared about policy and don't know what the stuff they're talking about means then try to make policy. Community rating—the requirement that insurers treat everybody the same based on age—is the main thing that provides protection for people with pre-existing conditions. You get rid of that, insurers can charge outrageous premiums for sick people, again. Combined with getting rid of essential health benefits makes it just worse. It could mean someone with a chronic disease, say diabetes, could nominally buy insurance, but might have to buy the drugs and the medical supplies for treating it out of pocket. Or say, someone with cancer would have to pay for their own chemotherapy.