It was highly amusing to see businessman
and “Shark Tank” host Mark Cuban making a fool out of Sean Hannity on his own
show, particularly when Cuban pointed out that Hannity’s attacks on Joe Biden’s
alleged mental state was a bit hypocritical when Hannity and his other Fox News
cohorts were asking Trump “softball” questions, and Trump could only provide
rambling, incoherent responses that would embarrass a late stage Ronald Reagan.
Hannity was so flustered by Cuban’s undermining of his credibility that he did
he usual thing and made a few juvenile attacks on Cuban’s business acumen before
cutting off the video feed (Cuban’s net worth is $4 billion; the “net worth” of
Hannity’s “opinions” is closer to “0”). Before that, Hannity had tried to fake having Cuban “on the ropes” by claiming he had
the “details” to “prove” that “Obamacare” was a “disaster,” despite the fact,
as Cuban pointed out, a majority of Americans now see its importance during the
COVID-19 pandemic. But naturally for someone like Hannity, his “details” are
nothing more than his personal opinions, and opinions are like ass
holes—everyone’s got one.
One detail far-right opinionators
like Hannity always leave out is that the Affordable Care Act does certain
things that are extremely beneficial to Americans—it mandates affordable
individual coverage, something almost all major insurers refused to offer, and
those quick-hitter artists who did offered so-called “mini-medical” plans that
were a complete scam, whose “coverage” was typically exceeded by the amount of
premiums the “insured” had already paid to get the plan. The ACA also required
affordable coverage for those with “pre-existing” conditions, something again that
most, if not all, insurers refused to do if they even agreed to provide coverage
at all. Those people who are still insured through their employers may not
care, but many tens of millions of people who had no access to adequate health
insurance before do care—and continue to care.
What was it like before the ACA?
I once worked for an employer who did not have enough people for a group insurance
plan, but was able to find an insurer who provided individual plans. Being a
non-smoker with no pre-existing conditions, my initial monthly insurance premium
was $170. That was in 1999; by 2001, it had gone up to more than $400 a month
despite the fact that I hadn’t even seen a doctor for any reason. One thing I
did find out is that insurers were trying to price individuals out of the
health insurance market—and this insurer, Premera Blue Cross—succeeded in doing
that for me, and it eventually bailed out on individual plans altogether,
because individual plans were not “cost effective.” But this was simply an
excuse for cost-cutting, because millions of individuals insured could also be
viewed as their own “group.” Furthermore, most small employers claimed not
to be able to afford group coverages, and left employees out to fend for
themselves. That is why for many people the ACA was a godsend.
The Kaiser Foundation tells us
that before the ACA went into effect, 44 million people lacked health coverage;
that number was nearly cut in half in the first two years of the law, and
low-income people especially benefited from the expansion of Medicaid in many
states. However, since the 2017 Republican tax giveaway to the rich, the number
of uninsured has increased due to the provision that axed the individual
mandate, meaning that people who could afford to pay for insurance but chose
not to have it no longer had to pay the “shared responsibility” fine.
The sad “detail” that the
Trumps, Hannitys and McConnells of the world do not seem to grasp is that
before the ACA, for most Americans—even with group plans with large employers—health
insurers could pretty much deny coverage or payments for arbitrary reasons; a
2009 Washington Post story discovered
that “Health insurers have issued guidelines saying they could deny coverage to
people suffering from such conditions as acne, hemorrhoids and bunions.” Insurers
could simply revoke policies by claiming “fraud” for “undisclosed” visits to a
doctor for issues completely unrelated to an expensive procedure that cut into
their profit margins. Even large companies were finding their insurance rates
as much as doubling on a yearly basis, forcing employees to shoulder more and
more of the cost of insurance coverage.
Who knows just how much worse
the insurance market would be today without the ACA. For millions of
Americans, the ACA means at least a measure of peace of mind from the arbitrary capriciousness
of insurers. If the U.S. Supreme Courts strikes the law down, insurers will
once again be permitted to run amok with the lives of many millions of
Americans. That is just one of those “details” that someone like Hannity doesn’t
want his listeners to know.
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