Critics also have serious concerns about provisions in the Republican healthcare bill about how pre-existing conditions are being handled. Ultimately, patients with pre-existing conditions cannot be turned away and can be assured coverage, as stipulated in Obamacare, but the difference now is that, should they not use their insurance policies for a certain duration of time after the bill potentially becomes law, insurance companies reach a point of being eligible to raise those patients’ premiums at that time, which Obamacare never allowed them to do. Many feel that this is little more than a means by which big companies can profit disadvantageously off of individuals’ health challenges. Patients like 33-year-old Ford put this into perspective because his pre-existing condition is young-onset Parkinson’s Disease, one of an innumerable list of lifelong diagnoses.
“There is no cure,” Ford tells NPR. “We had to very much start considering life planning. We had to make sure, you know, are we going to have enough income.”
