Trumpcare considers rape a pre-existing condition

About 24 million Americans stand to lose their health insurance coverage if the Affordable Care Act (ACA-Obamacare) is replaced with the American Health Care Act (AHCA Trumpcare). We know that most of those 24 million people will be low-income.

We also know that groups of people who experience significant health care disparities, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, and Black and Latino people, will be among those who risk losing the most if the ACA is repealed. To that list, we must add survivors of sexual violence.

Before passage of the ACA in 2010, sexual assault survivors who had sought medical care for their injuries could be denied health insurance coverage at a later date. The reason? Health insurers often categorized rape as a pre-existing health condition. 

The National Women’s Law Center launched a campaign called “Being a Woman Is Not a Pre-Existing Condition.” It was so popular that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi adopted the phrase in her pro-health reform talking points with media, and the New York Times ran an explainer on the ways in which health insurers treated women as if they were just one giant pre-existing condition.

The AHCA initially retained the ACA’s ban on discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions. But an amendment to the Trumpcare bill offered last week by New Jersey Congressman Tom MacArthur and North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows would make it easier for health insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

By letting states waive the ACA prohibition on charging people with pre-existing health conditions higher premiums, protections for those who’ve previously been medically treated for sexual assault would be gutted.

Perhaps more alarming, though, is the MacArthur-Meadows amendment’s provision allowing states to also seek waivers from the ACA’s requirement that essential health benefits be covered by health insurance plans. Essential health benefits include preventive health care services that most of us take for granted. These include tests for blood pressure and cholesterol, mammograms, and vaccinations. Essential health benefits also include coverage for mental health care and substance abuse treatment.

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