The synopsis: Jimmy Kimmel and the Kimmel Test

The late night show host Jimmy Kimmel’s wife had a baby. Unfortunately the baby had a heart condition that will require future surgery but for now, after his first surgery, the baby is doing well. Upon his return to the show, Jimmy Kimmel made a very impassioned plea to keep Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) intact. At the time the show aired, various bills were floating around Congress that would repeal the ACA. In addition to people with pre-existing conditions losing their insurance, Jimmy issued an additional warning if the ACA was repealed.

He said that without the ACA or similar protections, children like his, born with congenital anomalies, wouldn’t be treated if their parent’s insurance was taken away. Not true.

The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) started back in 1997. It’s run by the US Department of Health and Human Services and provides funds to states for health insurance to families with children. It fills the need between families that make too much money to qualify for Medicaid (the state run insurance program) but not enough to purchase private health insurance.

CHIP passes the Kimmel Test!

The point is the CHIP program is completely separate from the ACA. So regardless of what Republicans were trying to do to the ACA, and regardless of whether parents were kicked off their insurance plan, CHIP would still cover kids that weren’t covered otherwise. In other words, CHIP passes the Kimmel Test!

That’s why you don’t see children dying in the streets. That’s why hospitals don’t kick a child out of the neonatal intensive care unit because their parents don’t have insurance.

Soon after his warning to his audience, Jimmy invited US Senator Bill Cassidy on the show to discuss the senator’s coined phrase, the Kimmel Test. The Senator said that any new insurance legislation should pass the Kimmel Test. Meaning it should keep protections in place first implemented by the ACA but with more fiscal responsibility.

Jimmy and Senator Cassidy aren’t as buddy-buddy anymore. With the Senator’s bill to move money and more choice back to the states, Kimmel believed that the protections of the ACA would be stripped away by states choosing to do so.

But I don’t care where you live in America (red state or blue), or how much power the states have to decide how CHIP money is spent, no state is kicking a child out of the hospital with a life threatening illness or congenital anomaly. That didn’t happen before the ACA or after. So to suggest that the repeal of the ACA would result in children losing their insurance just isn’t true.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post CHIP passes the Kimmel Test! first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

What are pre-existing conditions?

With the advent of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), insurance companies could not deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. For example, if you had cancer or cystic fibrosis and lost your insurance, the next insurance company might not cover you. Health insurance companies want your premiums but would rather not pay out a benefit. So if you have a pre-existing condition, they would prefer not accept you as a customer because of the risk of a high payout.

The Affordable Care Act stopped that from happening. While it didn’t get rid of pre-existing conditions, the Act simply made it a requirement that insurance companies cover anyone with a pre-existing condition. Those patients unfortunately cost more. So rather than charging only the patient astronomical insurance premiums, that cost is spread out to the rest of us.

Everyone is welcome to their opinion in regards to whether that is fair or not. That’s not the purpose of this post. The point is to separate fact from fiction regarding pre-existing conditions. In recent discussions, the suggestion is that a child born with a birth defect is now labeled as having a pre-existing condition and can’t get coverage. That led to the suggestion that a child with a pre-existing condition would not get treatment in the hospital at the time of their birth because they couldn’t get insurance.

Even kids with pre-existing conditions get coverage

If you think I’m misreading the conversation, I beg to differ. Proponents of Obamacare claim that until the Act’s passage, newborn babies would not get treatment because of their pre-existing condition. So does that mean before Obamacare, a hospital could discharge an ill newborn baby because they didn’t have insurance?! Of course not.

Even before Obamacare, there was Medicaid, a state insurance plan. Medicaid has a unique characteristic that differs from all other insurance plans. It covers illness retroactively. That means you can get sick and even if you don’t have insurance and qualify, the hospital will assist you in getting coverage. In other words, Medicaid will agree to pick up the tab even if you got sick before you had insurance! No other insurance does that.

And that’s why kids born with congenital abnormalities, even if they have a pre-existing condition, can still get insurance. With or without Obamacare.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Jonathan Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post Let’s be clear about pre-existing conditions first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.