" Illinois bill proposes to strip unvaxxed of their health insurance" by Kit Knightly

 

Illinois bill proposes to strip unvaxxed of their health insurance

Kit Knightly

 Illinois Representative Jonathan Carroll wants to push through a change to the state’s insurance law that would mean health insurers no longer have to cover unvaccinated people who get Covid, forcing people to pay their medical bills out of pocket.

The Democrat lawmaker told the Chicago Sun-Times:

I think it’s time that we say ‘You choose not to get vaccinated, then you’re also going to assume the risk that if you do catch COVID, and you get sick, the responsibility is on you,’”

The potential corruption and abuse of such a rule should be obvious to anyone familiar with just how mendacious insurance companies can be.

In all likelihood insurance companies will simply demand a negative Covid test before paying anything, and if you test positive, no matter what you were treated for, you will be called a “covid case” and forced to pay out of pocket.

The bill could, essentially, wipe all health insurance off the books for unvaccinated people.

The vaccinated should take no comfort from this, because their vaccinated status is entirely temporary, and subject to rules that could change on a whim.

Any “double jabbed” who misses a booster, or got a brand of vaccine that was subsequently unapproved or discontinued, or wasn’t updated for the latest variant, could suddenly find themselves one of the “unvaccinated” underclass.

Of course, once it applies to vaccination status it can apply to other things. You travelled to the wrong place, or you didn’t wear a mask, you “associated with known anti-vaxxers”.

And, even more concerning, is the potentially slippery slope this starts us down. Unvaccinated don’t get health insurance. Neither do smokers who get lung cancer. Or overweight people who get diabetes. And so on and so on.

The potential good news is that putting this law on the books would require a lot of legal workarounds, including violating or changing the Affordable Care Act, which outlaws removing insurance coverage from someone based on a new medical diagnosis or test result.

The editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times already came out against the move, calling it unfair, warning of the same slippery slope I mentioned above, whilst at the same time arguing “the willfully unvaccinated should pay a price”, and be charged more for their insurance.

Given that response, it’s possible Mr Carroll’s role here is to set out an unacceptably extreme position, so the intended plan of higher insurance premiums for unvaccinated people seems more reasonable by comparison.

But, whether genuine or not, and whether it comes to fruition or not, the very fact the suggestion was made is a damning condemnation of the times. It would be a truly terrible precedent to set.

Once you start putting stipulations on healthcare, you don’t stop. 

 

Source: OffGuardian