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Brave Americans to Congress: 'I am a pre-existing condition'

The Republican healthcare plan would gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Keith Wagstaff

on May 4, 2017

Brave Americans to Congress: 'I am a pre-existing condition'

Five-year-old Jumaane Cook holds a sign alongside supporters of the Affordable Care Act. Credit: Lo Scalzo/Epa/REX/Shutterstock

I have a pre-existing condition.

So do millions of other Americans--and they're sharing them online in a heartbreaking act of protest.

A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 52 million people under the age of 65 have a pre-existing condition that could have been used to deny them coverage before Obamacare.

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And now Republicans in the House have passed a healthcare plan with an amendment that allows states to waive:

The "essential health benefits" that healthcare plans must currently cover.
Prohibitions on charging people with pre-existing conditions more for health coverage.

That totally guts protections for people with pre-existing conditions--which can include anything from heart problems to cancer to depression to being sexually assaulted. To health insurance companies, those people are a financial loss, which is why they could be denied coverage if the bill passes the Senate and is signed by the president.

So, brave people shared their stories on social media to remind Republicans what pre-existing conditions look like.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

There are so, so many more tweets I could include here. They're all human beings. But to insurers, they're pre-existing conditions.

Topics Social Media

Keith Wagstaff

Keith Wagstaff is an assistant editor at Mashable and a terrible Settlers of Catan player. He has written for TIME, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, NBC News, The Village Voice, VICE, GQ and New York Magazine, among many other reputable and not-so-reputable publications. After nearly a decade in New York City, he now lives in his native Los Angeles.