BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. — Roughly 800,000 West Virginians have what health insurance companies consider to be a “pre-existing condition” if the current administration were to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as Obamacare).
“We’re trying to prevent this from happening because it’ll be a calamity,” Sen. Joe Manchin said Monday after a roundtable discussion with West Virginia clergy members at the Bridgeport Conference Center.
And it’s not just West Virginians who would be affected.
“They’re all over the country. Everybody’s concerned about this,” Manchin said. “Pre-existing conditions can basically unravel the economy of our country, if you will, because what it does, you’re putting almost 40 percent of West Virginians who could be denied insurance. What do they do, they fend and pray to goodness that they don’t get so sick that they have to make a decision of if they live or die?”
Manchin said forcing any individual or family is not who we are as West Virginians or as Americans.
“An individual or father or mother or family member shouldn’t have to make that decision for a child or any person in their family,” he said. “They shouldn’t be left with that type of a decision.”
A pre-existing condition, as defined by health insurance companies, is a medical condition that started before that person’s health benefits went into effect. That can include a multitude of conditions such as asthma, epilepsy, anxiety, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and even obesity.
“Everything from cancer all the way down to pregnancy,” Manchin said. “Someone doesn’t have someone in their family that doesn’t have a pre-existing condition of some type. It could be hypertension, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions. Those are all things that can prevent you from buying health insurance.”
Matthew Johnson, who is part of the pastoral staff at Suncrest United Methodist Church in Morgantown, struggles with his own pre-existing condition, Crohn’s disease, and said the thought of losing that coverage terrifies him.
“The idea of losing health care because of something that I didn’t do or cause is harmful and it’s scary,” Johnson said. “I think we’ve come to the point in our conversations where we’ve decided if you’re sick, it’s your fault and you need to fix it, and that’s not always the honest reality. It’s a deep sense of discrimination, and for me this is a justice issue.”
Though for Johnson the issue hits close to home, he’s also concerned about the dozens of church members that he knows have the same fears every day.
“I spend several days a week visiting folks in the hospital and visiting folks in my congregation who struggle and to think about some of these folks, young and old, who will be impacted by this, it’s a significant number of people,” he said.
Having that kind of outreach into the community is why Manchin felt the clergy members of West Virginia was the best way to have an impact in his home state.
“These are people touching people’s lives every day. They know what a hardship this is going to put on their congregation, and I think it’s going to be the clergy to pull this together,” he said. “The politics will all work itself out if you have compassion and you care about people, and I don’t know another group to get this all moving in the right direction.”