#protect act

[hannahhook7744]

Great. Another bad internet bill that ignores the actual crux of the issues.

Again. Reminder.

If section 230 gets repealed, the Internet as we know it will be changed forever. Streaming services, fanart, communities, fanfiction, books online, video games, etc. all of it will change or outright disappear/be come harder to find and access.

So spread awareness. Annoy the hell of your representatives and don't let anyone you know be fooled by these lying ignorant jackwads.

[massachusetts-official]

PROTECT Act passed the state house!!!! Go senate go 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

Mass. House expected to pass bill Wednesday to block warrantless ICE arrests at courthouses

The Massachusetts House is expected to pass the so-called PROTECT Act, which would most prohibit warrantless ICE arrests at courthouses. How

The article is about a day out of date given that it passed. But fuck yeah, let's goooooooo

[thepoliticalpatient]

Larry Levitt on Twitter

“A new Republican bill would replace some, but not all, of the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions. https://t.co/sS6l1AoNQw”

And on the heels of my last post about the ACA potentially getting overturned before 2020, I’ve just learned that there is in fact a GOP alternative to the ACA being floated...and, predictably, it ain’t good.

This bill would continue uphold, as the ACA does, guaranteed issue, meaning that an insurer can’t refuse to sell you insurance because you have a pre-existing condition, and community rating, meaning that an insurer can’t charge you higher premiums due to your pre-existing condition. It would also continue to ban insurers from doing stupid shit like saying “we’ll cover you even though you have a pre-existing condition, but we won’t cover any costs related to that condition” (which a previous version of this bill would have allowed them to do).

However, it would drop many of the ACA’s protections on the cutting room floor, resulting in utterly inadequate protections for those of us who have extensive healthcare needs. It would not ban annual or lifetime caps, so an insurer could stop covering you for a given year after you had spent, say, $100,000 (which could easily happen in one hospitalization), or could stop covering you for the rest of your life after you had spent a million (any cancer patient will hit this).

Most insidiously, it wouldn’t continue to require insurers to cover the 10 essential health benefits that the ACA requires. These are things like maternity care, mental health treatment, and prescription drug coverage.

Without essential health benefits, people with pre-existing conditions are not protected at all. Consider this scenario:

Patient: Hey I’m super sick and would like to buy health insurance, please. Insurer: Darn it, I have to sell it to you even though I don’t want to. Patient: Neat. So, what plans do you offer? Insurer: We have a bronze plan at $400/month and platinum plan at $4000/month. Patient: Okay....well I definitely can’t afford the platinum plan. What’s the difference between the plans? Insurer: The bronze plan doesn’t cover prescription drugs. Patient: Well, that won’t work for me. My health depends on a biologic medication that costs $5000/month. I can’t afford that out of pocket, so I need my medication to be covered. Insurer: I guess you’ll just have to shop elsewhere then! WHAT A SHAME :)

This insurer has just successfully discriminated against someone with a pre-existing condition while complying with all laws, under this proposed GOP bill.

Call your senator and tell them this bill is not good enough!

[techfreedom]

PROTECT Act Would Transfer Regulation of Low-Risk, Non-Diagnostic Health IT from FDA

The FDA's crackdown on 23andMe has called attention to the agency's ability to apply the most stringent form of regulation to emerging technologies that promise to revolutionize health care -- but that probably wouldn't survive having to deal with the staggeringly expensive and slow regulatory approval process the FDA applies to prescription drugs.

Today, bipartisan legislation was introduced in the Senate mirroring similar legislation in the House that would bar the FDA from regulating "clinical software" and devices used by health care providers or "health software" such as apps used by consumers unless either is used for diagnostic purposes. That draws a line between high-risk technologies whose failure could injure patients, while preventing the FDA from needlessly regulating all the other forms of technology used by doctors (computers, health records, etc.) or health apps that simply provide medical information.

Unfortunately, because the FDA would still retain the discretion to determine what constitutes diagnoses, the bill would not prevent the FDA from limiting services like 23andMe, which the agency claims are used for diagnostic purposes. But the bill would prevent needless over-regulation of a growing sector of health IT technologies. The Federal Trade Commission, states and private plaintiffs could still apply general consumer protection laws to these apps, so the bill doesn't "deregulate" them so much as ensure that non-diagnostic health IT tools are treated the same way all IT tools are treated.

In the House, Rep. Marsha Blackburn's Software Act has 25 co-sponsors, a mix of Democrats and Republicans. Here are Sens. Debbie Fischer (R-NE) and Angus King (I-ME) introducing the Preventing Regulatory Overreach To Enhance Care Technology Act (PROTECT Act) of 2014, which is also sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL):