Readers React: What GOP lawmakers don’t get about covering people with preexisting conditions: Healthy people must pay

To the editor: The Republican Party, at this 11th hour, finds itself in need of compassion, so it claims to support protecting people with preexisting conditions.

All available evidence suggests otherwise. Orange County Republicans like Rep. Mimi Walters and Dana Rohrabacher have voted dozens of times to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. When leadership deems the truth disposable, we should vote for different leadership.

Republicans have chipped away at cost-averaging features that make it possible for those with preexisting conditions to pay affordable premiums. Each action that diverts healthy people from the risk pool endangers the balance of revenues to payouts. That’s the design of the sabotage.

Republicans are either lying when they say they can protect preexisting conditions while removing healthy payers from the risk pool, or they are so math-challenged that they cannot do their job.

Marcia Desrosiers, Lake Forest

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To the editor: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is now in favor of forcing insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions, even though he voted dozens of times to repeal Obamacare. That’s because someone in his family now has a preexisting condition.

Prior to the Rohrabacher family’s problem, it was OK for the rest of us with preexisting conditions to have no coverage. The congressman has forgotten that it is his job to care for everyone, not just his own family.

Annie Wilburg, Thousand Oaks

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