The Obamacare “repeal” charade continues. The latest draft of the Senate version of the Republican version of Obamacare  even includes a penalty for not being insured.

Senate Republicans on Monday released a revised version of their healthcare reform bill that adds a provision requiring consumers with a break in coverage to wait six months before buying insurance.

The Senate bill would make those who had a lapse in coverage for 63 days or more wait six months before obtaining insurance. Read the bill here.

The continuous coverage provision was noticeably omitted from the Senate’s draft, but aides said they were working behind the scenes to add it. The provision addresses concerns that people would only sign up for health coverage when they’re sick if insurers can’t deny coverage for pre-existing conditions.

It’s not exactly the individual mandate, but it could end up being even worse. Virtually anything the Republicans suggest is being talked about by Democrats and their media minions in terms of body count which has the GOP running scared. This uninsured penalty is an attempt at appeasing both the hard Left and insurers with regard to the pre-existing conditions issue.

We need to be honest about that issue. If an insurance company can’t deny coverage or charge more for people with pre-existing conditions, we’re no longer talking about insurance. You can’t buy flood insurance for your house if your couch is currently floating toward your bay window at 3 knots. It’s hard to figure out how to insure against pre-existing conditions because it contradicts the meaning of insurance.

In their attempt at finding a win-win the GOP is creating a lose-lose. Someone with a serious disease and a lapse in insurance coverage has to wait 63 days before getting covered again? I mean if the whole point is to appear less “mean” you’re not going to accomplish that by forcing sick people to wait for coverage. And why 63 days? Why not 126, 31, or 252?

The continuous coverage provision is intended to prevent a “death spiral” in insurance markets.

Experts have long warned that only sick people buying insurance would lead to massive premiums and the destabilization, and eventual collapse, of the individual insurance markets.

ObamaCare sought to deal with the problem with the individual mandate, a penalty for going uninsured, but the Republican bill would repeal that mandate.

The only Republican I’ve seen make any sensible suggestions on the issue is Senator Rand Paul. The pre-existing condition problem  typically only applies to people in the individual market. Employer based group plans don’t usually deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Paul’s answer is to allow groups other than just employers to pool their risks and make it worthwhile for insurers to cover the whole group. Paul’s answer is probably too capitalist in nature for the rest of his caucus.

The Republicans completely lost any handle they had on ridding us of Obamacare. It’s now an established entitlement so all they have the political will to do is make minor course corrections and even that apparently scares the heck out of them.

Is having no cojones considered a pre-existing condition?