One of the most popular parts of Obamacare is that it guarantees you can't be denied coverage or charged higher premiums simply for having a preexisting medical condition. The philosophy behind this is that people who are already sick might need medical care, and in the American system, to get care, you need insurance. In their first attempt to repeal and replace the law, Republicans let the provision be. This simply would not do for the Freedom Caucus, the anti-government loons in the House of Representatives who helped kill the bill because, presumably, they want your doctor's waiting room to look something like Fury Road.

So this time around, as Republicans try once again to do what they campaigned for seven years promising to do—without ever coming up with an actual plan—they're not making that same mistake again. The new American Health Care Act keeps the preexisting conditions provision in name only, as states can now "opt out" of it by applying for a waiver. If granted, states could allow insurers to charge much higher rates to people with preexisting conditions, so long as states set up "high-risk pools" for those who can't find affordable insurance on the open market.

Except high-risk pools have repeatedly proven inadequate in getting people affordable coverage—something moderate Republicans admitted when they held out for an extra $8 billion in funding for them. This is a nice gesture, but advocacy and industry groups (including AARP, the American Medical Association, and 10 organizations representing patients) and Democrats say it's not nearly enough and essentially amounts to a giveaway to insurance companies. Some of the same moderate Republicans, meanwhile, are emphasizing that if you have "continuous coverage"—a.k.a. you just always have health insurance—this won't affect you.

And so it is safe to assume that, if you have a preexisting condition and are looking to get insured in certain states, your premiums would increase significantly under the Republican plan. (We've seen with the Medicaid expansion, which the Supreme Court gave states the opportunity to opt out of, how certain states are likely to behave.) The question is, how much? Since Paul Ryan is desperate to bring this bill to a vote before it is scored by the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan umpire which estimates the costs and effects of bills, we're left to outside organizations, like the left's Center for American Progress.

Getty Images

Using data on how much insurance companies think someone with various conditions will cost them, CAP issued estimates for the premium surcharge—that is, how much more you'd pay—for a 40-year-old with those conditions. They even included the 1.5 percent premium reduction they estimate would result from a high-risk pool. The results still aren't pretty:

Asthma: $4,270

Rheumatoid arthritis and specified autoimmune disorders: $26,180

Diabetes: $5,510

Pregnancy: $17,060

Autism: $5,420

Seizure disorders: $7,190

Colorectal, breast, kidney, and other cancers: $28,230

Lung, brain, and other severe cancers: $71,880

Metastatic cancer: $140,510

If this seems like a bad idea, or even if you just would like to see the CBO and other organizations give their own evaluations of the bill before Paul Ryan shoves it through the House, today is a good day to call your congressman. Here's a directory.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io