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Health Insurance

On Being Duped With Regards to Health Care Reform

Mar 22nd, 2010
by Tom.
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Re: Ten immediate benefits of HCR | Crooks and Liars, By karoli Sunday Mar 21, 2010 5:45pm

Here are ten benefits which come online within six months of the President’s signature on the health care bill:

  1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
  2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
  3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
  4. Free preventative care for all
  5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds (sic).
  6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
  7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
  8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
  9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.
  10. AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can’t lose your insurance because you get sick.

Is there anyone out there like me who has kids that are under 27 and has no insurance? Hell, most kids these days live with their parents until they are 27 and then some. It breaks my heart to have to help them find ways to pay for services. I give them what I can, but medical care is impossible to pay out of your pocket, and the kids understand that. It is a wonderful benefit to be able to keep the kids on and know that they have access to “the world’s best” medical care.

I have often wondered why the right-wing whack jobs, tea-baggers and such, who I know make less money than me, would ever consider a health care subsidy to buy insurance as something to be reviled like “socialism” or a “government takeover”, or worse. (There comes a time when, out of desperation, folks call for help who are unable to help themselves, and a little socialism would save them. This counts for the economy as well. Public ownership of some of these investment firms on Wall Street may be what the doctor ordered.) These people who hate the government feel like they are getting the shaft somehow. I think Harry Truman said something to the effect that those conservatives out there who vote against their own interests are getting beaten about the head and shoulders, but they don’t know who is doing the beating. They are confused, or just ignoring the parts of the health care bill that benefit them. The Republican leadership is telling them that health care reform is a bad idea, a move that we know is to protect big insurance. But, the everyday Joe somehow thinks that he needs to protect big insurance, too! WHY? I don’t know. The pundits on FOX, the Republican leadership, and the rest of the echo machine is pissing down their backs and telling them it is raining.

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Clueless: Anonymous Says Senate Pushes For Public Option Without Obama’s Support

Oct 25th, 2009
by Tom.
1 comment

via Leaderless: Senate Pushes For Public Option Without Obama’s Support

President Barack Obama is actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama has indicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by the insurance industry, which would see a public plan “triggered” into effect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certain benchmarks.

This opening paragraph is unofficial conjecture and based on hearsay from sources either unwilling to go on the record about it, or fictional.

The administration retreat runs counter to the letter and the spirit of Obama’s presidential campaign.

Opinion. And anger.

“The leadership understands that pushing for a public option is a somewhat risky strategy, but we may be within striking distance. A signal from the president could be enough to put us over the top,” said one Senate Democratic leadership aide. Such pleading is exceedingly rare on Capitol Hill and comes only after Senate leaders exhausted every effort to encourage Obama to engage.

The sentence that begins with “Such pleading is exceedingly rare” is quite possibly changing the context of the quote from the anonymous “one Senate Democratic leadership aide”. The sentence is craftily joined onto this quote to make the reader think the person being quoted meant something entirely different than what he/she said. Is the statement by the anonymous person fact or opinion?

How do we know that “Senate leaders exhausted every effort to encourage Obama to engage”? The authors fail to tell us who has “pleaded” with Obama and who has simply suggested something to him.

This whole article is bent toward some sort of chastisement of the administration’s perceived lack of leadership, when the truth is Obama has gotten much done in his first year especially considering the condition of the economy when he took control.

Look, we all want a strong public option but we have to remember where all this would be if November 2008 had turned out differently, and then count or blessings we have gotten this far.

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via Leaderless: Senate Pushes For Public Option Without Obama’s Support

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A Second Look | Senator Kyl: “I Know More Than Harvard”

Oct 19th, 2009
by Tom.
1 comment

via Dawn Teo: Sen. Kyl Not Sure People Die From Lack of Health Insurance
by Dawn Teo, Arizona Politics, Posted: October 19, 2009 11:57 AM

On Meet the Press Sunday, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) was asked by host David Gregory if it is “a necessity to tackle the fact that there are more and more Americans who die because they don’t have access to health insurance?”

Kyl responded with incredulity:

Senator John Kyl, R-AZ

I’m not sure that it’s a fact that more and more people die because they don’t have health insurance. But because they don’t have health insurance, the care is not delivered in the best and most efficient way.

Why let facts get in the way of a good a$$ kissing? The question to him above comes on the heels of a study completed by Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance and published online on September 17th. From Harvard.edu:

Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal of Public Health. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

…The study, which analyzed data from national surveys carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), assessed death rates after taking into account education, income, and many other factors, including smoking, drinking, and obesity. It estimated that lack of health insurance causes 44,789 excess deaths annually.

But Kyl comes along and with a wave of his hand dismisses a Harvard University Study because he’s “not sure it’s a fact”. This is the thinking that has caused or exacerbated endless problems from Iraq to climate change.

Kyl is the same guy who said that it was okay to deny women health care because they are pregnant, as a pre-existing condition, because he himself doesn’t need it. Does he think this is funny? He’s saying that it is perfectly fine to deny an expectant mother and her fetus proper medical care pursuant to medical practice and wisdom?

Senator Kyl and Senator McCain, both Senators form Arizona voted against the Franken amendment which guaranteed women protection in the work place from sexual assault – and that means they are okay with the status quo. Who could vote against that? Who could vote to continue to allow sexual assault on women in a workplace?

 

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