Maria Cantwell wrote:
Frustrated
From: Maria Cantwell [info@cantwell.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 9:37 AM
To: Tom
Subject: Frustrated
Dear Thomas,
It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, working or retired – at one time or another, we’ve ALL been frustrated by the health insurance system.
For years I have helped my mother with her health care, so I know exactly what it’s like to try to navigate a system tilted in favor of insurance companies at the expense of patients.
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Sometimes it feels like you’re being nickel-and-dimed on claims. In other cases, you watch monthly premiums go up while your benefits stay the same. And sometimes it’s hard to know whether your insurance will cover that trip to a specialist or that
expensive prescription. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to have good health and good insurance.
Millions of American’s have no coverage, and millions more have inadequate coverage. They live every day with the fear that getting sick or having an accident could spell financial ruin.
I promise to fight, and fight hard, to make sure that health care reform happens this year. But I need your help to make sure our citizens are heard. So please tell me your story. Share your experiences with the system. Share what you like or dislike about your coverage or share what it is like to live without coverage. Share your thoughts about what reforms are most important to you.
Share your thoughts on health care.
To protect the special interests that have a big stake in the current system, opponents of reform are doing everything in their power and spending whatever it takes to stop real change. It is essential to keep the debate focused where it belongs: on the challenges faced by health care consumers and the high costs that the current system exacts on our families. By sharing your health care story, you’ll help me put a human face on a complex issue that often gets caught up in numbers, rules and regulations.
I want to hear from you today, so please share your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Maria Cantwell
I got this nice email from Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and I sent her this reply:
When the AMA cries foul about a public health care plan that will “drive out” private insurers we must remember that that particular talking point came straight from the right wing echo machine.
Holding the private insurers feet to the fire and forcing them to compete with a Medicare-like program across the board may be the only solution to help those who cannot get access to the same doctors and surgeons that the rich enjoy.
A few days ago the AMA made this statement:
“The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”
(The other 30% go without any coverage at all.)
Setting the price level by negotiating a “Medicare plus 10%” (Senator Kennedy’s idea) reimbursement is a sound method. Health care expenses for the patients mus be controlled, not pleaded. I don’t see the insurance companies, hospitals, and HMOs voluntarily making the kind of cuts necessary to lower the patients out-of-pocket expenses.
Besides, the idea of cutting costs and then passing the savings on to the consumer went out with Reagan and never came back – in any industry!
If you ask the private insurer what is the best way to expand coverage for America’s working poor they will say that there are options already in the market for the poor to buy.
I used to be one of the millions of working poor and I know from my own experience how hard it is to barely be able to pay the rent and buy groceries. I was married and had young children at that time in my life and I barely made enough to get by. I could not afford a health plan no matter what the cost. Back then we suffered through injury and illness and only went to the doctor when the pain got too great to bear.
Once, I had to pawn my high school ring to buy medicine for my 2 year old son.
The private insurer is concerned with cutting their costs and not ours. We have a strong central government to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. It is time that the government cut the costs of health care for us by signing into law a public insurance plan.
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A Second Look | Frustrated
Maria Cantwell wrote:
I got this nice email from Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and I sent her this reply:
When the AMA cries foul about a public health care plan that will “drive out” private insurers we must remember that that particular talking point came straight from the right wing echo machine.
Holding the private insurers feet to the fire and forcing them to compete with a Medicare-like program across the board may be the only solution to help those who cannot get access to the same doctors and surgeons that the rich enjoy.
A few days ago the AMA made this statement:
“The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”
(The other 30% go without any coverage at all.)
Setting the price level by negotiating a “Medicare plus 10%” (Senator Kennedy’s idea) reimbursement is a sound method. Health care expenses for the patients mus be controlled, not pleaded. I don’t see the insurance companies, hospitals, and HMOs voluntarily making the kind of cuts necessary to lower the patients out-of-pocket expenses.
Besides, the idea of cutting costs and then passing the savings on to the consumer went out with Reagan and never came back – in any industry!
If you ask the private insurer what is the best way to expand coverage for America’s working poor they will say that there are options already in the market for the poor to buy.
I used to be one of the millions of working poor and I know from my own experience how hard it is to barely be able to pay the rent and buy groceries. I was married and had young children at that time in my life and I barely made enough to get by. I could not afford a health plan no matter what the cost. Back then we suffered through injury and illness and only went to the doctor when the pain got too great to bear.
Once, I had to pawn my high school ring to buy medicine for my 2 year old son.
The private insurer is concerned with cutting their costs and not ours. We have a strong central government to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. It is time that the government cut the costs of health care for us by signing into law a public insurance plan.
Technorati tags: liberal political opinion,political opinion,political opinions,politics opinion,political public opinion,democrats,opinion,political views,political blog,political,commentary,liberal blog,progressive opinion,progressive blog,a second look,blog,news opinion,news and comments,commentary,tom chambless,Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA),healthcare reform,health care,public plan,skyrocketing health costs,control health costs