Idaho is the first state to pass anti-health care reform law
Idaho Republican Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter signed into a law a bill that would require the state attorney general to sue the federal government if and when Idaho citizens are fined because they choose not to purchase health insurance. From MSNBC:
There’s similar legislation pending in 37 other states, a point Otter stressed when asked if the bill he signed can succeed, given constitutional law experts are already saying federal laws would supersede those of states in a U.S. District Court fight.
You know who else says that federal laws supersede state laws? 11th grade government students. If I was a Republican in one of these anti-health care reform states, I would be extremely embarrassed. Though Republicans are always talking about tort reform, they are usually the first to run to the courthouse when they don’t get their way. They come off like sore losers.
I’m not a big fan of the insurance mandate, but I do think that those that can afford heath insurance should by all means, purchase health insurance. When the uninsured go to the hospital and don’t pay, the costs are rolled into what the rest of us pay, those of us that pay for health insurance. If it was up to me, we would be like every other industrialized country in the world and have universal heath care. It’s not up to me, so I have to accept the reality in which I find myself in.
Sarah Palin used to travel to Canada for icky, awful government health care
Former governor of Alaska and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was in Canada speaking to a bunch of Canadians when she admitted to the crowd of listeners that as a child, she used to partake of the awful icky socialized Canadian medical system. From The Globe and Mail:
PALIN: We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn’t that ironic?
No, that’s not ironic. It’s hypocritical.
Sarah Palin has long railed against health care reform saying that if we reform health care in this country, it will lead to socialized medicine. Like they enjoy in Canada.
Amending the Maryland Constitution to prevent requiring people to buy health insurance
One of the problems with health care in this country is that the people that don’t have health insurance make things more expensive for those that do. Not only do hospitals and other health care providers pass on the cost of treating the uninsured over to the insured, having a large group of relativity healthy people not participate in the pool of the insured makes things that much more expensive for everyone. The more people that buy insurance, the cheaper insurance should be.
At least that’s the theory.
Though I don’t agree with forcing Americans to participate in the for-profit health insurance industry, I think it’s better than the alternative.
Three local members of the Maryland House of Delegates, Christopher B. Shank, Andrew A. Serafini, and Charles A. Jenkins, are trying to do something about any federal mandate requiring health insurance. At least they want to make it look like they are. The Health Care Freedom Act of 2010, if passed, would prevent Maryland residents from paying fines for not purchasing health care coverage.
And yes, all three delegates are Republicans.
I have to believe that these Republicans know that the state of Maryland is not in a position to dictate terms to the United States government. That’s just not the way it works. My guess is that these three are just trying to score points with the local George Bush loving, NASCAR watching, voters. In other words, people that played a lot of hooky during high school government class.
Is this as good as it gets?
The fight for health care reform has really made me think about things. When I look at this joke of a bill coming out of the Senate, I have to wonder what being a Democrat really means.
Democrats control the White House, the Senate, and the House. If there was ever a time that we could get substantial health care reform in this country, it’s now. If there was ever a time we could make sure that every American has access to quality, affordable health care, it’s now.
Instead, we get a health care reform bill that the Republicans could have written. It does not have a public option. It does not expand Medicare. It requires all Americans to purchase health insurance from the for-profit health insurance cartel.
That last part is the real kicker for me. I can see requiring Americans to purchase health insurance if there was a not-for-profit alternative. Because this bill lacks a public option, this is not the case. This is requiring Americans to purchase a product that’s purpose is not to improve health, but to make a profit for the health insurance company.
I cannot help but thing the Democratic party is a lot like a dog chasing a car that doesn’t quite know what to do when it catches the car. The Democrats are in position to enact a good health care reform bill. They are choosing not to do that.
I have a real problem with that.
This is the best they can do?
It looks as though health care reform will pass, but that’s only if you choose to label the bill coming out of the Senate as health care reform. The key points:
- No public option.
- No Medicare buy in.
- Penalize those that do not have health insurance.
- No tax on cosmetic procedures.
- A 10% tax on tanning.
What a joke. This makes me feel embarrassment to be a Democrat. Seriously, this is what you get when the House, the Senate, and the White House are all under Democratic control? We get 30,000 more combat troops in Afghanistan and a piece of crap bill pretending to be health care reform.
Is this what Change looks like?
The fact that people will be penalized if they don’t buy health insurance, coupled with the fact that there is no public option, means that the health insurance cartel is getting a heck of a Christmas present this year. I wish I sold a product that the government forced people to buy.
Al Franken points out we are entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts
Senator John Thune, Republican from South Dakota, spoke on the Senate floor Monday and said that the benefits of the proposed health care bill don’t kick in till 2014. I’m told he even had a chart. Senator Al Franken, Democrat from Minnesota, openly challenged that assertion saying that it was not true.
Franken went on to say that though we are entitled to our own opinions, we are not entitled to our own facts.
If you were a listener on Franken’s former radio show on Air America, you probably remember the phrase. Franken also pointed out that many of his Republican colleagues have not read the bill and that if they want to debate the bill, they really need to read the bill.
Teabaggers are still confusing
Someone from a local Taxed Enough Already (TEA) party wrote a letter to the editor of my local newspaper, The Herald Mail, and it was published in today’s edition. This person wrote:
TEA partiers consider themselves educated and responsible enough to make their own decisions regarding all aspects of their lives. Leftists who embrace big government, including Obamacare, feel they are neither well-enough educated nor responsible enough to make decisions regarding their lives. There is no argument here. Both sides are absolutely correct.
If this person ever bothered to read up on our nation’s history, he might discover that our system of government is based on a constitutional republic. We elect people to represent us and to make educated, informed decisions on our behalf. It’s not the best system of government, but I guess it’s better than everything else.
Does this person even know any “big government” embracing leftists? And what exactly constitutes big government? Is it spending billions of dollars on a massive professional military? Is it spending billions of dollars on weapon systems that may or may not work against enemies that may or may not even exist?
I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to spending our money, I’d rather spend it on health care then on the industrial military complex. Mostly that’s because sickness and disease is a far greater risk to America’s well being than any foreign army is. Since April of this year, 10,000 Americans have died due to the H1N1 virus. Thousands of others have died from other medical problems. How many of those deaths could have been avoided if we had universal health care?
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t understand people in the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) party. They sat by and just watched President Bush spend billions of their children’s money invading two countries while cutting taxes to the rich.
They didn’t say a word.
President Obama then came into office and actually cut taxes to people making less than $250,000 a year and the teabaggers protest against him by holding up signs comparing him to Hitler.
I don’t get that.
Senate health care reform bill allows for an annual cap to benefits
Now this is just getting embarrassing. The Associated Press is reporting that the current bill floating through the Senate includes language that prohibits insurance companies from placing lifetime caps on benefits, but allows them to place annual, yearly caps on benefits.
This means if you have cancer and need surgery, followed by chemotherapy or radiation treatments, you very well may have to wait to get the chemotherapy or radiation treatments after the new year. The surgery may use up all your available insurance coverage for the year, leaving you all tapped out. It will be up to your insurance company. A company that is more interested in maximizing profits than making sure people are healthy.
I don’t know why they have to make this so hard. Every other industrialized nation has universal health care. Why can’t we? I’d like to think we are capable of doing anything. This includes ensuring the every American has access to quality health care.
It really shouldn’t be this hard.
The Mexican pig flu has already killed 10,000 Americans
Federal health officials are now saying that 10,000 Americans have succumbed to the H1N1 flu. And that’s only since this past April.
That’s more Americans than Islamic terrorists have been able to kill in the last 20 years.
It’s almost unreal to think that this many people have died from the swine flu. That just goes to show you that the flu isn’t something to take lightly. To me, it’s just one more reason that we as a nation should be investing our resources into a national, universal health care system. The chances that you will die from a virus are much higher than the chances that you will be killed by an angry Muslim terrorist, yet we are more than happy to spend billions of dollars on fighting terrorism. When President Obama wants all Americans to have access to affordable, quality health care, some people say it proves he’s just like Adolf Hitler.
Fox News falsifies video to make Republican protest against health care look bigger
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck’s Protest Footage | ||||
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Fox News applied some of their trademarked Fair and Balanced treatment to video footage of a recent Republican protest against health care. The November 5th protest was organized by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and took place in Washington D.C. on steps of the Capitol. Bachmann told her supporters that they should flock to Washington and “scare” her colleagues into voting against health care reform.
The Washington Post estimated the crowd to be around 10,000 strong. Sean Hannity claimed it was around 20,000. Bachmann claimed the number was somewhere between 20,000 to 45,000. Video of the protest seemed to confirm the Washington Post’s estimate, not Hannity’s or Bachmann’s.
So what did Fox News do?
They showed video from a protest that took place in September that had nothing to do with health care reform. It was from Glenn Beck’s September 12 movement that attempted to get people to remember how they felt the day after the 911 terrorist attacks.
Republican congressman predicts the Democratic party will be history within a year
Mike Pence, Republican representative from Indiana and the chairman of the House Republican Conference was on Fox News Sunday this morning and made the claim that last night’s vote for health care reform will bring about the end of the Democratic party.
In about a year.
From Fox News:
“I think the American people are deeply frustrated with a liberal establishment in Washington, D.C. that is ignoring their will,” Pence said. “If Democrats keep ignoring the American people, their party’s going to be history in about a year.”
Personally, I get somewhat frustrated with the liberal establishment in Washington D.C., but that’s because it’s not liberal enough. Something tells me that’s not what Rep. Pence was talking about. I think Pence is confused and believes that the uninformed, poorly educated people that scream and shout at town hall meetings demanding that the government keep it’s hands of Medicare, represent the entire country.
Thankfully, they don’t. Not all of us spend our afternoons throwing teabags into plastic wading pools.
Health care reform bill passes the House
H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, passed the House last night, 220 for and 215 against. Every Republican except one voted against it. There were 39 Democrats that voted against it. The Senate now has to pass their version of the bill.
So what’s this mean? Here’s a list of some of the key provisions of the bill (from CBS News’ Political Hotsheet):
- Creates a public health insurance option and a national exchange for the uninsured and small businesses to purchase health insurance. The Secretary of Health and Human Services would negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals on reimbursement rates.
- The bill includes mandates for individuals to purchase and businesses to provide health insurance or pay a fine. Individual penalty is 2.5 percent of gross income unless they get a waiver. Businesses that don’t offer insurance pay a fine equal to 8 percent of their payroll. Businesses with a payroll of less than $500,000 are exempt from the mandate.
- Insurance companies are prohibited from denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition. There are caps on deductibles and annual out of pocket spending is capped at $5000.
- Allows individuals up to 27-years-old to stay on their parent’s health insurance
- As amended, it prohibits federal funds from covering abortions. Women would need to purchase riders to insurance purchased on the exchange if they wanted that coverage.
- The bill taxes individuals making more than $500,000 and $1 million for couples. It is a 5.4 percent tax.
The public option will only be open to people who do not have insurance. I’m not sure how this will actually save money, but then again, I’m not an economist. It seems to me that if the goal was to lower health care costs, the public option should be open to everyone. The more people that are enrolled in the non-profit, government run health insurance, the less costly it will be.
I don’t like the provision that will fine people who choose not to purchase insurance. I think fining someone 2.5% of their gross income if they choose to go uninsured is too low. That’s less then they would pay for health insurance. If the goal is to get people to sign up for health insurance, then the fine should be something substantially higher then what they would pay for health insurance. If the fine is too low, some will choose to pay the fine. I also don’t like forcing businesses to offer insurance. Once again, a robust public option open to everyone would allow businesses to get out of the health insurance business and instead concentrate on their business.
I like the part about capping out-of-pocket expenses. I like it a lot. I’m just concerned that it’s too low. Five grand a year is a lot of money if you just don’t have it. The goal is to stop forcing people into bankruptcy if and when something catastrophic happens to them. Don’t get me wrong, a $5,000 cap is better than no cap.
The part about not covering abortions was put in the bill to appeal to members of the anti-abortion party, also known as the Republican party. A lot of good it did. All but one Republican voted against the bill. The bill does allow abortion in cases of rape, incest or where the life of a mother is threatened. How exactly does that work? Say a woman is raped and as a result, she becomes pregnant. Just how then is she to get her insurance to pay for the procedure? Does she have to first wait until her rapist is caught and then tried in a court of law? If her rapist is acquitted, does that mean she wasn’t raped? Also, how does one go about proving that the pregnancy is a result of incest? The whole thing seems incredibly stupid to me.
I hope this man has good health insurance
Republican Teabaggers held a protest yesterday on the steps of the Capitol in Washington D.C. to protest against government run health care and/or health care reform. Unfortunately, one of the people at the protest collapsed. Luckily for him, paramedics from the Office of the Attending Physician, the organization responsible for the medical welfare of the members of the House, members of the Senate, and members of the Supreme Court, were on the scene and were able to quickly provide assistance to this man.
As this photo shows, they gave him oxygen and started an I.V. They later removed him from the scene via a stretcher, presumably to take him to a hospital.
For this man’s sake, I hope the Office of the Attending Physician is in his health insurance plan. Otherwise, his out-of-pocket expenses are going to be ginormous. I don’t even want to think about the added surcharge someone has to pay for paramedics wearing a jacket and tie.
Also, I hope that he had the foresight to call his health insurance company before he collapsed to get pre-authorization for the collapse. As we all know, failure to do so can be grounds for your insurance company to deny the claim.
The man doesn’t appear to be old enough to qualify for Medicare, the popular and very successful government run health insurance plan for our nation’s seniors and disabled. That’s too bad because if he was on Medicare, he wouldn’t have to worry about his claim being denied because of a preexisting condition or because he was treated by health care professionals outside his insurance plan’s network.
If he was on Medicare, he’d only have to worry about getting well.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla of Getty Images
Medicare for all
From the Physicians for a National Health Program:
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) is introducing a substitute amendment to the House leadership’s bill, H.R. 3200, that would delete the language of that bill and substitute the provisions of H.R. 676, the single-payer, Medicare-for-All bill sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has promised a full floor vote on Weiner’s amendment in the weeks or months ahead.
The Weiner amendment, unlike the House leadership’s bill, assures universal, comprehensive, and high-quality coverage, free choice of doctor and hospital, and no co-pays or deductibles through a publicly financed system similar to Medicare. Because of the massive savings on private insurance overhead and paperwork, the Weiner amendment would entail no increase in U.S. health spending, in contrast to the House bill’s $1 trillion price tag over 10 years.
Though adopting a single payer system like Medicare, only for everyone, makes the most sense, it will never happen. With that said, I commend Congressman Weiner for introducing the bill. Unlike many in Washington, he truly represents the people, not the corporations, in his district.
Health care reform is scarier than terrorism
Republican Representative Virginia Foxx from the fifth district of North Carolina spoke on the House floor and said that we have more to fear from health care reform than we do terrorists. Watch it:
If she said that not having access to quality, affordable health care was more of a threat than some radical Islamic fundamentalist hiding in a cave in Pakistan, I might actually agree with her. She didn’t say that. She’s not telling people to be afraid of not having access to quality health care, she is telling people to be afraid of health care reform because it will somehow infringe on our freedoms.
I don’t really understand people that actually encourage others to be scared. As an elected official, she really should be doing the complete opposite.
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