The House Bill - A Good Bill
Posted on July 14th, 2009 by Jason Rosenbaum in Solutions that Work
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Richard Kirsch, national director of Health Care for America Now, on the House bill released today:
“The House’s legislation shows that achieving quality, affordable health care for all in 2009 is absolutely possible.
This bill will make health coverage more affordable both for those who have it through their job and for those who have to find coverage on their own. It builds on what works in our current health care system and starts the process of fixing what doesn’t – including stopping health insurance companies from denying care based on pre-existing conditions.
The House bill includes key provisions like an exchange that includes both private insurance plans and a new public health insurance option and shared responsibility between individuals, employers, and government - key elements to achieving President Obama’s goals of lowering costs, covering everyone, and keeping the insurance companies honest. “
In other words, it's a good bill, and we'll be supporting it. It's a good bill because it does what it's supposed to do. Markup will start tomorrow, and we've now got 4 out of 5 committees working on a bill.
Check out Scarecrow and Ezra and Jon Cohn for more analysis.
Are you part of the Obama DEMPDOPES destruction of America? If you want to fix healthcare you need to start reporting accurate information. The 2.6 Trillion dollars that the US spends on healthcare is a false number. That number includes the following: 600 billion for medical research both private and public. It includes among other things plastic surgery, more than 347,000 breats implant surgeries alone, add in another 400K injections of just botox. Factor out, hospital endowments and interest on those. The poor Shriners who provide free care to children has lost more than 3 Billion in the last year. Less we forgot total donations to things to the March of Dimes, American Heart Association, MS Society, The CF Foundation. All total these all adds up to 1 trillion. So we are really taking about 1.6 Trillion in healthcare.
Lets talk about models of healthcare in Canada and Europe. Survival rates for all cancers are 10% lower. Breast cancer is more than 25% lower than in the US. Prostate cancer is cured less than 50% of the time in England while here is 99 percent. Transplant reciptants have only a 35% chance of living 3 years, here 78%.
Government claims its more efficent that private insurers. False. Medicare claims to have only a 3% adminstration rate. Wrong, thats just at the federal level. Less we forget the States get their 3%, less we forgot the county then also gets its 3% cut, and then the county hospital gets its 3% of the pie. The average insurance company has a 9.2% admin rate. The goverment 3+3+3+3=12. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that private insurance total gross reciepts for the biggest 20 comanies is 385 billion. Half of what medicare alone spends. Yet these 20 companies cover 122 million compared to Medicare's 48 million.
If you want to have a serious take about healthcare and the role government could pay, then I suggest you take to real doctors, they could tell you more than any stupid politicans can tell you.
Forget TenMed, cost shifting does not happen. 85%+ of Americans are not currently happy with their health insurance, and I'd prefer having someone to tell me what to do; I'm just not sure why I moved out of my parents house.
When the government fixes Medicare and Medicaid then I would consider their health plan. How many people receive benefits from Medicaid that they really should not be receiving? The screening to verify information on these recipients does not happen. I know of a recent recipient who received food stamps on two children for two years when she did NOT even have custody of these children for this time frame. I have no trust in the government providing for anyone but themselves.
What state do YOU live in? I find it hard to believe that any state would be that lax in documenting hardship. I can guarantee you that Washington State definitely requires solid documentation. I'll bet you could not provide even half of the documentation that I had to provide to qualify for Medicaid help, including documentation of $5 gifts from friends to help me out (I actually had to ask friends and family to write letters explaining how much they had given or loaned to me, and the source of that money!)
Try looking at your question a different way. "How many people…" receive absolutely NO health care, despite having severe illnesses? How much of YOUR insurance premium is paying to subsidize those with no insurance who have no medical provider but the emergency room? (The hospitals have to recoup that money somehow, so they charge YOUR insurance company more for services.) Why is medical care in the U.S. the most expensive in the world, yet we rank very low worldwide on quality of health care provided, and on the healthiness of our citizens?
Still, I understand many people fear having the government be the insurer/payer. Fine. But at the very least, the government must see to it that everyone has adequate coverage, and that our hard-earned money should go to stimulating the economy, not to the fat pockets of wealthy insurance companies, with their overly-high premiums and refusal to cover many essential needs.
When will Washington learn Americans do not want to be told what they should and can do in regard to their health care? Our health care can stand some fine tuning but do not endanger our freedom with this outrageous bill.
You will all have a different outlook on this matter when YOU are in the same positions that 50 millions plus are in by NO fault of their own.I am amazade by the self rituse oppions of the haves vs the havenots,just because you have a leg up now dosent mean you always mean you always will,I say no one in need of care gives a damn what you call it as long as you call it QUICKLY, YOUpeople that quote stats,polls,and the talking heads on our 24 hour talkshows aka newsmedia. Should research the subjects you want to spew your oppions on the majority of these oppions are nothing more than an attempt to promote the wants and desires of the ins.companys.