This post originally appeared on the Health Care Expert Blogs of the National Journal in response to the question Should President Obama Address Health Care in State of the Union? The post also appeared on The Huffington Post.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama has a compelling story to tell the country about the importance of health security to America's middle class and why we have to stop the Republican assault on Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA is an extraordinary accomplishment and is already making a huge difference in people's lives by making health care more affordable for families and businesses and protecting consumers from insurance company abuses. Along with Social Security, these bedrock programs are essential to ensuring that everyone in this country has a fair shot at achieving the American Dream.

The president has plenty of examples to make his case. Thanks to the ACA, 2.5 million young adults were able to obtain health coverage this past year. The worst practices of big insurance companies, including denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, are now against the law. Health care is becoming more affordable for small businesses and seniors on Medicare. When fully implemented the law will provide tens of millions of Americans the same range of coverage choices as members of Congress. People will have peace of mind that they will always be able to afford good coverage — even if they lose a job, start a small business or retire early. These are powerful themes the President could discuss, and polling has repeatedly shown that they are highly valued by the American people despite relentless attacks on the law by the Republicans.

The president could use the speech to remind the nation that Medicare and Medicaid are the cornerstones of our health care system and provide equal opportunity for all. We don't want a society that leaves people to fend for themselves when they fall ill. Only if everyone has affordable health care can we have a vibrant middle class to power the world's leading economy.

The stakes are huge. If the Republicans get their way and turn Medicaid into a so-called block grant, millions of seniors would be thrown out of nursing homes. Middle class families would be slammed with crushing health care costs for their parents while struggling to make ends meet, save for their own retirement and send kids to college. Children and people with disabilities will go without needed care. Huge costs will be shifted to state governments, jobs will be lost and the economy will be hurt.

The Republicans want to eliminate Medicare as we know it and send our parents and grandparents into bankruptcy. Their plan would transform guaranteed health care benefits for seniors into a voucher scheme that would send hundreds of billions of dollars directly to private insurance companies. Retirees would be forced to pay two to three times more out of their pockets to care for themselves, and it would fall to adult children and extended families to bankroll the difference - whether they can afford to or not.

Every Republican plan to 'reform' Medicare or Medicaid is just another way to shift health costs to seniors and families who cannot afford to pay more. Were the Republicans to succeed in repealing the ACA, they have nothing to replace it with except a return to the days when consumers were at the mercy of profit-hungry insurance companies.

A lot of work remains to be done, but when it comes to health care the State of the Union is strong. President Obama is fortunate to have a Health and Human Services Department that's doing a solid job implementing the ACA and protecting our health security. We must stand strong to fight the GOP's hyper-partisan attacks on the health care programs that are making America healthier and moving our great country closer to achieving its promise.

The Department of Health and Human Services has rejected the State of Florida's second attempt to be exempted from the medical loss ratio requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

In a letter to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, HHS was in agreement with a letter HCAN sent in protest of Florida's exemption earlier this week. According to HHS, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation did not demonstrate that MLR requirement would lead to decreased consumer access to brokers or insurers in the Florida market.

The rejection by HHS of Florida's exemption will put $145 million in health insurance rebates back into the pockets of Floridians. This second attempt to deny consumers rebates is a politically motivated ploy by extremist Florida Governor Rick Scott, a former health care executive who made a fortune running a company that conducted a massive fraud on Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Health Care for America Now sent a letter yesterday to the Department of Health and Human Services opposing Florida's second attempt to be exempted from the medical loss ratio requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

From the letter:

It is clear that the robust Florida individual insurance market will continue to provide options to consumers and, with the MLR in place, consumers will be able to measure and compare their plan options, contain premium costs, and get rebates of $145 million from insurers that fail to provide a good value. We oppose moving backward on consumer protections and urge HHS to reject Florida’s reconsideration request.

Click here to download a copy of this letter.

Health Care for America Now has joined with the National Women's Law Center and many others in an Amicus Brief in Affordable Care Act Case headed to the Supreme Court.

The brief has been filed by the NWLC and more than 60 other groups in the United States Department of Health and Human Services, et al v. State of Florida, et al case going before the Supreme Court on March 26. NWLC Co-President Marcia D. Greenberger said in a statement:

"Congress’s constitutional authority to regulate the national health care market – and the discrimination against women that is rampant in it – is settled law. Requiring insurers to provide coverage to anyone who seeks it, regardless of health status, will remedy the long-standing practice of refusing to sell insurance to women with so-called ‘pre-existing conditions’ such as pregnancy, a previous Caesarean section, or a history of having survived domestic abuse."

Organizations joining the brief include the American College of Nurse-Midwives, National Council of Women’s Organizations, Black Women’s Health Imperative, National Council of Jewish Women, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, National Partnership for Women and Families, and the Older Women’s League.

Washington, DC - Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the nation's leading grassroots health care advocacy organization, released the following statement from HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome in response to the announcement that the Super Committee's work is done:

"The voices of the 99% are being heard on the Super Committee. The Democrats held the line on protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and they insisted that millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes. While the Republicans have wanted to make this about nothing but giving tax breaks to the 1%, the Democrats have made the fight about fundamental priorities, about siding with America's seniors, small businesses and working families rather than siding with the corporate special interests and super rich.

"This has been a fight about core values, about whether we want a country where people are left to fend for themselves or one where they can count on programs like Medicare to provide health security for America's seniors and peace of mind to their families.

"Because the Republicans wanted to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires more than they wanted a solution, the Super Committee turned out to be the dead end that many expected. Now it's time to move on and get to the business of putting people back to work."

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Health Care for America Now is the nation's leading grassroots health care advocacy organization. HCAN led the fight over the past two years to win passage of health reform and to keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.

For Immediate Release NOVEMBER 4, 2011
Contact: Avram Goldstein 202-587-1634
agoldstein@healthcareforamericanow.org

‘Occupy the Kochs Guerrilla Drive-In' Plays in DC After Cain, Romney Kiss the Kochs' Rings at Americans for Prosperity Meeting

Washington, DC - Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the advocacy group The Other 98% and numerous progressive organizations (see list below) teamed up today to protest the billionaire Koch Brothers' corruption of the American political system at an unusual outdoor film festival in the nation's capital. The "Occupy the Kochs Guerrilla Drive-In" runs tonight at the Washington Convention Center, where the Kochs' front group, Americans for Prosperity, is hosting a gala dinner as part of a two-day conference featuring speeches by GOP presidential candidates Herman Cain and Mitt Romney.

Americans for Prosperity, which spends millions advancing its right-wing political agenda with the financial support of billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch and their companies, is holding the "Defend the American Dream" event to celebrate efforts to protect the richest people and corporations from paying their fair share in taxes and to eliminate important programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Protesters will gather at the Guerrilla Drive-In to enjoy popcorn, good food and political satire videos highlighting the Kochs' efforts to destroy the American Dream, shrink the middle class, increase America's growing income inequality, preserve tax breaks for special interests like Big Oil and strip workers of their rights. Several co-sponsors of Occupy the Kochs said the protest tonight shows that Americans are not going to accept a corporate takeover of our country.

"The Kochs and their front groups are trying to steal our democracy to make the 1% even richer," said HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome. "They and their cronies have purchased the Republican Party to destroy America's middle class, including taking away health care and stripping workers of the right to bargain for a better life. Across the country people are raising their voices in protest because they're fed up with a system stacked in favor of the richest 1%."

"The Koch brothers are not just the 1% — they are the .00001%," said John Sellers, co-founder of The Other 98%. "They are the poster children for the hostile corporate takeover of our democracy, and it's about time they heard from the rest of us."

"The Koch brothers are trying to create an America that works better for millionaires and billionaires and worse for the rest of us," said Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future. "Their American Dream is an American nightmare of continued income inequality with little or no government to protect the people."

"The Koch brothers' idea of a working democracy is one that works for them and their bottom line, not for everyday Americans," said Nick Nyhart, president and CEO of Public Campaign. "They should have no more say over what Congress does than any of the rest of us."

"We're Occupying the Kochs tonight because Americans are angry about the corporate takeover of our democracy," said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. "Democracy is rule by the people, not rule by corporations. There's no role for the global warming-denying Koch Brothers in our electoral politics, or for other giant corporations. We need major campaign finance reforms, including a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United v. FEC, to reclaim our democracy."

Occupy the Kochs comes as progressives across the country have been speaking out to put Americans back to work, tax the 1% and pressure the Super Committee not to make a bad deal for the 99%. For more than a month, Americans of all ages and backgrounds have been on the streets expressing their rejection of corporate money in politics at Occupy events and other movement protests across the U.S., and Occupy the Kochs demonstrates that the momentum for change is building.

WHAT: Occupy the Kochs Guerrilla Drive-In at the gala dinner of the Koch Brothers' front group, Americans for Prosperity

WHERE: 1025 Seventh Street NW (corner of L Street), 1 block south of Mt. Vernon/Convention Center Metro station

WHEN: Friday, November 4, from 6:00 to 8:15 p.m. (Media should arrive by 6:45 p.m.)

SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS: Campaign for America's Future, Campaign for Community Change, Common Cause, Health Care for America Now, Justice Through Music, Oil Change International, The Other 98%, Public Campaign, Public Citizen, Rebuild the Dream, Tar Sands Action, True Majority, USAction, and Velvet Revolution. They will be joined by hundreds of people opposed to health insurers, Big Oil and Wall Street taking over our political process and destroying the middle class.

For more information, click here.

To follow the event on Twitter, go to #OccupyTheKochs. You can also text @GuerrillaTeamDC to 23559.

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By Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

Americans for Prosperity, the right-wing advocacy tool of the infamous Koch Brothers, is hosting a national conference Friday and Saturday cynically called, "Defending the American Dream." Featured speakers include Herman Cain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. They've got workshops on topics like killing collective bargaining and repealing health care reform.

Health Care for America Now and the advocacy group The Other 98%, along with several other organizations, are sponsoring a counter-protest Friday night to expose the corrosive role of corporate money in politics and the dangerous agenda of organizations like Americans for Prosperity (AFP) that want to keep the richest people and corporations from paying their fair share in taxes and to eliminate important programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. (Click here and here for event information).

Charles and David Koch are the biggest players in extremist Republican politics. They've personally contributed more than $85 million to right-wing causes over the last 15 years. They convene regular meetings of super-rich people and organize them to contribute large sums to their campaign to destroy the American Dream, shrink the middle class, increase America's growing income inequality, preserve tax breaks for special interests like Big Oil, and strip workers of their rights. They'll do anything, no matter how harmful it may be to our country, to advance the interests of big corporations and the 1%.

In August of 2009 the drive for health care reform was almost derailed as the tea party disrupted one congressional town hall after another, dominating the news with anti-government Obama-haters spouting falsehoods about death panels. Most of the "grassroots activity" was astroturfing, powered by right-wing groups in Washington, D.C. and funded by the Kochs, who were dubbed the "financial engine of the tea party" by none other than Mitt Romney.

For those of us fighting for health care reform, the forces against us in those town halls almost stopped our campaign in its tracks. But something even more dramatic was taking shape. The so-called tea party movement was gaining steam, and it was getting help, direction and amplification from a variety of organizations that represent and are funded by corporate lobbyists, not real people. It was a movement conceived and driven by a Republican issue advocacy machine, and the Kochs' fingerprints were all over it. Then things got even worse in 2010 thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's destructive Citizens United decision, which gave a major boost to the Kochs' rapidly expanding political empire.

AFP is the Koch Brothers front group at the center of all this. Along with FreedomWorks and other organizations backed by the Kochs and their allies, AFP is dedicated to stopping progressive change everywhere they can and rolling back the clock on every important social and economic justice achievement in our country.

The Kochs and their front groups are trying to steal our democracy. They and their cronies have purchased the Republican Party to serve their agenda of destroying America's middle class, including crushing workers and their unions.

Back in February, Americans for Prosperity sent busloads of people to Madison, Wisconsin, to support Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to decimate Wisconsin's public service unions and the middle class they helped build, while more than 100,000 people rallied for their rights.

Right now in Ohio, the Kochs, AFP, Republicans like Karl Rove and a host of fanatical right-wing organizations are doing everything they can to block an effort by the 99% to repeal the new state law that strips public employees of the right to bargain for stronger and safer communities and a better life for their families.

All across the country people are raising their voices in protest because they're fed up with a system stacked in favor of the richest 1%.

Progressives are on offense right now. Let's keep that going.

For more information about Occupy the Kochs, click here. Follow news about the event on Twitter at #OccupytheKochs.

For NOVEMBER 4, 2011
Contact: Avram Goldstein 202-587-1634
agoldstein@healthcareforamericanow.org

‘Occupy the Kochs Guerrilla Drive-In' Set for Nov. 4 in Washington, D.C.

Washington, DC - Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the advocacy group The Other 98% and numerous progressive organizations (see list below) are teaming up to expose the billionaire Koch Brothers' corruption of the American political system on Friday, Nov. 4, at an unusual outdoor film festival in the nation's capital. The "Occupy the Kochs Guerrilla Drive-In" will take place at the Washington Convention Center, where the Kochs' front group, Americans for Prosperity, is hosting a gala dinner. The extremist organization, which spends millions advancing its right-wing political agenda, is holding the "Defend the American Dream" event to celebrate efforts to protect the richest people and corporations from paying their fair share in taxes and to eliminate important programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Protesters will gather by the hundreds at the Guerrilla Drive-In to enjoy popcorn, good food and political satire videos highlighting the Kochs' efforts to destroy the American Dream, shrink the middle class, increase America's growing income inequality, preserve tax breaks for Big Oil and eliminate workers' rights to bargain for a better life and better public services.

Occupy the Kochs comes as progressives across the country have been speaking out to put Americans back to work, tax the 1% and pressure the Super Committee not to make a bad deal for the 99%. For more than a month, Americans of all ages and backgrounds have been on the streets expressing their rejection of corporate money in politics at the Occupy events and other movement protests across the U.S., and that momentum is building. This week in Washington, the Occupy K Street protest continues, National Nurses United is demonstrating at the White House and on Capitol Hill to demand that Wall Street banks pay their fair share in taxes, MoveOn is holding Make Wall Street Pay events in Washington and around the country, and Tar Sands Action plans to form a human circle around the White House on Nov. 6 to ask President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

WHAT: Occupy the Kochs Guerrilla Drive-In at the gala dinner of the Koch Brothers' front group, Americans for Prosperity

WHERE: 1025 Seventh Street NW (corner of L Street), 1 block south of Mt. Vernon/Convention Center Metro station

WHEN: Friday, November 4, from 6:00 to 8:15 p.m. (Media should arrive by 6:45 p.m.)

SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS: Campaign for America's Future, Campaign for Community Change, Common Cause, Health Care for America Now, Justice Through Music, Oil Change International, The Other 98%, Public Campaign, Public Citizen, Rebuild the Dream, Tar Sands Action, True Majority, USAction, and Velvet Revolution. They will be joined by hundreds of people opposed to health insurers, Big Oil and Wall Street taking over our political process and destroying the middle class.

For more information, click here.

To follow the event on Twitter, go to #OccupyTheKochs.

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Washington, DC - Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the nation's leading grassroots health care advocacy organization, released this statement from Executive Director Ethan Rome about the health insurance industry's plan to increase health insurance premiums by at least $73 billion through 2019 by passing industry tax costs to consumers and businesses:

"It's outrageous that health insurance companies would threaten to pass along to ratepayers a tax that should be paid by the company's Wall Street investors, especially when insurers are making record profits. At a time when Americans are struggling to make ends meet, this threat is the kind of reprehensible behavior from big corporations that has driven Americans into the streets in protest.

"The new tax was meant to capture some of the insurers' excessive profits to benefit the public, not get passed on to consumers by CEOs who make more money in a few hours than many people make in a year. Health insurance CEOs have collected more than $1 billion in personal compensation in the last decade while the majority of Americans are barely getting by.

"The health insurance companies' relentless pursuit of profit and disregard for people offers another window into how big corporations have abused people and twisted the economy to serve their own interests. The public won't stand for this just as Bank of America customers were unwilling to accept unjustified debit-card fees. No actuary or report can make this look like anything other than unbridled greed."

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Health Care for America Now is the nation's leading grassroots health care advocacy organization. HCAN led the fight over the past two years to win passage of health reform and to keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.

By Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

At an Occupy Wall Street event in Minneapolis, last weekend protesters held up a sign that asked, "Had Enough?" A simple question. An expression of outrage. People are rightly and righteously angry, but they're also scared and worried about the future. That's why these protests across the country are supported by the majority of Americans. These are uncertain times and the system has failed them.

Some media and political pundits don't seem to get what the demonstrators are saying, but America's working and middle-class families do: People want their country back. People want to reclaim America before it becomes the unrecognizable property of the super-rich and the big corporations that see our country merely as a source of labor and natural resources to exploit for their gain.

People want jobs, homes, health care and a future. That's why they're fighting back in Minneapolis and cities across the nation. We see this spirit at the Occupy protests and in other struggles, especially in a number of state battles.

Many of us toss around the phrase "American Dream" so much that there's a risk it will lose meaning. For the protesters and the increasing number of folks in "middle America" who support them, the American Dream is real, and it represents one thing above all others - opportunity. While Wall Street sharpshooters wrecked our economy and took away peoples' homes, jobs and so much more, they also took away the future. And the Wall Street profiteers are making the present pretty rotten too.

Beneath the rhetoric about unbridled corporate greed and the grotesque income inequality ruining our country, there is a basic and understandable fear. People of all ages are terrified about finding jobs, affording a home and planning their lives. As it gets harder to afford college, it's becoming less clear what a college education gets you. In America that's a game changer. Getting an education is supposed to mean something, and all of us are supposed to do better than our parents did. That's the core aspiration of the American Dream.

Meanwhile, savings and pensions are turning into artifacts. We can't afford to save, and the jobs we do get don't have pensions. At the same time programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are under relentless attack by right-wing Republicans who answer to their special-interest corporate campaign contributors instead of their constituents back home.

We're at a moment in our history where any detailed list of policy prescriptions understates the kind of change we need. So the chattering class should stop asking the Occupy movement for a 200-point plan. America's middle class and the working poor are under assault by big corporations and the top 1 percent, and the moneyed interests are dangerously close to winning. These attacks are the real deal, and stopping them is what the protesters are talking about. We are all in different parts of the same boat, struggling today and worried about what's next. For people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, books, college degrees and great resumes won't be enough if the big corporations and the 1 percent own everything. That's the agenda - taking back our country for everyone in the 99 percent while we are still hanging on.

The 1 percent and the Republican politicians they own are chipping away at the foundation of one of the greatest inventions we've ever had in this country besides political freedom - the middle class. And led by billionaires like the Koch Brothers, extremists on the right are working to undermine our political democracy as well.

That's why the Occupy protests are so inspiring. Their message is as much what they are doing as what they're saying, and they are making it crystal clear that they've had enough. Activists from established groups on the left should look for ways to support Occupy efforts on the terms of the protesters, from turning out supporters for events to providing cash and supplies.

Of course, progressive organizations already have plenty to do. For example, people in Wisconsin have just launched a recall effort against anti-middle class, pro-corporate Gov. Scott Walker. They want their state back. Those of us involved in the budget debate in Washington, D.C., are following a so-called "super committee" that must protect low-income and middle-class programs like Medicare and Medicaid and ask the 1 percent to pay their fair share instead of perpetuating the status quo. That's not easy in a town dominated by corporate interests that care more about their bottom lines than anything else.

When it comes to state battles, one of the biggest and most important is in Ohio. Hundreds of thousands of teachers, corrections officers, firefighters, nurses, administrative assistants, sanitation workers, social workers and so many others hit the streets to gather petition signatures to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 5. This anti-democratic, anti-middle class legislation takes away the right of workers to bargain for a better life and for jobs, better services and stronger communities for everyone.

We can't have a middle class, a vibrant democracy and a just society without strong unions and a growing labor movement. And we can't have the country that we all deserve without putting people before corporate domination, a demand at the heart of the Occupy movement.