Health Care Reform Passes

It's not anywhere near enough but here are 10 reasons to celebrate anyway:

 10 Things Every American Should Know About Health Care Reform

1. Once reform is fully implemented, over 95% of Americans will have health insurance coverage, including 32 million who are currently uninsured.

2. Health insurance companies will no longer be allowed to deny people coverage because of preexisting conditions—or to drop coverage when people become sick.

3. Just like members of Congress, individuals and small businesses who can't afford to purchase insurance on their own will be able to pool together and choose from a variety of competing plans with lower premiums.

4. Reform will cut the federal budget deficit by $138 billion over the next ten years, and a whopping $1.2 trillion in the following ten years.

5. Health care will be more affordable for families and small businesses thanks to new tax credits, subsidies, and other assistance—paid for largely by taxing insurance companies, drug companies, and the very wealthiest Americans.

6. Seniors on Medicare will pay less for their prescription drugs because the legislation closes the "donut hole" gap in existing coverage.

7. By reducing health care costs for employers, reform will create or save more than 2.5 million jobs over the next decade.

8. Medicaid will be expanded to offer health insurance coverage to an additional 16 million low-income people.

9. Instead of losing coverage after they leave home or graduate from college, young adults will be able to remain on their families' insurance plans until age 26.

10. Community health centers would receive an additional $11 billion, doubling the number of patients who can be treated regardless of their insurance or ability to pay. 

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Sources:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10. "Affordable Health Care for America: Summary," House Energy and Commerce Committee, March 18, 2010
http://wwwd.house.gov/akamaidocs/energycommerce/SUMMARY.pdf

3. "Insurance Companies Prosper, Families Suffer: Our Broken Health Insurance System," U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Accessed March 22, 2010
http://healthreform.gov/reports/insuranceprospers/index.html

4. "Affordable Health Care for America: Health Insurance Reform at a Glance: Revenue Provisions," House Energy and Commerce Committee, March 18, 2010
http://wwwd.house.gov/akamaidocs/energycommerce/REVENUE.pdf

5. "New Jobs Through Better Health Care," Center for American Progress, January 8, 2010
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/new_jobs_health.html

8, 9. "Proposed Changes in the Final Health Care Bill," The New York Times, March 22, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/19/us/politics/20100319-health-care-reconciliation.html

10. "Affordable Health Care for America: Health Insurance Reform at a Glance: Addressing Health and Health Care Disparities," House Energy and Commerce Committee, March 20, 2010
http://docs.house.gov/energycommerce/DISPARITIES.pdf

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From MoveOn.org

 

It's Time to Fight for the Public Option

Working for the Alzheimer's Association and then for Del Mar Caregiver Resource Center taught me one thing. If the people harmed most by our inadequate approach to health and long term care in this country don't stand up for themselves there isn't a chance in hell that anything is going to be done about it. We have a chance to create real healthcare reform in this country right now and the choices we make or don't make today are sure to affect future generations for a long time to come.

Unfortunately, as much as I think it would be preferable to have a bipartisan approach to creating real healthcare reform, the current Congress has proven that that's not something they're capable of doing. As soon as the public option was taken off the table I, along with MOST Americans, gave up. You don't negotiate with terrorists! And that's what the nay-saying Republican stonewalling has become. I say let's stop it now!

CREDO is circulating this petition to get the public option passed without Republican approval. If you agree that it really IS time for a change let's send that message to Congress and the president we elected to pass that change together. Without our action nothing can and will be done. President Obama and most of Congress have already given up on the ability to pass a public option but momentum is building to shift that perception. 119 House Democrats and 20 Senators have already been convinced through earlier CREDO petitions to push a public option through over Republican heads. With enough public outcry the rest of the Senate and House may come on board. They'll have no choice if they want to be re-elected in November.

Send a message to your congressmen and women today!
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/good_vs_bipartisan/?r_by=7864-1886094-mzBw0zx&rc=confemail1

Apologizing for 43,000 Deaths

What Exactly is the Public Option?

Think Healthcare Reform is "Too Expensive"?

Think again.

Get the Facts on Healthcare Reform

Note to spammers who intend to leave vicious comments about the evils of Socialism and "Obamacare": I moderate all my blogs. Don't waste your time here.

Healthcare reform is THE most important thing on the national agenda right now. I burnt out on my last job working with caregivers of people with Alzheimer's and other dementing illnesses NOT because of the sadness of illness and death. It was the stories of people going into bankruptcy and facing financial devastation in addition to the heartbreak they were going through that got to me. Now the job I had at that agency might not even exist anymore. The California legislature just cut that agency's funding by 73%! Now even the inadequate level of care we were providing there won't be available. We need reform NOW!!

Click this link to learn the facts, share it with as many people as possible, and stop the promoting of hate and misinformation.

It's Time for Healthcare Reform!

In my email today I received an email from an organization called "Organizing for Healthcare" that included the video on this blog. I know not everyone who comes across this blog is an Obama supporter but organizing to defeat healthcare reform in the name of "crushing" Obama is as low as it goes.

I used to work in the healthcare field as a family consultant for the Alzheimer's Association and later for a nonprofit caregiver resource center in Santa Cruz, CA. By the time I left that line of work I couldn't stand listening to the stories anymore. . . but what I couldn't handle is NOT what you might think. I could listen and support people who were seeing their family members and friends deteriorate, lose their minds, and die. I could handle the disease and death. What I hated about this work was the devastating effect taking care of their loved ones had on these people because of the horrible lack of financial and hands-on support we allow to be acceptable in this country. Elderly people were doing 24-hour a day caregiving without back-up! You can't do that as a young person. There comes a time when you NEED to sleep, eat and do basic tasks of everyday living. You can't do this kind of caregiving without support!

And paying for help is more than most people could stand. People were in my office every day begging me to tell them how to keep from going bankrupt and I didn't know. That's what got to me. The utter disregard for human value and human life.

Meanwhile the drug companies who supply the pharmaceuticals their family members were talked into thinking they needed at several hundreds of dollars a month are getting fat. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the top 2-3 most profitable industries in the world, reporting profits of 100s of billions of dollars per year. Profit, by the way, is what is left AFTER a company pays for the research and development the drug companies claim they need to be paid so much for. Don't be fooled by the games they have been playing. Record profits were reported after Bush signed the most recent Medicare drug benefit "reform" bill. That's how insane our country has been—steal from the poor to fatten the already unbelievably rich! This is worse than insane—it's criminal!

It's also a big piece of what has been bringing the economy to its knees. Big multinationals allowed to run amok, taking everything they can get without regard to anyone else. 100s of billions of dollars of profit—every year—while people we care about are losing their homes and having to make the choice between paying for medications and having enough to eat.

It's time we all stood up and did something about it.