Today is a big day. The first round of Health Care Reform provisions takes effect.
Rep. Larson gave HuffPo a rundown of 10 major benefits we’ll see. Basically, an insurance company can’t drop your policy when you’re sick, deny your kids a policy if they’re sick, kids can stay on their parents’ policy until the age of 26, and the lifetime and annual limits are going away. There’s also guaranteed access to preventative and emergency care, hunting for referrals and in-network doctors will no longer be necessary, and the appeals process for denied claims is being cleaned up.
We'll basically start to actually get what we pay for. How can anyone think this be bad?
The GOP thinks so. And so do the health insurance companies, which are now discontinuing policies for children in order to avoid having to issue them at all (unless they buy an adult policy too!).
During my own battle with my health, I’ve been following a woman on Twitter who was recently diagnosed with severe Lupus. I actually began following her because of her witty repartee on politics and the funny things her kids do. She’s a journalist and blogger, she’s even been on CNN! But then she got sick, and I was sick, and I felt a connection to her that way. And though my tests all came back clear and I’ve been getting healthier, her journey was the opposite – she had surgery after surgery to remove diseased organ after diseased organ. She has health insurance, and yet she faces excruciating financial bills and fights with the insurance company about procedures that were required to save her life. What would’ve happened if the stories were reversed – if I, who am uninsured*, had been the one needing the surgeries? I’d either be dead or homeless.
This is why health care reform was and still is so very, very important. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, especially those who already have all of their health care paid for by the taxpayers and government. Today is a special day because of people who were willing to fight for it – and everyone concerned about the greed of the insurance companies and the obliviousness of politicians need to tell their stories and share others’ stories if we’re going to keep the measures that took decades to obtain and make them better in the future.
*I’m self-employed, and I can’t afford the $700/month premiums (with a $5000 deductible). Why try to pay the companies money I generally don't have and then have nothing left to actually pay the doctor? So count me among the 'self-pay' and those who look forward to even better reform.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Toby Beth Jarman
Dr. Evan Levine
Oryoki Bowl
Fay Paxton
lorianne
Mary Ann Sorrentino
Salon.com
Comments
Here's the link she's talking about if anyone is interested http://open.salon.com/blog/lunchlady_2/2010/09/23/dear_mr_president
If your legislators (and, I guess, a lot of your voters) weren't so spooked by the spectre of socialism, and weren't so into American exceptionalism or whatever so you can't, no never, take on solutions other countries have pioneered, you could have fully-covered, tax-paid, universal, never-go-bankrupt-for-medical-expenses type health insurance, like other civilized countries. (And don't let them jive you about our Canadian wait-times and stuff - ask real live Canadians.)
There's nothing about health care "reform" that guarantees that people won't still face "excruciating financial bills and fights with the insurance company about procedures that were required to save [their lives]."
I would support a single-payer system like the one they have in Britain, in which interventions are evaluated for clinical effectiveness and the ones which do not produce significant beenfits are discarded. But trying to reform the health care system by throwing more money at the same bunch of psychopaths intent on bleeding the sick (and everybody else) for everything they have is like pouring gasoline on a fire.
If my wife and I have to fork over to the health insurance companies $700 a month apiece, or anything close to that amount, for the privilege of calling ourselves Americans, I just may decide to stay in Africa for good. I'm not kidding.
But, every American is one or two pieces of bad luck from bankruptcy. Lose your job, lose your insurance, get an expensive, long-term disease. Cobra only lasts 18 months.
This health care bill, however, does nothing about costs, which in the US are quite high.
The first round of reform means a lot to me because it directly impacts my mother and sister. My sister can stay on the health insurance she's had through my parents until she's 26 (in grad school, looking for work, etc). And then when she has to seek her own - her pre-existing condition that she's had since she was 8 won't be a problem with obtaining a policy - hopefully a much cheaper policy than we see nowadays. It also means that should my mom lose my job she can get insurance through a new job without the pre-existing condition she has now (and didn't have prior to the current job) preventing that.
It's baby steps, but still steps.
What a fucking laugh that is.
There is no bigger collection of quacks than the imbeciles at the VA.
I am talking about the MADISON WI VA HOSPITAL.
For instance, I have gome there for 5 separate health issues.
I have seen more than one of the ducks for each of these problems.
In more than 7 years, not one of the problems has been corrected/cured,etc.
I am so fucking disgusted that I can only wish I could afford paid health care.
For instance, I cough after eating certain foods.
The last three ducks(quackers) at the VA didn't do a fucking thing for me.
I was told that I had to wait till the first quackette rotated out, apparently so she wouldn't feel insulted or some such bullshit.
Well, the third one down the line told me that it's a mucous problem.
Gee whiz!! Isn't there ALWAYS mucous in your respiratory, etc system??
If so, then why don't I ALWAYS cough?
This is just one example of the bullshit incompetency of the VA.
Maybe those of you who do have health insurance don't realize how lucky you might be.