Health Care - Thank you Mr President

1. 60

   theirishobserver.posted 14 years ago

   At Last - A Patient's Bill of Rights
   
    
   
   
    
   
   Good afternoon,
   
   It seems like everywhere you go in this country, you hear story after story of Americans who have been let down by the private health insurance system.  Parents in Texas unable to buy coverage for their infant born with a heart defect.  A Los Angeles woman forced to stop chemotherapy for months while fighting her insurer's claim that her cancer was a pre-existing condition. Patients whose life-saving treatments and therapies are cut short due to annual or lifetime coverage limits.
   
   Yesterday, President Obama put an end to these unfair practices once and for all by announcing new rules made possible by the Affordable Care Act. These new rules will take effect for most plans starting on or after September 23rd. They will remove barriers between you and your doctor and help provide the peace of mind that health insurance will be there when you need it the most.
   
   You can watch the President and me speak about the people who these rules will help and why we fought so hard to make them part of the new law:
   
   http://www.whitehouse.gov/patients-rights
   
   A major goal of the Affordable Care Act is to put American consumers back in charge of their coverage and care.
   
   Here are a few key ways these new rules will help do that:
   
   Stop insurance companies from imposing pre-existing condition exclusions on your children;
   Prohibit insurers from rescinding or taking away your coverage based on an unintentional mistake on an application;
   Ban insurers from setting lifetime limits on your coverage and restrict their use of annual limits on coverage;
   Ensure that you can choose the primary care doctor or pediatrician you want from your plan's provider network;
   Eliminate the need for a referral to see an ob-gyn;
   Prohibit insurance companies from requiring "prior approval" before you seek emergency care at a hospital outside your plan's network.
   These rules effectively put in place a basic set of consumer protections known over the years as the "Patient's Bill of Rights." This is a concept introduced 15 years ago and supported by both Democrats and Republicans. After years of effort and the passage of the Affordable Care Act, I'm proud to say we are finally protecting those rights and putting health care back in the right hands: yours.
   
   Now, let me touch on a few other updates about what we're doing to implement health care reform.
   
   Over the past several weeks, we have:
   
   Ensured that if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it -- by issuing some new regulations for insurance plans that give you, your family, and your business more control over your health care choices;
   Worked to get coverage to one of the groups who is least insured, young people, through a new provision that will allow children up to the age of 26 to stay on their parents health care plan (a benefit that we successfully persuaded many insurers to implement ahead of schedule);
   Announced tax credits that will benefit millions of small businesses that have been struggling to provide care to their employees;
   Begun mailing $250 checks to tens of thousands of seniors who have reached the ‘donut hole' -- a term used to describe the gap in Medicare Part D prescription coverage -- to help seniors manage their health care costs;
   Announced new support to strengthen and expand the health care workforce, including increasing the number of primary care doctors and nurses.
   You can learn more at:
   
   http://www.whitehouse.gov/patients-rights
   
   The passage of the Affordable Care Act was an historic victory for the American people, laying a new foundation for relief from skyrocketing health insurance costs and for secure, stable, and affordable health care coverage. But passage brought us an important new challenge -- implementation -- and I look forward to sharing additional news and updates as we steadily turn the promise of health reform into reality.
   
   Sincerely,
   
   Kathleen Sebelius
   Secretary of Health and Human Services

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2. 60

   theirishobserver.posted 14 years ago

   The must be great news

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   1. 54

      bpheeposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      To sensible people, yes.  To the fear-mongering rightists it is cause for revolt.

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      1. 68

         MikeNVposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         He Mr. Bphee
         
         Can you explain how this lowers costs?
         
         Or is all your opinion just based on misinformation and hope?
         
         I actually spent a lot of time working inside of the Health Insurance Industry as do many of my family members who work in insurance and are Physicians.
         
         So can you explain how Obamacare will lower costs for anyone?
         
         I'm listening... and I'm sure so are others.
         
         Can you support any of your opinions?

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         1. 66

            Ralph Deedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            There are cost saving features of the health reform bill but not enough. The main benefit of the bill is that it will curb many of the insurance industry abuses and extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. Additional cost-saving measures will be required to stop health costs from eating up the economy.

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            1. 59

               tobey100posted 14 years agoin reply to this

               I wish you were correct Ralph but I'm afraid the opposite is already taking place.

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               1. 66

                  Ralph Deedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                  Seems to me it's a bit too early to make that call? Any specifics?
                  I'm not suggesting that costs won't continue to go up, but rather that the rate of increase will be lower. We'll have to wait and see.

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         2. 54

            bpheeposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Of course I can.
            
            Am I willing to waste my time laying out the details to close- minded people who accept nothing that challenges their misconceptions.  Absolutely not.  The case has been made overwhelmingly over the past two years; the right merely responds with SOCIALISM! and UNCONSTITUTIONAL! (both lies)

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3. 68

   MikeNVposted 14 years ago

   Under the new "Affordable" Obamacare the Toothfairy is now required to leave $5 per tooth and for those children who have already lost teeth... there will be reparation later.
   
   Obama has fixed the system.
   
   Now all we have to do is figure out how to pay for it... oh wait, that's taken care of too... because there is nothing in Obamacare to control costs.
   
   Simple.
   
   Insurance Companies raise premiums to cover the additional costs.
   
   So in a nutshell here is what Obamacare has accomplished:  SQUAT
   
   Obamacare mandates coverage for those who can not afford it, raises premiums, and passes on additional costs to the healthy.
   
   Can anyone rationally explain how this makes Health Insurance "Affordable"?

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   1. 55

      leebertteaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      No he did manage to take control over 1/6 of the economy and grow government, including thousands of IRS jobs, union jobs, and diminish freedom while deflty redistributing wealth.

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      1. 80

         lovemychrisposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Hahaha...that's rich!!! Talk about re-distribution!
         
         FINALLY!!! We the people are getting a share of the riches that have been flowing upwards for 30 years!!!!
         
         
         Rich got richer and richer and richer...poor got poorer and poorer, Middle class fell to poor.....it has been a 30 yr. nightmare for regular working people....great for the uber wealthy.
         
         What's the matter, don't like to give up any of that stolen loot? Too Bad!
         
         Tide is turning. Time to give to the givers instead of giving to the takers all the time!
         
         And how about bringing some of those jobs back, mr and mrs big business? big corporations. Big money taken elsewhere with no taxes to pay........
         
         It's sad beyond measure all the needless suffering so one person can take 35 million a year. It's disgusting.

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   2. 95

      wildernessposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      It is actually very simple.  Government will increase subsidies to cover the extra cost the insurance companies need to stay in business.  That extra cost will be made up by increase in taxes and/or increase deficit spending (probably both).  It is now not health care cost it is something else.

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      1. 66

         Ralph Deedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Health care costs have been going up at an unsustainable rate of around 10% a year for some time. The health reform program won't solve this problem completely, but it will help hold down the rate of increase in health costs. Further steps are needed.

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   3. 61

      Friendlywordposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Did you miss a word or two explaining in detail the answers to your questions?
      
      “Obamacare mandates coverage for those who can not afford it, raises premiums, and passes on additional costs to the healthy.
      So in a nutshell here is what Obamacare has accomplished: SQUAT”
      
      Stop insurance companies from imposing pre-existing condition exclusions on your children; Prohibit insurers from rescinding or taking away your coverage based on an unintentional mistake on an application; Ban insurers from setting lifetime limits on your coverage and restrict their use of annual limits on coverage; Ensure that you can choose the primary care doctor or pediatrician you want from your plan's provider network; Eliminate the need for a referral to see an ob-gyn; Prohibit insurance companies from requiring "prior approval" before you seek emergency care at a hospital outside your plan's network. Ensured that if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it -- by issuing some new regulations for insurance plans that give you, your family, and your business more control over your health care choices; Worked to get coverage to one of the groups who is least insured, young people, through a new provision that will allow children up to the age of 26 to stay on their parents health care plan (a benefit that we successfully persuaded many insurers to implement ahead of schedule)
      
      “Can anyone rationally explain how this makes Health Insurance "Affordable"?”
      
      Announced tax credits that will benefit millions of small businesses that have been struggling to provide care to their employees

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4. 59

   TheWicklessCandleposted 14 years ago

   Wish I could just put all the money I would have paid into health care into an account that appreciated over time to cover costs.
   
   
   That would land me in jail.
   
   
   Looks like everyone that can't understand his speeches voted for him.
   
   Way to be 'informed'

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5. 59

   TheWicklessCandleposted 14 years ago

   Who employs you? A poor guy?
   
   If you want jobs, give people incentives to give jobs.
   
   
   Seems like the 'takers' are bringing down the very people that 'give' them paychecks.
   
   
   Kinda sad you didn't go to college yet?
   
   Scared that opportunity looks like work?
   
   If that's the case, vote democrat again.

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   1. 80

      lovemychrisposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      My boss wouldn't MAKE any money without his employees! Who are YOU kidding!
      
      And I've been to a lot of college actually....but it's very expensive in case you haven't noticed, and after 30 years of gouging, the cost of living is a killer!!!
      
      
      Not like Europe, where higher education is free, because they want everybody to have a chance to raise up....and have healthcare...and homes to live in. Not all connected to the amount of money your mommy or daddy have.
      
      And if you look at a graph of the income distribution during Bush, you will be shocked. It is WAY over the top in inequity.
      
      And you see evening it  back out as wrong. Well that's your perogative, but...you are really blind to reality.

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      1. 95

         wildernessposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Lovemychris, it is you that are blind if you think that higher education (or any public education) or healthcare or homes are free anywhere in the world.  Someone pays the instructors and doctors, the bureaucracy, and the maintenance costs of each.  It may be you through higher taxes, it may be your children through deficit spending, but it is definitely NOT the tooth fairy.
         
         If you want these "free" things available to all, then cough up the cash for both you and someone else; it isn't "free" at all.

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6. 59

   TheWicklessCandleposted 14 years ago

   Europe is in a good spot these days, aren't they?

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   1. 80

      lovemychrisposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      USA is in a good spot these days aren't we!!!!!

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      1. 59

         TheWicklessCandleposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I didn't vote for this America

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   2. 76

      Uninvited Writerposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Canada is doing great

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7. 77

   Aficionadaposted 14 years ago

   Well, let's see.....  Yesterday on Yahoo! I read this article:
   
   "Borrowers exit troubled Obama mortgage program
   Borrowers face foreclosure after Obama loan assistance program fails to provide help
   
   [by] Alan Zibel, AP Real Estate Writer, On Monday June 21, 2010, 8:09 pm EDT
   
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration's flagship effort to help people in danger of losing their homes is falling flat.
   
   More than a third of the 1.24 million borrowers who have enrolled in the $75 billion mortgage modification program have dropped out. That exceeds the number of people who have managed to have their loan payments reduced to help them keep their homes.
   
   [truncated]
   
   A major reason so many have fallen out of the program is the Obama administration initially pressured banks to sign up borrowers without insisting first on proof of their income. When banks later moved to collect the information, many troubled homeowners were disqualified or dropped out."
   
   http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Borrowers … 1.html?x=0
   
   Hmmmm - Can you say, Been there, done that?  Isn't that part of the reason the bubble burst - the fact that the government pressured banks to lend to people who wouldn't qualify under sane lending rules?
   
   I think it was then-candidate Bill Clinton who quoted the old saw "Isn't doing the same thing again while expecting a different result the definition of insanity?"  While I find that statement offensive to people who have mental illnesses, I can see a lot of applicability within the realm of politics.
   
   I appreciate the administration's sense of generosity. But good grief, people - someone has to pay, and it probably will be you (you/us).  Let's hope politicians can learn (soon!) from history and realize that being in power does not magically cause inappropriate economic decisions to be right.

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   1. 66

      Ralph Deedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      What "inappropriate economic decisions?"

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      1. 95

         wildernessposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Perhaps the decision to give more money to the people that bought more than they can afford, using mortgages far beyond their capability to repay.

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   2. 80

      lovemychrisposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      We have already been paying  and paying and paying...and where does it go? Into some businessman's pocket, that's where!
      Or we get taxed more to make up for the taxes the rich aren't paying.
      
      Why doesn't that bother you?
      Why does it bother you to pay for the benefit of all rather than the profit of a few?
      
      I really don't get it.
      
      And the housing bubble was not caused by poor people buying homes. The fault was greedy banskters and lenders and ratings agencies who scammed unsuspecting home buyers and made out like bandits. Owning a home is not a greedy undertaking...it's part of "the American Dream", isn't it?

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      1. 77

         bn9900posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Democrats like you are what is failing this country, take take take, typical democrat response, let someone else pay...pathetic

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         1. 82

            gmwilliamsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            +1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in agreement!

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8. 76

   Uninvited Writerposted 14 years ago

   I have to wonder when I see people on House Hunters who are 22, buying their first house, and choose a 4 bedroom house with a 2-car garage, practically a mansion. Whatever happened to starter homes?

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9. 80

   lovemychrisposted 14 years ago

   We don't even need insurance companies...get rid of them. Single-payer.
   Why do they get to raise their cost, when we know it only goes to profit?
   I don't get to up my pay whenever I want to.
   Stop those greedy bastards at the track!
   
   See how they control everything?
   What a joke!
   Tuff if they make less profit!

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   1. 61

      Friendlywordposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Dont hold your breath for a reply on this one Love.

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10. 72

    Cagsilposted 14 years ago

    Too many misconceptions to be righted at one time. So many skewed perspectives/perceptions it is no longer funny.
    
    The fact that people think that government should provide healthcare shows the ignorance of this country and also shows the wrong direction for any progress forward.
    
    Healthcare should be left up to the marketplace and not involve government at all.
    
    As for the housing bubble, that was a three prong assault. Too many poor people fudging their incomes to take advantage of the sub-prime market and then to have the bank-brokers create paper thin derivatives from, was simply too much to cover.
    
    The problem should have been cleared up already. It was the main reason for the bailout of the banking institutions. It did not help that the regulators at government agencies fell down on the job, which should be the most appalling thing of all.
    
    But, everyone is to blame, no one gets out scott-free, from blame on the financial collapse.
    
    It also doesn't help that medicare and medicaid continue to grow as well. Another "privilege" or "benefit" offered by government as supportive measures.
    
    Government learned along time ago, that they can control people, as long as they restrict their options.

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    1. 61

       Friendlywordposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       It also doesn't help that medicare and medicaid continue to grow as well. Another "privilege" or "benefit" offered by government as supportive measures.
       
       There is no Privilege or Benefit offered by the government here! I for one worked all my life and paid my taxes and fica payments were taken from every single check I cashed.
       The government is holding up their end of the contract they made with me. The government is not giving me a privilege or a benefit.

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       1. 72

          Cagsilposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          I'm not up to explaining it to you, so I'll leave you be. It's apparent it is outside your grasp.

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11. 76

    Uninvited Writerposted 14 years ago

    Don't you know Chris that we all have to be selfish and never think of anyone but ourselves? If you grasp that then all will be perfect with the world

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       lovemychrisposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Yeah...specially if you start out with a better circumstance, eh?
       
       "Not my problem" is the problem with the world! imo..
       
       And where is it written in the Constitution that the market place runs things here? Who said so?
       
       Our gvt is supposed to look after the wellbeing of its people....NOT the pockets of greedy money-grubbing Barons!

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12. 59

    TheWicklessCandleposted 14 years ago

    It's like taking water from the shallow end of a pool and putting it in the deep end.
    
    It's fruitless and bailouts are stupid.
    
    Bailing from one end to the other.

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    1. 80

       lovemychrisposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       yeah,versus ALL the water flowing to the small pool at the top!!!

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13. 62

    JON EWALLposted 14 years ago

    hubbers
    Do you remember the discussions regarding the union health plans? At the time President Barak Obama said that unions will not be exempt from the new law. I guess Pelosi was right when she said ''we need to pass the bill to find out what's in it '', how true now after the fact.
    The press exposed the president's false statement. In the bill. Unions healthcare plans will be grandfathered, the bill excludes union plans and the higher tax rates. Businesses are crying foul.
    June 1st a change in doctor reimbursement under Medicare kicked in. Medicare will cut payments to doctors 21% from what was cut before. The doctors are complaining that reduced payment don't cover the cost of business services.
    The CBO was not given the above information when they scored the healthcare bill.
    When Obama signed the bill, companies were forced to charge billions of dollars against earnings creating a big problem for many companies.
    There are more surprises coming simply because the Obama administration did not honestly give the CBO proper information to show  the true cost of the bill if passed. The deficit in the bill will be at least $1 trillion or more when other items will surface in the future.
    
    The budget for 2011 has not yet been provided by the Obama administration, wondering why.

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14. 60

    theirishobserver.posted 14 years ago

    God Bless America

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15. 60

    theirishobserver.posted 14 years ago

    God Bless the President

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16. 66

    Ralph Deedsposted 14 years ago

    Thank you, Nancy!
    
    "The Age of Nancy"--Gail Collins in the NYT.
    
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/opini … ef=opinion

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17. 60

    theirishobserver.posted 14 years ago

    Does the President need a holiday

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