9Why Pennsylvania should opt for single-payer health system
, Erie Times-News
Contributing writer
Contributing writer
When asked, almost all Americans will say that access to health care is of major concern to them. But access means different things to different people. For some who have chronic illnesses, it is how to pay for the continuing costs of treating the illness. That may mean paying for health care insurance and its deductibles and co-pays, or it may mean having the ability to acquire health care insurance even if cost is not an issue. For others it may mean having the ability to manage one's own health care along with their medical professionals and not having to subject themselves to the dictates of the health insurance carrier.
Those who do not have health care insurance and do not have the financial ability to pay for it must live in the constant fear of injury or illness, which would devastate their personal finances and potentially destroy the economic future of themselves and their family.
There is no question that this country has the finest medical care in the world. Our ability to identify, manage and treat injury and disease is without peer. But, all of that is valueless if one does not have access to the system. While it is true that everyone will ultimately be treated, even if they do not have health care insurance, it is not free. Someone has to absorb the cost. That normally means that doctors, hospitals, government and insurance carriers (through higher premium costs for their policy holders) all share the costs in some proportion.
In March 2010 Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This landmark legislation addressed some health care issues, but also left many questions and legal challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the act which means that the various provisions will continue to be implemented, mostly by 2014 but also continuing through the end of the decade. One provision is that states may propose their own innovations in health care, provided that those innovations do not fall below the requirements of the PPACA. As the law is written, this cannot occur until 2017.
Brawling Over Health Care Moves to Rules on Exchanges
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — Critics of the new health care law, having lost one battle in the Supreme Court, are mounting a challenge to President Obama’s interpretation of another important provision, under which the federal government will subsidize health insurance for millions of low- and middle-income people.
Starting in 2014, the law requires most Americans to have health insurance. It also offers subsidies to help people pay for insurance bought through markets known as insurance exchanges.
At issue is whether the subsidies will be available in exchanges set up and run by the federal government in states that fail or refuse to establish their own exchanges.
Critics say the law allows subsidies only for people who obtain coverage through state-run exchanges. The White House says the law can be read to allow subsidies for people who get coverage in federal exchanges as well.
The law says that “each state shall” establish an exchange. But Washington could be running the exchanges in one-third to half of states, where local officials have been moving slowly or openly resisting the idea.
The dispute has huge practical implications. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 23 million uninsured people will gain coverage through exchanges and that all but five million of them will qualify for subsidies, averaging more than $6,000 a year per person. Subsidies, in the form of tax credits, will be available to people with incomes from the poverty level up to four times that amount ($23,050 to $92,200 for a family of four).
Some supporters of the law say Congress may have made a mistake in drafting this section. But, they add, the intent of Congress is clear: subsidies should be available in federal as well as state exchanges.
LePage calls Obamacare an expensive stripping away of freedom, says IRS is ‘new Gestapo’
Posted July 07, 2012, at 1:02 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage used his weekly radio address Saturday to further his long-running criticisms of the federal Affordable Care Act and explain why he is delaying its implementation in Maine.
Democrats, in their radio address last week, called the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the law “an incredible victory for Maine people.”
LePage said the measure, which he called Obamacare, “raises taxes, cuts Medicare for the elderly, gets between patients and their doctors, costs trillions of taxpayer dollars and kills jobs.” LePage also took a shot at the individual mandate part of the law, which requires everyone to purchase health insurance or face penalties, by calling the Internal Revenue Service “the new Gestapo.”
LePage said his administration would resist implementing the Affordable Care Act, particularly an expansion of Medicaid, because of debt Maine already has on the books — including $500 million due to the state’s hospitals — and what he characterized as a welfare program that is already too generous.
“Our welfare costs are among the highest in the nation as a result of some of the lowest eligibility requirements. Maine has increased its spending by more than a billion dollars during the last decade because of expanded welfare programs,” said LePage, according to a written version of his remarks. “We cannot afford our current programs, so to require Maine to expand coverage even more is fiscally irresponsible.”
LePage continued that the law, which was upheld last week by a U.S. Supreme Court decision, contains uncertainties, such as how new eligibility requirements will work and how federal matches to state investments and a national health care exchange will be funded.
In a Democratic radio address last week, Rep. Linda Sanborn, D-Gorham, who is a retired family physician, characterized the Affordable Care Act much differently.
Plan for health law
Posted July 05, 2012, at 3:36 p.m.
With the long-awaited U.S. Supreme Court decision on the federal health care law behind us, Maine should resume laying the groundwork for the next step required under the law: health insurance exchanges.
That, however, will require Gov. Paul LePage to put aside his aversion to the new law and make sure Maine is ready to meet important deadlines.
The exchanges could provide a free-market solution to health care affordability in Maine.
To be clear, Maine has a relatively low percentage of uninsured residents, about 14 percent of those between 19 and 64 in 2010, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In Texas, the rate for the same age bracket is 33 percent, while the U.S. average is 22 percent.
Still, in Maine, that leaves well over 100,000 people between 19 and 64 without health insurance.
Research shows that people without health insurance are 40 percent more likely to die than those who have it. They wait longer to receive care, and medical problems are more oftn detected when they are difficult or impossible to successfully treat.
Even when life-threatening problems are detected, those without health insurance are more likely to receive spotty or inconsistent care.
GOP To Make 31st Attempt To Repeal Obamacare Act
The House Rules Committee takes up a bill Monday called the "Repeal of Obamacare Act." And just like it says, the bill would wipe away the president's Affordable Care Act. A vote of the full House is planned for Wednesday.
It's the first legislative response from House Republicans after the Supreme Court upheld the law. But it is far from the first time the GOP has voted for repeal.
Over the past 18 months, the House has taken 30 floor votes to try to repeal, defund or dismantle the health care law. The first attempt came on Jan. 19, 2011 just two weeks after the GOP took control of the House.
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/09/156474493/gop-to-make-31st-attempt-to-repeal-obamacare-act?ft=1&f=1001
This documentary film about health care looks at the crisis from the perspective of ordinary people. It asks if they believe health care is a human right and if they support a single-payer, national health care system. It's also an unapologetic takedown of President Obama's fundamentally flawed health care legislation, the PPACA. The filmmakers argue that a mass movement must be built to abolish the for-profit health insurance industry. We document the fight in 2009 for single-payer that the mainstream media ignored.
WellPoint to Acquire Amerigroup for $4.9 Billion
By BEN PROTESSWellPoint, one of the country's largest health insurers, has agreed to buy Amerigroup in a bid to bolster its Medicaid business as the industry undergoes an overhaul.
The company said the transaction, which is expected to close early next year, is valued at about $4.9 billion. Under the deal, WellPoint will pay $92 a share in cash for all outstanding shares of Amerigroup, roughly a 43 percent premium over the company's previous closing price of $64.34.
The deal will give the combined company's Medicaid business a presence in 19 states, according to a news release announcing the acquisition.
The move comes as the insurance industry, and Medicaid, face significant changes under the Obama administration's health care reform plan.
'Affordable' Care Act? Not so much for Sacramento
Obama's healthcare overhaul is one more costly program for a red-ink state.
George Skelton
Capitol Journal
July 9, 2012
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In Washington, it's called the Affordable Care Act. In Sacramento, it could be become known as another budget buster.
Obamacare — as it's pugnaciously tagged by the political right — may not be affordable at all for California state government.
Soon after the federal healthcare act was passed by Congress in 2010, the Schwarzenegger administration in Sacramento calculated a state price tag of up to $2.65 billion annually.
The Brown administration has torn up that price tag, but doesn't have a new one. They're working on it, "trying to be much more precise," says Len Finocchio, associate director of the Department of Health Care Services.
Good luck on that. As Sacramento consistently demonstrates, being precise on government spending projections is virtually impossible.
Maine delegation blasts lack of fraud-cutting cooperation by Medicaid, Medicare
Posted July 08, 2012, at 2:50 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — More than 90,000 Mainers qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare, but the two federal programs are not sharing the data needed to make sure individuals are getting all the services they should and to reduce fraud and errors in the programs.
“This is a perfect example of what makes people frustrated about Washington,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “Here we have two federally funded programs that are not communicating and it is costing the taxpayers.”
Medicaid covers about 60 million low-income Americans in partnership with the states and costs $400 billion a year. Medicare provides health care for seniors and costs more than $470 billion a year. There are many poor seniors and disabled people who are called “dual eligibles” because they qualify for benefits from both programs.
“Information about providers who have ripped off the system is not being shared,” Collins said. “This is just not acceptable and has to change.”
Collins said fraud and improper payments in both systems is a serious problem and costs taxpayers billions of dollars. Improper payments alone cost $22 billion for the federal share last year in the Medicaid program and for Medicare the tab was $43 billion.
“We don’t want a silo approach to addressing fraud and abuse,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. “This is far too serious a problem.”
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