Health Care Reform: Historic Legislation
Members of Congress are rarely presented with an opportunity to support the passage of truly historic legislation. Today was such a day, and H.R. 3692, Affordable Health Care for America Act, such an opportunity. Against an organized, scorched earth campaign of misinformation and fear mongering, we passed a strong bill, and an even stronger sense of unity and purpose in our fight to bring access, affordability, and high quality health care to every person in America.
As Chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, I am particularly encouraged by the inclusion of legislative language addressing racial and ethnic health disparities and the inclusion of the U.S. Territories in the health care exchange. I am proud of the impact we have had in making changes that will directly help the poorest and most disadvantaged communities across this nation. Finally, I thank fellow CAPAC member Rep Cao (R-LA) for his courageous bipartisanship support, in great service to his constituents.
As representative of California's 15th district, HR 3692 improves employer-based coverage for 500,000 residents, allow 16,700 small businesses to obtain affordable health care coverage and provide coverage for 28,000 uninsured residents. The bill reduces the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers by $205 million, protects the seniors in my district from the doughnut hole, and improves the quality of their Medicare coverage.
In the words of Hubert Humphrey, 'The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.' Today, we passed that test."
The Affordable Health Care for America Act passed today covers 96% of Americans and guarantees stability, lower costs, higher quality, and a greater choice of plans for all Americans.
If you have insurance, this bill:
Keeps your insurance company from denying you care or coverage -- or charging you more -- because of diabetes, heart disease or any other "pre-existing condition."
Gives you peace of mind that you won't lose coverage if you lose your job, move, or change jobs.
Prevents insurance companies from dropping you because you get "too sick."
Covers preventive care with no co-pays or deductibles.
Limits out-of-pocket expenses your insurance company can make you pay.
If you don't have insurance, this bill:
Lets you comparison shop for a quality, affordable health plan through a new health insurance exchange or marketplace.
Offers you low group rates even for individual coverage.
Helps lower your premiums with affordability credits for those who need help paying.
Prevents any insurance company from denying you coverage for heart disease, diabetes or another "pre-existing condition."
Extends coverage for young Americans, allowing them to stay on their parents' health insurance plans up to their 27th birthday if they choose.
Includes a public health insurance option to compete on a level playing field with private insurers.
For our seniors, this bill:
Strengthens Medicare, extending its solvency for years to come.
Improves access to your doctor.
Lowers Medicare drug prices by beginning to close the coverage gap or "donut hole" immediately.
Reduces inefficiencies and program costs to help Medicare remain solvent without cutting benefits.
Improves coordination and increases the quality of care for seniors with diabetes, high blood pressure, and other chronic conditions.
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One of the main reasons for the health care crisis in the USA is because of the ENTITLEMENTS of health care insurance companies to pimp off of health care professionals and in the process, gaining obscene profits for themselves while accepting premiums from policyholders until they become sick and coming up with bogus pre-existing conditions to cancel their policies. The government would be able to serve the same function much less expensively and much more appropriately.
Yeah, those 3% profits are really obscene.
Sorry, but, this bill is not 'historic', and I'm with Kucinich.....,
Nobody should be proud of this bill supported by reactionary religious fanatics which denies women their reproductive rights. When we are finally living in a full-blown theocracy people will ask where were the democrats and we can say they were with the catholic church.
The health insurance companies have been pimping off of health care professionals long enough. They need to be nationalized and their corporate mission changed to one of providing funds for health care instead of NOT providing health care. The CEOs and top management can keep their ill-gotten gains. They can even keep their jobs but their mission would no longer be to generate obscene profits for themselves at the expense of the patients. The should not be entitled to continue to exploit health care for their own greedy benefit. That is one entitlement that we can do without.
IF YOU THINK THE HOUSE BILL IS BAD, WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE WHAT THE SENATE BILL WILL LOOK LIKE. THEN WATCH IT GET EVEN WORSE WHEN THEY GO TO CONFERENCE.
If we are lucky NOTHING will pass, and we can start over again with a sane discussion in Congress of single payer!
I think we are witnessing the impending death of the Democratic Party. When the public digests how bad this bill will be for them, they will revolt in ways that we have not seen in modern history. If progressives want to make change, they need to organize NOW to wage aggressive campaigns in every blue-dog district in the country to defeat these fools by either providing primary challenges or running independent progressive 3rd parties. If by doing this, Republicans win in those districts, so be it.
This bill should really be called the "Health Insurance Corporation Preservation Act." It monumentalizes the rapacious health insurance companies as national public welfare institututions. It is historic, all right, just as the holocaust was historic. People will continue to die because a number of us won't be able to afford the raised rates the new national plan will give us, thanks to insurance companies seeing us as captive consumers.
This is indeed a historic legislation. I have been waiting for this since Hilary Clinton worked so hard on getting every American health care but some of course were dead set against it and now it has passed that keeps any insurance company from dropping you or charging you more. I am so relieved!
Evelyn Guzman
http://www.free-symptoms-of-diabetes-alert.com (If you want to visit, just click but if it doesn’t work, copy and paste it onto your browser.)
"Historic"? Well, yes in light of the fierce opposition. But it is just another indication of the sorry state of America.
The issue is really simple. The U.S. spends over 16% of GDP no health care while other developed countries have universal care with less bureaucracy and more certainty for about 10%. This is not only unfair but a tremendous competitive disadvantage for American industry. And it is a national security issue. A country needs a healthy, educated population. (We're not good at education these days either.)
Changes that don't get us to the 10% level are not real "reform".
The way to do it is Medicare for All - a system as simple as possible that can negotiate drug prices, and focus on treatment that works instead of profits. A strong public option available immediately to all is second best. There is no third best.
Medicare for All signed into law.
Now THAT would have been historic.
The only thing that will be historic about this bill, is how lame it was in a year when 60 to 70% of voters, and 70 to 77% of doctors would have preferred single payer.
Historic, indeed. Passage of this bill makes it clear at last that it's corporate donors, not the voters, who run the U.S. government. We have clearly passed from Democracy (if we ever had it) to Oligarchy.
Clear majorities of voters and physicians want single payer. So do many social, business, labor and religious groups, and 100% of the US Conference of Mayors.
But the healthcos - the corporate donors - want single payer kept "off the table", because it threatens their very existence. And especially because it would clearly win any debate, since it saves trillions of dollars and covers everyone.
So, it's been pushed aside, by Congress, by the Administration and by the media. Not just DESPITE the fact that it is the best choice for voters, but BECAUSE it is. .
If you have insurance, this bill will increase its cost.
If you don;t have insurance, you will be mandated to buy it or pay a fine.
If you pay taxes, this bill will increase your taxes.
If you are on Medicare, this bill cuts Medicare funding by $500 billion.
If you are a health insurance company, this bill
Increases the number of your customers, by forcing everyone to buy [nsurance;
Transfers money directly to you from the public till, for subsidy payments;
Enables you to increase the price of health insurance by marking up and passing on cost increases due to new restrictions on treatment denials.
For the healthcos, great. For citizens, not so good.
I am sorry be why is heath care a right not privilege, it seems that if you can pay more you should get better health care.
Health care is a human right because the value of human life should not be measured by how much money you have. If you believe in the idea of humane behavior as part of civilized life, you would believe that all persons have a right to live with quality of life. If you are Christian, you would believe that attending to the sick is something Jesus commanded us to do. Hospitals were originally created by Christians to carry out the mission from Jesus to attend to and comfort the sick. Now, hospitals have largely lost that mission and see themselves as profit centers.
In our country, money and property have priority over the Constitution's desire to "promote the general welfare." We have to right-size our priorities to put people first again. When people are first again, human rights, including the right to health care, will become important to us.
What we have is health-insurance reform and not health-care reform. The politicians just hijacked the debate on true reform, replacing it with slogans. In fairness, the politicians main contribution is they have expanded access to healthcare insurance from about 85% to about 97% of Americans and that has been good.
Faster the politicians pass this bill, quicker healthcare professionals can take over the process. And introduce true reform that will reduce the cost and increase quality of care; while eliminating over-use, under-use and inappropriate-use of medical resources.
Are the bright minds ready? They could start by reducing the high cost of healthcare in east-coast states; where healthcare costs are nearly twice that in the mid-west. Let's stop blaming the politicians; and hold healthcare insurers and providers accountable.
Historic, indeed Now it is perfectly clear that Washington does what donors want, not what voters want.
Voters want single payer. But the healthcos - the corporate donors - want single payer kept "off the table", because it threatens their very existence and because it would win every debate. Healthcos want what the House gave them last night: more customers, a permanent tap into the public till, and higher insurance prices. In short, guaranteed higher revenues and profits.
Never mind that millions will continue uncovered, that medical bankruptcies will continue, that Medicare will be cut by $500 billion, that the total national healthcare bill will increase greatly rather than decrease as it would under single payer, or that trillions of dollars will be wasted on the healthcos.
We no longer have a democracy, if we ever did. What last night's vote shows is that we have made the transition to oligarchy. What healthcos want, healthcos get.
My sentiments exactly except that it has been apparent for some 25 years or so that Congress has become more and more the enemy of the People!
I suppose it is "historic" in the sense that seldom in our history have so few sold out so many for so little.
Best comment of the day!
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