The Grinch Who Stole Healthcare Reform?
Posted December 18th, 2009 by Donna NortonWill one of your Senators be the Grinch Who Stole Healthcare Reform?
The vote in the Senate is going to be incredibly close and the loss or gain of just one or two Senators could make or break this historic chance to finally start fixing our broken healthcare system. We are now just days away from a crucial vote in the Senate and we need to make sure the voices of moms and families are heard that we cannot afford to wait for healthcare reform.
Send a letter to your Senators now telling them to get health reform done and ensure it is a win for all kids: http://action.momsrising.org/cms/letter/action_964/
Is the Senate healthcare bill perfect? No. But is it the best shot we’ve seen in our lifetimes to finally start fixing our broken healthcare system that leaves 46 million people in America without health insurance and so many others insured only until they actually get sick? YES!
How will the bill being considered by the Senate right now improve our current healthcare system? It will:
* Make it illegal for insurers to deny us coverage because we have a pre-existing condition or charge us more because we are women.
* Create new insurance exchanges so that if you are currently uninsured, you lose your job, or have a small business that struggles to find affordable healthcare coverage, you can finally buy affordable, comprehensive insurance at group rates.
* Provide subsidies to help working families buy health insurance.
* Allow you to keep your current health insurance and doctors if you like them.
This week, as many of us are addressing holiday cards, wrapping presents, baking cookies, and attending holiday school concerts, let’s each take a second right now to make sure our Senators don’t become the Grinch Who Stole Healthcare Reform. Making sure everyone in America has access to affordable health insurance that they can count on is the greatest gift we can give our children and families this holiday season.
Tell your Senators to get health reform done and ensure it is a win for all kids: http://action.momsrising.org/cms/letter/action_964/
And please pass this message on to your friends and family today because we are going to need everyone’s support to finally achieve health reform.
Thank you for all your work on this incredible fight for our children’s and our nation’s future!
– Donna, Julia, Anita, Ashley, Kristin, Molly and the whole MomsRising team
P.S. Need another reason to support healthcare reform? According to a report released today by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, healthcare reform would directly help families by lowering the amount we spend in healthcare coverage. An average family plan from an employer now costs $13,375 per year, more than double the premium in 2000. Health reform would help drive down premiums and limit the out-of-pocket expenses that can eat into a family’s budget. Check out the report for more details on how health reform will reduce costs for families here: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/families/index.html
17 Comments
December 20, 2009 at 8:32 pm by suburbangranolaAnd say goodbye to our parental rights (and some) if it does pass. Do yourself a favor Momsrising and DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!
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Donna Norton Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
@suburbangranola,
What is your concern about parental rights? Thanks! Donna
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STOP this bill. The bill, as written, is too terribly flawed to be fixed. As a registered nurse and student nurse practitioner, I’ve reviewed the bill in detail, as well as done in-depth studies of successful health care systems in the top-performing nations.
This bill forces people to purchase high-cost insurance plans from profiteers. It provides for no competition, and there is not only no provision for bringing the current costs in line with those of countries with better patient outcomes, but it also has no way to prevent health insurance companies from continuously increasing costs. Under the current bill, people with pre-existing conditions can be charged three times more for a policy – and we already pay three to six times more than residents of countries with singe-payer or mixed (private plus public) systems – and for what? For lower life expectancy, worse health, and worse treatment outcomes.
Finally, this bill restricts women’s right to choose what to do with their own bodies, injecting one religion’s beliefs on the entire citizenry. The American Taliban at work, again.
I’m sick of hearing that Congress couldn’t do any better than this giveaway to big business. I’m sick of a president who wimps out and gives in before the battle has even been joined.
I’m just hoping that some Senators with more humane viewpoints, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, will stop this piece of trash before it becomes law.
I’m shocked that momsrising would even think of advocating for this piece of junk.
Every point that is touted as “good” – such as the claim that so many more people will be insured – is a lie. Yeah, they COULD be insured, if they are willing to pay more than they could afford, for a second-rate policy, with the goal being not health care but lining the pockets of the privateers.
Profit has no place in health care. I’m ashamed to live in a country where people think that it does.
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Anonymous Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
@Darcie DiBasio,
I hear your frustration and you are right that this bill represents many compromises and is not our perfect bill. However, I believe it does represent a huge improvement over where we are today.
Without regulation, right now insurance companies are denying insurance to those with pre-existing conditions and charging three times more. This bill would rein in abusive practices for insurers. For example:
Some of the new rules (which are stronger in the new bill than in the old Senate bill) include medical loss ratios (a requirement that a high percentage of premium dollars must be spent on health care and not on profits), rate review, and reinsurance. The new bill requires that in the individual market the medical loss ratio must be at least 80 percent. In most states, there are not any MLR requirements. It is not unusual to see plans in the individual market that only spend 60 percent (and even in a few cases 40 percent) of premiums on health care related expenses.
You seem to be advocating a single payer system, which for better or worse, is not going to be adopted by Congress right now, given the difficulties of even getting a modest public option into the bill. The question then is whether this bill represents an important first step in fixing our broken health care system. Flawed, though it is, we think it does and that the next step is to pass the bill in the Senate so we can continue to advocate for improvements in the Senate.
Thank you for your voice on behalf of families. We appreciate your contributions to the debate.
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Donna Norton Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 12:11 pm
@, Darcie, the above comment was from me, Donna at MomsRising. Somehow it didn’t register my name. Thanks, Donna
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Our family is not well to do. Every month, it seems we are scraping to get by. We don’t live above our means. We have a modest home and two family cars. One of which we worked hard to pay off. We make just above 88k. According to the Health Reform bill, our yearly insurance premiums will INCREASE to $9,700.00, plus a $10,000 yearly premium. That’s almost $20,000 per year on Health insurance.
And if we don’t buy it, we get fined. What’s wrong with this picture?
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Donna Norton Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 12:10 pm
@Theresa, Under reform, you’ll be able to keep the coverage that you have if you like it. If you receive coverage through your job, for example, this coverage can continue. The same goes for purchasing coverage on your own through the individual market. If you like your coverage, you can keep it. Your cost sharing and premiums will not be directly affected by the legislation. The exchange merely creates new options for coverage for folks who don’t currently have access to employer-based coverage and for small businesses, and may open to larger businesses as time goes by. If you would like to talk to someone more about your specific situation, let me know. Thanks!
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Stop this bad bill! I have been a strong supporter of health care reform. However, without a public option this bill will not drive down health care costs. Furthermore, Americans will be forced to buy health care coverage from the same unethical mega-insurance companies that got us into this mess. I have already communicated with my Senators and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. I urged all of them to vote NO on this bill unless it is modified to include a public option. In its current form, this is not reform, but a big fat giveaway to big insurance. Visit the TrueMajority.org ; MoveOn.org ; or DemocracyForAmerica.com for more information on the perversion of this health care bill.
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Donna Norton Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
@Leslie,
Reasonable people can differ on this point and MomsRising has advocated for a strong public option, but the fact is that the current Senate health care bill, flawed though it is, is estimated to cover tens of millions of currently uninsured Americans and stop the practice of denying people healthcare coverage when they have pre-existing conditions.
We have had too many members write in with their personal stories of need to sneeze at this accomplishment. It’s an important start to fixing our health care reform and a huge advance over where we are today.
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Anonymous Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 12:06 am
@Donna Norton,
The people who could get “covered” (or pay a fine if they don’t) will have to pay outrageous premiums to do so – and it all goes into the pockets of the privateers who contribute NOTHING to health care services. The part about not being about to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions – true! – but with a rather large elephant in the room: the privateers can double or triple the cost of the premium if you have a pre-existing condition. Nasty little detail that isn’t getting a lot of press, eh?
This bill is actually worse than nothing.
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Donna Norton Reply:
December 20th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
@, Just double checked on this with our policy partners at Families USA who have been tracking this bill closely. This is what they say,
“That’s just simply not true. That’s exactly what health insurers do now, and exactly what health reform will prevent from happening. Yes, it’s true that insurers will get paid to cover all of those newly insured people, but we don’t yet know how much the premium will be for those plans, so it’s a little premature to say it will be outrageous. And in exchange, those insurers will have lots of new rules to protect consumers and stop abuses.
This healthcare bill may actually hurt moms more than it could ever help. Criminalizing and financially penalizing those who do not obtain healthcare is only one of the sections included in this abomination parading as healthcare reform. No thank you.
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Donna Norton Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 12:13 pm
@Melissa, There is a hardship exemption for those who really can’t afford to buy health insurance and subsidies to help low and middle income families to buy it. The issue now is making sure that those subsidies are adequate in the final bill. Thanks for writing. Donna
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David Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Donna, it’s been difficult for me to push my way through the many catch phrases being thrown around about this bill in order to find answers to specific questions that I have. For instance, you quoted Families USA above as saying “Yes, it’s true that insurers will get paid to cover all of those newly insured people, but we don’t yet know how much the premium will be for those plans”, but I find this a bit confusing. If we don’t know how much the premiums will be for people with pre-existing conditions, how can we say that this bill is an improvement? The insurance companies currently don’t provided insurance for people with certain types of pre-existing conditions because they present too large of a risk. The entire basis of insurance is that one pays a higher premium when one provides a higher risk of making a claim. Based on this logic, people with pre-existing conditions will have to pay higher premiums, right? And if they have many high risk pre-existing conditions their premiums will be exorbitantly high but they will be forced to purchase insurance even if they have previously decided against it based on the cost. For some reason I have not heard this question addressed anywhere, and I cannot be for or against this bill without answers to these questions. I have many more questions that I have been unable to find answers for, and am unsure of where to turn. Do you have any advice about this? I need answers to specific questions, not generalizations in order to have an informed opinion. Thanks.
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Wow! I can’t believe how ill informed and naive MomsRising is about this issue. Do you really believe the rhetoric? The devil is in the details. Let’s hope the Senators aren’t the Grinch who stole our hard-earned tax dollars while exempting themselves from the massive overhaul of the health care system. We need reform but not this!
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December 18, 2009 at 6:56 pm by Sheryl CurtisI sincerely hope the Grinch does show up and the Health Reform does NOT get passed. They are shoving it down our throats, with absolutely no thoughts on how this is going to effect our children’s future. Get the economy and the debt in line, then fix health care. P. Obama is a socialist from his socks up, and I have now unsubscribed to this web site.
You want health care, get a job.
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Anita Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Many working mothers don’t get benefits through their employers. Senator Patty Murray addresses this in her video to MomsRising members/blog readers here: http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorPattyMurray#p/u/0/yUZkxj-Joa8
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