We Can't Wait - Today's Number - "625"

[quiet.american]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/by-the-numbers?utm_source=numbers625&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=healthreform"> Health Reform By The Numbers



625 – That’s the number of people who lost their health insurance EVERY HOUR in 2009

From Health Reform By the Numbers
http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/by-the-numbers?utm_source=numbers625&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=healthreform

Losing insurance – it can happen to anyone. We’ve all heard stories – maybe you know someone who’s recently lost their insurance, maybe that someone is you. President Obama has heard those stories too:

There's the father I met in Colorado whose child was diagnosed with severe hemophilia the day after he was born. Now, they had insurance, but there was a cap on their coverage. So once the child's medical bills began to pile up, the father was left to frantically search for another option, or face tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills. Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because, they said, she forgot to declare a case of acne -- true story. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer had more than doubled in size. Small business people -- I got a letter just this week from a small businessman. He said, "I don't know what to do. I've always provided health insurance for my families, but here, the attached bill, shows that the premiums have gone up 48 percent in the last year, and I think that I'm probably going to have to stop providing health insurance for my employees. I don't want to, but I don't have a choice."

These stories are wrong. They are heartbreaking. Nobody should be treated that way in the United States of America…

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There's also a video accompanying this story at the link. When I read stories like these, I can't believe that some still insist that providing financial assistance and consumer protection to people like the above would actually place a burden on them.

The only thing I wish they would also add to this series is specifically how HCR would help the people in this story. Reading over this, I can see that for the little boy with hemophilia, HCR would remove the cap on coverage, cap out-of-pocket expenses, plus prohibit the insurance company from dropping coverage.

For the woman who was dropped before her mastectomy, HCR would provide free mammograms as part of its free preventive care requirement; it would prevent her insurance company from declaring she had a "pre-existing condition," it would prohibit her insurance company from dropping her coverage, prevent them from capping her coverage, and would also limit her out-of-pocket expenses.

For the small business owner, HCR would allow him to shop from the Exchange for insurance for his employees, and he would receive tax credits to help cover them.

(Yes, I know. I'm way too much into this.) :)

[Cha]

1. Wow! The numbers make

it more real, don't they?

[quiet.american]

2. Indeed. I can't wait until we see this number: "216."

"216": the number of votes by which the House passed the Senate bill.

Next up: "51." :)

[Cha]

3. Gotta to keep this going..

So many special interest agendas against it!

[quiet.american]

4. Tell me about it. Speaking of which, today's question for Kucinich:

Since the Senate bill allows individual states to pursue their own single-payer programs, why is he still hellbent on voting against the bill?

Steve Benen at his blog posted a good column from Ezra Klein on this:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/the_state-based_single_payer_s.html
http://washingtonmonthly.com

The state-based single payer strategy

"Quite frankly," Sen. Bernie Sanders said today, "we don't have the votes for single payer." That's not much of a surprise, but Sanders did outline another strategy for single payer that some liberals might want to think about. "Right now," he explained, "we have language in the bill that says that states that want to go forward with single payer can do that." He's talking about the Waiver for State Innovation, which allows states to go their own way if they have a plan that will achieve the goals of the bill at a lower cost. You could imagine a state -- say, California, where the legislature has passed single-payer bills before only to see them vetoed by the governor -- using that provision to implement a single-payer system.

Sanders thought this the best strategy going forward. "I believe the way we move to single payer in this country is to let one state like California go first," he said. And before some of my conservative readers decide this is a liberal trapdoor in the middle of the bill, the provision could be used to develop a much more conservative approach to universal health care. In fact, it's a legislative expression of the GOP's third plank for health-care reform: "Give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health-care costs."

The health-care reform bill will create a basic, near-universal system across the country. If individual states think they can do better, they're welcome to try. And if they succeed, you could imagine those reforms spreading quickly to other states, too.

[Cha]

5. Oh I don't know...? Purist

grandstanding?

Thanks for the info this..we'll get it all done without the ilk of the dennis.

[quiet.american]

6. Hello! And that's a shame. I should have seen it coming, but I didn't expect him to turn on Dems.

I haven't caught much of him, but from what I've seen during Obama's tenure, I haven't seen him say one positive thing about Obama or Dems. I've just seen him glowering and shouting from the House floor or grim and bitter-looking on the talking head shows. Has it come to the point where he hates the Democratic Party? That wouldn't be much of a leap to make at this point.

[Cha]

7. dennis didn't even want to reprimand

joe wilson for saying "You Lie" to the Pres during the Address to Congress. Oh, he said it was a waste time..bullcrap.

Just a jealous little man.

[quiet.american]

8. I didn't know that! Well... that ties it (as the saying goes.) nt

[goclark]

9. K

[Lindsey]

10. For the life of me I can't understand why our citizens don't wnat this

to happen. What in the hell is wrong with people?????????????????????