On HCR, better to do nothing than pass the Senate Bill:

[CreekDog]

"Maybe Raul Grijalva or Barney Frank or Anthony Weiner or Jerry Nadler have wrestled with this problem and I haven't seen it. Have you seen anything from them about this?

My story: My father is dying of Huntington's disease. Before he dies in 8 to 10 years, he will need anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and drugs that fight dementia and his tremors and convulsions. He'll need multiple brain scans and physical therapy sessions.

Current medical treatments can't save him, but they will give him a few more years before the slow death strips him of his memories, personality and control of his body.

There's a 50 percent chance the same slow motion death awaits me and each of my three siblings. If I ever lose my job I'll become uninsurable, permanently. My sister already lost her insurance.

That means whatever treatment is developed for Huntington's will be unavailable to us. There's simply no way we could afford it. Not only high tech gene therapies or other interventions, but the medications and treatments that exist now that would buy us enough time to see our kids' graduations or weddings, and would give them hope of not suffering their grandfather's fate.

There's a bill that would mean we'd never be rejected for health insurance or have it canceled. Health insurance that could ease our final years, or maybe even save us.

But liberals are refusing to support it. I know there are principles and politics at stake. I know people are tired of being told to shut up and take what's given to them. But in the end, there a thousands of people with Huntington's and millions of people with other serious or terminal illnesses who will never benefit from treatment because they are uninsured. Millions more who are otherwise healthy will die premature or unnecessary deaths because basic health care isn't affordable.

What do liberal leaders say to them? What do those liberals tell people like my dad, a die-hard activist Democrat, a UAW member who worked his way through college to become a teacher?

I'm used to Republicans and conservatives not giving a damn about people like us, or mocking us for asking questions like this. That's why my father spent so much of his life fighting to keep Democrats in power. But to be abandoned by people my father worked with and supported his entire life? What in the bill is so terrible to justify that?

This isn't about betrayal, or a slap in the face, or an insult. It isn't about strategies to keep seats, or grand theories of justice. Democrats in Congress have the chance to cast a single vote that will make the lives of tens of millions of Americans less wrenching, our demises less brutal. That's what this is about.

I'd like to hear Reps. Grijalva, Frank, Weiner or Nadler tell us why they can't cast that vote.

If you're still with me, thanks for reading and all the hard work you do, and keep fighting the good fight. "








http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/01/one_readers_sob-story.php#more?ref=fpblg

[OHdem10]

1. The Mass. Election results saved the Democrats. Let us hope they

get enough wisdom to recognize this. The Senate Bill is toxic.
Trying to reform Medicare under the guise of HCIR Reform
was fatal.

[CreekDog]

2. Thanks for not reading the post

and for not even skimming it.

makes your argument much weaker! :rofl:

[Nite Owl]

3. The Senate Bill may not be of much

help unless they have lots of money. The liberals in the house are only trying to make it better.

[CreekDog]

4. Doing nothing will be better, right?

Have you noticed the longer we work on this the worse it gets?

Expect it to get better going forward? Even in reconciliation, I don't, because I've been watching.

[Nite Owl]

5. Leave it to the states

give them an infusion of money. In NY we have community rating and can't be rejected if you have held insurance during the past six months(then there is a waiting period with an exclusion). It's community rated so all pay the same. I'm not ready to give that up to pay 300% more and high deductibles on top of that. The costs to us in the Senate bill are outrageous, it's a sham--here's your mandated insurance but don't dare use it or you'll end up bankrupt. We need to fight for better and as far as nothing going to happen it is a lot worse out there now than it was in '94 and they have to do something or kiss their seats goodbye.

[CreekDog]

6. 5,000 out of pocket is more bankrupting than 100,000???

i'm just wondering.

[Nite Owl]

7. Plus 300% more in premiums

Choose your poison. If you don't have it you don't have it either way. It is possible to fix there things if they would stop worrying about the bottom line of the insurance industry and worry about the people's needs.

[CreekDog]

8. Again 5,000 against 100,000+ is a hard decision for you?

Really?

I'm talking about passing the Senate Bill or not.

There's no point in arguing with me over single payer or anything like that, I want those systems --but those aren't on the table right now, the Senate Bill is and I'm taking it because nothing better is going to happen without some institutional change or some game change to the system.

Two things could do that:

1) a massive electoral shift in single payer's favor now --not seeing that.

2) getting everybody into the system through this bill and having them clamor later to make it better (public option, medicare instead, etc.) they'll already be paying, it will be easy enough to take that money stream and divert it into Medicare or somewhere else single payer.

but doing nothing right now? that does NOTHING.

[Nite Owl]

11. More than 5k!

I can empathize with the person in the article as I have several pre-existing conditions as does my youngest son. We are MUCH better off the way it is now. The Senate bill would absolutely break us. I'm not alone in this from what I hear from friends and neighbors. I don't know anyone who actually wants this bill. Not a single person.

[CreekDog]

12. not if any of you get sick

if you get hit with 50,000 in medical expenses you are not better off should you lose your insurance.

[bornskeptic]

13. The bill would not break anyone.

No person or family would be subject to the mandate who could not obtain qualified coverage for 8% or less of their annual income. Furthermore the Senate bill allows absolutely no discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, unless you want to call age a pre-existing condition. In insurer may charge a 60-year-old three times as much as a 24-year-old, and that is 200% more, not 300% more. Unlike you folks who make all these wild claims opposing the bill, I'm prepared to back up any claims I make. The following is from Section2704 of the bill as passed:

PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATORY PREMIUM
RATES.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—With respect to the premium
rate charged by a health insurance issuer for health
insurance coverage offered in the individual or small
group market—
(A) such rate shall vary with respect to the
particular plan or coverage involved only by—
(i) whether such plan or coverage covers
an individual or family;
(ii) rating area, as established in accordance with paragraph (2);
(iii) age, except that such rate shall
not vary by more than 3 to 1 for adults
(consistent with section 2707(c)); and
(iv) tobacco use, except that such rate
shall not vary by more than 1.5 to 1;

http://democrats.senate.gov/reform/patient-protection-affordable-care-act-as-passed.pdf

[flpoljunkie]

9. Pass. the. damn. bill! Then fix it in Senate in reconciliation. You were almost there a week ago!

Dems, if you let it die, you are dead in November!

[dgibby]

10. They're damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Now that corporations control the country, we'll probably be a one party country, and it won't be the Democratic party.