Healthcare Reform « Silver Buzz Cafe

Hypocrisy Rules The Right

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s article about how the oil billionaire Koch brothers are astroturfing the Tea Party comes the news of their hypocritical approach to business. We also list the many hypocritical Republicans who slammed and voted against the Recovery Act but have then supported applications for funds from it, or taken credit for obtaining them. [...]

It’s Started – How a Huge Corporation Is Buying Our Government

In a recent series we wrote about the legal ways that individuals, organizations and corporations can influence our lawmakers, particularly those in Washington, DC. We’ve also commented on a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations to be legally treated as individuals when it comes to spending money on political campaigning. It even opens the doors for foreign companies to become more deeply involved in our internal affairs. We thought that the first signs would be increased spending on electioneering during the midterms, but there’s now much more ominous proof of the dangers that critics of the Supreme Court ruling foresaw. [...]

More States Look At Their Own Public Option

One of the most hotly debated aspects of last year’s health care reform debate was the attempt to include a government administered alternative to private health care insurance. One of the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) makes it possible for a state to obtain a Federal waiver and implement its own health care approach without an act of Congress. The author of that section of PPACA is now pushing for Oregon to obtain a waiver and set up its own health care insurance scheme. [...]

GOP Spreads Lies While More Medicare Part D Checks Are Mailed

The Department of Health and Human Services has mailed out a third round of $250 checks to help seniors who enter the Medicare Part D coverage pay gap (the “Doughnut Hole”) for prescription drugs. Meanwhile, the GOP wants to roll back the health care reform benefits and privatize Medicare and Social Security. [...]

Draft Bill Focuses On Medicare Fraud

The government estimates that around 20% of Medicare claims are fraudulent. If true, that amounts to around $75 billion of wastage within the system every year. One of the aims of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) during the formulation of the recent health care reform bills was to focus on the problem and reduce Medicare fraud to help pay for new provisions. A draft bill aimed at addressing the problem, H.R.5044 – “Medicare Fraud Enforcement and Prevention Act of 2010″, was introduced on April 15th. but it received little attention in the wake of the bigger bills. [...]

Are The GOP Leaders Mentally Ill?

Key GOP leaders bowed to pressure from the ultra-conservative Club for Growth this week and pledged to work to repeal the recent health care reform bills. If you look at the list of benefits that click in this year alone, it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to repeal them.

The Republicans [...]

Health Reform Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan Clicks In

The health care reform legislation signed into law on March 23 does not prohibit the health insurance industry from discriminating against the sick until the beginning of 2014. However, as of Thursday July 1, 2010, U.S. citizens who have been uninsured for six months because of pre-existing conditions will be eligible to apply for a new Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS) program called the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP). [...]

US Health Care System Ranks Worst In New Study

Think back to all of those criticisms of socialized health care systems that were buzzing around during the health care reform debate. We also still hear our politicians and media making the provably false claim that the United States has the best health care system in the World. However, when the Commonwealth Fund looked at health care systems in seven industrialized countries the results were interesting. [...]

Beware Of The Donut Hole Scam

On May 27, 2010, the Obama administration announced that, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, four million people who may fall within the Medicare Part D coverage gap (the “donut hole”) will receive a $250 rebate check starting June 15, 2010. The donut hole is the gap between the initial coverage limit and the catastrophic coverage threshold. The good news is that the government has started sending out checks early. The bad news is that scammers are moving in to steal unsuspecting victims’ personal information. [...]

Cutting Medicare Overheads The Painless Way

The General Accounting Office lists Medicare as a “high-risk” government program in need of reform, in part because of its vulnerability to fraud and partly because of its long-term financial problems. Some estimates of the scale of Medicare fraud range as high as $60 billion a year, one seventh of the 2009 federal budget for Medicare! Now there are encouraging signs that new provisions in the health care reform bills could be paying off. [...]

The New Health Care Law and Home-Based Care

The number of Americans over 65 will increase dramatically in the next decade, as around 75 million Baby Boomers reach the retirement age. The new health care reform bills are designed to help Medicaid and Medicare take the strain. There are important new provisions for people who need care at home and for helping seniors age in place. [...]

Health Care Reform Timeline

It’s been a long and arduous haul for the health care reform bill, which was finally passed as two bills: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (HR 3590 and Public Law 111-148), signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010; and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872), passed by both houses on March 25, 2010 and awaiting the President’s signature. Here’s a timeline of significant events in the passage of this bill. [...]

Health Care Reconciliation Bill Passes

It’s done! The House has voted to pass the minor changes made in the Senate.

Tomorrow we’ll look back on a tumultuous debate that will forever characterize the political scene in 2009.

It’s a long way from perfect, but it’s a huge step for the greatest nation on Earth. [...]

Health Care Reform Sends the Tea Party Thugs Crazy

It would be nice to be positive about the Republicans’ role in the health care reform process, but when we look back at the lies and fear mongering that the GOP decided would be their strategy for preventing reform, rather than putting forward viable, constructive ideas, there was a foreseeable outcome – mayhem and violence. The Tea Party, a movement created by an extreme right-winger and the Fox News Republican political campaign channel, has now resorted to violence, mainly directed agains politicians, but also exhibiting a very disturbing, racist and homophobic bias. [...]

Nearly There - Historic Health Care Reform Act Passes

Finally! Well, almost… late on Sunday, March 21, 2010, the House passed the health care reform bill, despite the vigorous and sometimes infuriating or comical opposition of most Republicans and some Democrats. The mechanism that they used, passing the inadequate Senate bill without change, then voting for a reconciliation process, means that there are still many things to be fixed, but many Americans will start seeing benefits straight away. In this article we’ll look at the benefits that click in straight away and the things that remain to be done. [...]

Oceans Away - A New Health Reform Debate Kicks Off

While our lawmakers in Washington act out a seemingly endless trago-comedy based on the nation’s health care system other nations are facing their own health cost challenges. Remember that all other industrialized nations already have socialized health care an dmost of them rank higher than us in the quality and cost of care provided. Last week, Age Concern and Help the Aged held a “health care summit” in the United Kingdom. [...]

The Health Care Hypocrites

Recently we wrote about the hypocrisy of politicians who voted against a bill and then clamored to reap benefits from it, most notable those who voted against the Recovery Act and then turned up at ribbon cutting ceremonies for projects funded by it. Unfortunately, the whole health care reform debate has been clouded by misrepresentations, distortions and outright lies. What’s now emerging is a clear pattern of “What I say and what I’ve done are two different things.” [...]

Medicare Advantage Heading Towards Becoming Medicare Disadvantage

A study by consulting firm Avalere Health LLC. found that premiums for Medicare Advantage plans offering medical and prescription drug coverage has jumped by 14.2 percent on average in 2010, after an increase of only 5.2 percent in 2009. That’s peculiarly close to the 14% that the government claims they overpay the private health insurance companies that administer Medicare Advantage plans each year and that health care reformers want to stop paying them. [...]

Minority Rule

When is a majority not a majority? That’s simple, of course. It’s when you’re talking about the way that the US Senate works. Forty one of the one hundred Senators can block the wishes of the majority under filibuster rules. We did some math on the topic of the reconciliation process in the Senate. We’ve taken a look at the number of voters that would be represented by 51 Democratic Senators. [...]

The Public Option Fiasco

Polls show that voters are overwhelmingly (2:1) in favor of a public option in the health care reform bill. Yet our elected politicians in Washington seem incapable of giving us one. We examine the facts and the current situation and come to a worrying conclusion. [...]

Health Insurers In Three More States Raise Rates

Anthem Blue Cross is trying to raise premiums by as much as 39% for its California customers. Their parent company, Wellpoint Inc., earned profits of $2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009, an increase of 26% over the corresponding quarter the previous year. Questions are beign asked in congress. Now insurers in three other states are trying to raise premiums by 10 to 30 percent. [...]

Wellpoint to Sebelius - We're Hurting!

United States Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to Anthem Blue Cross President Leslie Margolin on February 7 calling on the company to publicly justify its decision to raise premiums by as much as 39% for its California customers. Anthem Blue Cross responded yesterday with a list of talking points that they’d probably already prepared for their lobbyists to use in Washington. They claimed that the increases of up to 39 percent were driven by rising health care costs. Industry critics beg to differ… [...]

Ask Not What Your Insurer Can Do For You...

One of our family members here in California was stunned last week when she received a letter from her health insurer telling her that her monthly premium will go up by almost 40% next month. It’s worth noting that the parent company of the insurer involved, Anthem Blue Cross, WellPoint Inc., earned profits of $2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009, an increase of 26% over the corresponding quarter the previous year. United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to Anthem Blue Cross President Leslie Margolin yesterday calling on the company to publicly justify its decision to raise premiums by as much as 39% for its California customers. To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy – “And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your insurer can do for you – ask what you can do for your insurer.” [...]

Rewriting History - Why You Need To Hide Your Wallet

As the health care reform debate limps on, the Republicans are attempting, with some degree of success, to rewrite history and prepare the way for big businesses to drain your wallets, silently targeting seniors for an extra-special shakedown. Aware that some of the public still remembers that their party was in power in the eight years leading up to the financial meltdown they’re sending out an endless stream of messages about big, growing government, increasing taxes and a growing budget deficit. It’s time for some fact checking. [...]

February 5th, 2010 | Verna & Leon | | Visit the Silver Buzz Cafe Store | | Tags: Healthcare Reform, News for seniors, Senior blog | Category: Commentary, Healthcare Reform, Senior Health | One comment

Rep. Alan Grayson Starts a Fight Against Corpocracy

Having anticipated Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling that now allows corporations to spend as much of their funds as they wish on direct political campaigning, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fl) introduced five bills on Wednesday to try to limit what he calls “Corpocracy”. Grayson is worried that our democracy will be usurped by corporations, which can [...]

January 22nd, 2010 | Verna & Leon | | Visit the Silver Buzz Cafe Store | | Tags: Healthcare Reform, Senior Health | Category: Commentary, Healthcare Reform, News, Senior Health | Leave a comment

Supreme Court Removes Controls on Corporate Funding of Political Campaigns

One of the most obvious themes throughout the debate on health reform has been the effect of special interest funding on the voting behavior of our elected officials. Time and time again we’ve seen that our so-called representatives are actually working for the health sector, especially the health insurers and Big Pharma, rather than the people who voted them into office. The right wing majority in the Supreme Court made the situation worse yesterday by rolling back the twenty year old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads. [...]

January 21st, 2010 | Verna & Leon | | Visit the Silver Buzz Cafe Store | | Tags: Healthcare Reform, Senior blog | Category: Commentary, Healthcare Reform, News, Senior Health | Leave a comment

Now You See It, Now You Don't!

Democrats woke up this morning to a harsh new reality. Senator Edward Kennedy’s replacement is a Republican who ran a campaign saying that he’d oppose health care reform. We can leave aside the fact that Massachusetts has a very good, though not perfect, health insurance plan for everyone, making them leery of paying extra taxes to support people in other states. Some people have said that its’a reaction against President Obama’s policies, but there’s little or no evidence to support that. The plain fact is that people voted for change and when they didn’t get it they reacted negatively. This article looks at the way ahead and tells you how to contact your elected representatives. [...]

January 20th, 2010 | Verna & Leon | | Visit the Silver Buzz Cafe Store | | Tags: Healthcare Reform, Senior blog, Senior Health | Category: Commentary, Healthcare Reform, News, Resources, Senior Health | Leave a comment

What If - Senators Votes Were Related To Special Interest Contributions?

We like to play “What If” now and again. We’re on the eve of an extremely important vote for a US Senator for Massachusetts to replace Senator Edward Kennedy, a champion of health care reforms throughout his political career. If the seat goes to the Republicans the Democrats will lose their 60:40 majority, putting the outcome of the health reform debate in jeopardy. Even if it stays with the Democratic Party, the outcome is still by no means certain, as we saw before Christmas. However, what if we changed the rules, allocating each Senator a number of votes that is inversely proportional to the amount of money they’ve received? [...]

January 18th, 2010 | Verna & Leon | | Visit the Silver Buzz Cafe Store | | Tags: Healthcare Reform, Senior blog, Senior Health | Category: Commentary, Healthcare Reform, Senior Health | Leave a comment

Where Are We On Health Care Reform?

The Wall Street Journal recently published a comparison of the features of the House and Senate health reform bills and President Obama’s stated position on each one. The House bill is stronger than the Senate bill in most respects, but both of them are a very long way from perfect. Thankfully, a lot of the irrelevant diversions, such as the death panel fiasco, seem to be behind us, but it’s not over yet. The public debate will resume on Tuesday, when congress re-opens after the holidays. There are reforms, for sure, but there are some very notable omissions, which is what this article is mainly about. [...]

January 17th, 2010 | Verna & Leon | | Visit the Silver Buzz Cafe Store | | Tags: Healthcare Reform, Medicare, Medication, Senior blog, Senior Health, Senior healthcare | Category: Commentary, Healthcare Reform, Senior Health | 2 comments so far

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President Obama signed the second part (reconciliation) of the health care reform bill on March 30, 2010. That's great, but the provisions that will cover the uninsured haven't clicked in yet.

Our elected officials started work on the proposed health insurance reform bill on July 30, 2009. Harvard researchers estimate that 122 Americans die every day as a result of not having health insurance.

So, the estimated number of uninsured Americans who have died while the politicians in the Senate and Congress played politics and delayed new benefits for the sake of the health care insurers is

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