Healthcare reform has passed and is signed into law... this is a Big F*cking Deal!

by Elsewhere 89 Replies latest jw friends

  • zeroday*
    zeroday*

    GEE where are the Canadian MP's going to go now for health care???

  • BizzyBee
    BizzyBee

    Good ideas you raise, WT and Snakes. We need to overhaul they way medical treatment is delivered.

    We need to consider

    • more young people going into medical careers at every level (perhaps instead of careers in the financial field?)
    • more PAs (Physician Assistants) and NPs (Nurse Practioners) seeing patients who don't really need an MD
    • dealing with over due medical ethics questions and educate the public about them
    • seriously studying what works in other countries in terms of delivery systems
    • more preventive medicine

    I hope some of these are on the AG's agenda, especially career assistance. My DIL wants to become a nurse. I would expect that some of her education would be subsidized since we are going to need more and more nurses now and in the future.

  • leavingwt
    leavingwt
    here ya go, leavingwt:
    http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx

    Thank you.

    I plugged in the numbers for a family of four earning $32K per year. Insurance premiums would be roughly $8K, and they would receive roughly $7K in government subsidies. That sounds like a very good deal for such a poor family. This would put their monthly premium expense at less than $100. They would still (?) meet deductibles and co-pays per the insurance plans. Still, the government will essentially be paying for MOST of it.

    -LWT

  • leavingwt
    leavingwt

    Seriously, though. Our elected officials should actually read stuff before they sign it. Maybe not all 2,000+ of the BFD, but how about the portions regarding coverage for kids with pre-existing conditions.

    Hours after President Barack Obama signed historic health care legislation, a potential problem emerged. Administration officials are now scrambling to fix a gap in highly touted benefits for children.

    Obama made better coverage for children a centerpiece of his health care remake, but it turns out the letter of the law provided a less-than-complete guarantee that kids with health problems would not be shut out of coverage.

    Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill Obama signed into law Tuesday.

    However, if a child is accepted for coverage, or is already covered, the insurer cannot exclude payment for treating a particular illness, as sometimes happens now. For example, if a child has asthma, the insurance company cannot write a policy that excludes that condition from coverage. The new safeguard will be in place later this year.

    Full protection for children would not come until 2014, said Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, another panel that authored the legislation. That's the same year when insurance companies could no longer deny coverage to any person on account of health problems.

    Obama's public statements have conveyed the impression that the new protections for kids were more sweeping and straightforward.

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jYnajhWrPEXihcCrpRNfUKN7rN-AD9EKTKIG0

  • JWoods
    JWoods

    I am starting to think that Biden said was a BFD for Obama Prestige, plus maybe a handy tax hike - but not really much of anything for actual improvement in real-world health care in the foreseeable future.

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    My healthcare premiums are so ridiculously high (because of potential health risk tho I am perfectly healthy and don't smoke or drink) that paying more in taxes for lower-premium govt-subsidized healthcare seems like it might be a wash for me (the Devil is in the details tho).

  • leavingwt
  • SixofNine
    SixofNine
    Seriously, though. Our elected officials should actually read stuff before they sign it. Maybe not all 2,000+ of the BFD, but how about the portions regarding coverage for kids with pre-existing conditions.

    Kinda damned if they do, damned if they don't. You can't simultaneously criticize the bill for being 2000+ pages, while harping on a point that needs more legal verbiage.

  • SixofNine
    SixofNine
    My healthcare premiums are so ridiculously high (because of potential health risk tho I am perfectly healthy and don't smoke or drink) that paying more in taxes for lower-premium govt-subsidized healthcare seems like it might be a wash for me (the Devil is in the details tho).

    It seems highly unlikely that you (or most anyone on JWD) would be paying higher taxes under this law's structure, Leolaia. Are your premiums so high because of a pre-existing condition?

  • JWoods
    JWoods
    Kinda damned if they do, damned if they don't. You can't simultaneously criticize the bill for being 2000+ pages, while harping on a point that needs more legal verbiage.

    The point may be that a lot of that 2600 or so pages was simply obfuscation. I would guess that a prefectly clear bill could have been written in one tenth that and certainly could have been read, rechecked, and debated in better order.

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit