"Obamacare is in a death spiral."
"This is what we ran on; this is what we promised the American people."
The bill has not been "scored" by the OMB; the House of Representatives will vote on the bill before the cost is known.
I've never been so glad to be on Medicare; I have the AARP on my side and nobody on The Hill wants to make the Granny Lobby angry.
I wonder how the Trump voter looking for lower insurance premiums will react when it comes time to enroll in a new plan. The bill focuses on what we used to call Major Medical - the inexplicable bills which accompany a hospital stay. Apparently, all that prevention in the ACA - like prenatal vitamins and free wellness check ups - is expendable. They would rather pay for open heart surgery than subsidize a gym membership.
NPR broadcast an Ohio health care official worrying that 25% of the state's hospitals will enter bankruptcy if those formerly-uninsured-now-insured-soon-to-be-uninsured-again Medicaid expansion recipients reenter emergency rooms and in-patient wards without funds to cover the care the hospitals are mandated to provide.
If only our Representatives were looking at the same problems that the rest of us face. But they have their own sweet health insurance policy, and no one seems to be suggesting that they save some money by repealing that.
Sigh. It's only March.
Showing posts with label ACA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ACA. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Kathleen Sebelius Speaks
I was on the phone with the Secretary of Health and Human Services this morning.
I'm enjoying that sentence. Really, really enjoying that sentence. I'm a 60-something blogger with a once-famous backstory. I am a member of the BlogHer community. I completed the Survey Monkey last week and today I had the privilege of being on a conference call with a member of the President's cabinet.
BlogHer lists empowerment as one of its goals. I am definitely feeling the strength right now.
There were twenty of us on the line. Secretary Sebelius spoke first, then listened as two bloggers shared their stories of life before and after the Affordable Care Act. There was time for three or four questions and then our thirty minutes close to fame came to an end. Throughout the conversation, women were tweeting and retweeting and letting the world know that we were involved and passionate about an issue that affects everyone.
One of my tweets was picked up and retweeted many times.
Certainly, I would not have been able to walk two miles, as I did at Reid Park this morning with my physical therapist. Without acupuncture and Pilates and PT and massage, I'd be on the couch, moaning. Being able to see a physiatrist, having my expenses reimbursed, knowing that the financial piece of the puzzle did not have to be on my worry list... I am sure that my life would be far different without that.
Not all policies cover alternative treatments. The federal Witness Protection Fund has helped, too, reinforcing my mantra that, if you're going to get shot, you should do it 10' away from a serving Congressperson. My situation is specific and at the far end of a normal bell curve. Still, without the ACA I wouldn't be covered for a simple annual gynecology checkup. I couldn't see an internist for help managing my cholesterol. And there's no way I could visit Little Cuter and Flapjack as often as I plan if I were paying full price for the medications I take.
Obamacare has put a safety net under my life and I'm a fan. It's not perfect, though Secretary Sebelius told us that since December 1st the website is good. There's a Spanish language version of the website. There's a 24-hour hotline (800-318-2596) with trained personnel ready to take you all the way through to enrollment. LocalHealth.healthcare.gov will send you to a local advisor, if you want to speak to someone in person. All of this is important, because the deadline to enroll is March 31st, and I have it on good authority from the person in charge that there will be no extensions.
You snooze, you lose. Don't sign up by March 31st and you'll have to wait until next year for open enrollment. This is especially important for those 2o and 30 somethings who are masquerading as our independent and competent children. The ACA only works if the young and the healthy are part of the pool. Millennials and Gen-X'ers were put off by the website's intial glitches, and they don't seem to be coming back. Ms. Sebelius is the mom of two of these people, one in graduate school and one, well, we're not quite sure what he is doing, but both of them are now insured.
Are your children covered? Secretary Sebelius wants you to ask them and to encourage them and to help them if need be. Yes, your government is telling you to nag your children. I love it when the law and I are on the same page.
She suggests asking everyone you encounter, starting with cab drivers. I'm not sure that I'm willing to be a publicist for a program that is in desperate need of professional guidance in that area, but I see her point. Just as I didn't sit quietly when the cab driver was not wearing his seat belt, I should inquire and suggest that he become insured through healthcare.gov.
Perhaps. I'll consider it. For now, I'm reveling in the aura of having my government reach out to me, using my social media power to extend its reach. I feel connected to the women who spoke on the phone, and especially to the single mom, now insured for the first time, who left us with this:
I'm enjoying that sentence. Really, really enjoying that sentence. I'm a 60-something blogger with a once-famous backstory. I am a member of the BlogHer community. I completed the Survey Monkey last week and today I had the privilege of being on a conference call with a member of the President's cabinet.
BlogHer lists empowerment as one of its goals. I am definitely feeling the strength right now.
There were twenty of us on the line. Secretary Sebelius spoke first, then listened as two bloggers shared their stories of life before and after the Affordable Care Act. There was time for three or four questions and then our thirty minutes close to fame came to an end. Throughout the conversation, women were tweeting and retweeting and letting the world know that we were involved and passionate about an issue that affects everyone.
One of my tweets was picked up and retweeted many times.
Number one cause of bankruptcy? Medical bills.Someone disagreed with the statistic, but the underlying fact remains. Medical bills can stymie care, separate the patient from the treatment, and leave a family financially devastated. Without the ACA, I would not have health insurance. The bills from my hospitalization and rehabilitation exceeded my lifetime limits; Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona would have revoked my coverage on December 31, 2011 and I would have had no recourse.#GetCovered at http://healthcare.gov . Protect yourself and your family. Disaster CAN strike!
Certainly, I would not have been able to walk two miles, as I did at Reid Park this morning with my physical therapist. Without acupuncture and Pilates and PT and massage, I'd be on the couch, moaning. Being able to see a physiatrist, having my expenses reimbursed, knowing that the financial piece of the puzzle did not have to be on my worry list... I am sure that my life would be far different without that.
Not all policies cover alternative treatments. The federal Witness Protection Fund has helped, too, reinforcing my mantra that, if you're going to get shot, you should do it 10' away from a serving Congressperson. My situation is specific and at the far end of a normal bell curve. Still, without the ACA I wouldn't be covered for a simple annual gynecology checkup. I couldn't see an internist for help managing my cholesterol. And there's no way I could visit Little Cuter and Flapjack as often as I plan if I were paying full price for the medications I take.
Obamacare has put a safety net under my life and I'm a fan. It's not perfect, though Secretary Sebelius told us that since December 1st the website is good. There's a Spanish language version of the website. There's a 24-hour hotline (800-318-2596) with trained personnel ready to take you all the way through to enrollment. LocalHealth.healthcare.gov will send you to a local advisor, if you want to speak to someone in person. All of this is important, because the deadline to enroll is March 31st, and I have it on good authority from the person in charge that there will be no extensions.
You snooze, you lose. Don't sign up by March 31st and you'll have to wait until next year for open enrollment. This is especially important for those 2o and 30 somethings who are masquerading as our independent and competent children. The ACA only works if the young and the healthy are part of the pool. Millennials and Gen-X'ers were put off by the website's intial glitches, and they don't seem to be coming back. Ms. Sebelius is the mom of two of these people, one in graduate school and one, well, we're not quite sure what he is doing, but both of them are now insured.
Are your children covered? Secretary Sebelius wants you to ask them and to encourage them and to help them if need be. Yes, your government is telling you to nag your children. I love it when the law and I are on the same page.
She suggests asking everyone you encounter, starting with cab drivers. I'm not sure that I'm willing to be a publicist for a program that is in desperate need of professional guidance in that area, but I see her point. Just as I didn't sit quietly when the cab driver was not wearing his seat belt, I should inquire and suggest that he become insured through healthcare.gov.
Perhaps. I'll consider it. For now, I'm reveling in the aura of having my government reach out to me, using my social media power to extend its reach. I feel connected to the women who spoke on the phone, and especially to the single mom, now insured for the first time, who left us with this:
I am so happy to pay my insurance bill every month. I am doing this for my family, but I have to do this for myself.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
He's Not Selling It
The problem with organizers is that their skill set is limited. They can rally the troops to take action, energize the un-involved, get the message out, and make a lot of noise along the way. They drop in, work on a problem, then move on to the next unsolved issue. They don't stay in one place and try to make things work.
Unfortunately, governing requires fortitude for the long fight. It demands that you revisit the same issues, ironing out the kinks while retaining support. That takes focus. It's playing the long game. It's selling and reselling and then doing it again, proving to the skeptics that you were right then and you are right now. It's less exciting, perhaps, than a glossy new challenge might be, but that really doesn't matter.
I think this is the problem with President Obama's absence from the health care debate these days. He's not sure what to do.
He can complain that the fight is personal rather than issue-driven, but that doesn't matter, either. He has Iran and Syria and Nairobi but here at home the ACA is teetering on the brink and he's no where to be found.
Chuck Todd is right. It's not the media's fault that anti-Obamacare news is flooding the airwaves. Where are the Administration Officials normally charged with shepherding a President's most important piece of legislation through the Congressional morass? Where are the Democrat's PAC's, making a fuss about losing an integral part of the liberal agenda?
I'm always amazed at Americans' ability to vote against their own self-interest. I realize that the basis of The American Dream is that everyone has the same chance to become a gazillionaire, that we all aspire to joining the 1% (even if you'd give it all away, doing good deeds that need doing, living a threadbare life of monastic purity) .... but at a certain point I just stop ... unable to go any further... astonished by the lengths that people will go to hurt themselves.
The Affordable Care Act is doing something on October 1st, but I'm not sure exactly what that might be. October 1st is next week. I've had all summer to read and consider and examine, but nothing came my way. My self-insured, affiliate Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy went up 11%.... what's a health exchange ... where's a health exchange.... what do they offer and will they be safe and where do I sign up? These are not hard questions. I'm at a loss to find the answers.
I know that without the passage of the ACA I would be uninsurable. My intersection with bullets more than exhausted the cap on my coverage. I'd maxed out my policy and BC/BS/AZ would have been done with me, had Congress not taken the first step toward rational health care policy in this country. Just as we now cannot imagine an uninsured elderly population, I hope that my grandchildren will be unable to imagine that I might have been an insurance pariah.
Perhaps the main-line Republicans (as CNN calls them) will be able to rein in the Tea Party and our government will continue to pay its bills. Hijacking the nation's agenda to serve a narrow set of interests has never been the way to lasting change. Social Security was controversial back in 1933; Aged Parm told me so and I believe her. This fact is, somehow, comforting to me.
Still, I wonder if FDR sat back and watched his program implode, come under attack, be held responsible for all that is wrong in the world? I think not. I want to see my President tell the citizenry that their adjustable mortgage rates will go up, that their borrowing power at the Credit Union will vanish, that everything will be just a little bit more out of reach, if the government refuses to pay its bills. I want him to remind the legislators that all they are being asked to do is to authorize the checks for expenses already incurred... expenses for which they voted.
I want him to remind voters that disability drops out of the sky, unbidden and unexpected, that a child with a chronic illness is rarely a planned for event, that moving to another state for a better opportunity means restarting your health insurance based on the body you have now... not the one the insurance company approved fifteen years ago. The ACA isn't perfect, but it's a start. It deserves our President's support.
Unfortunately, governing requires fortitude for the long fight. It demands that you revisit the same issues, ironing out the kinks while retaining support. That takes focus. It's playing the long game. It's selling and reselling and then doing it again, proving to the skeptics that you were right then and you are right now. It's less exciting, perhaps, than a glossy new challenge might be, but that really doesn't matter.
I think this is the problem with President Obama's absence from the health care debate these days. He's not sure what to do.
He can complain that the fight is personal rather than issue-driven, but that doesn't matter, either. He has Iran and Syria and Nairobi but here at home the ACA is teetering on the brink and he's no where to be found.
Chuck Todd is right. It's not the media's fault that anti-Obamacare news is flooding the airwaves. Where are the Administration Officials normally charged with shepherding a President's most important piece of legislation through the Congressional morass? Where are the Democrat's PAC's, making a fuss about losing an integral part of the liberal agenda?
I'm always amazed at Americans' ability to vote against their own self-interest. I realize that the basis of The American Dream is that everyone has the same chance to become a gazillionaire, that we all aspire to joining the 1% (even if you'd give it all away, doing good deeds that need doing, living a threadbare life of monastic purity) .... but at a certain point I just stop ... unable to go any further... astonished by the lengths that people will go to hurt themselves.
The Affordable Care Act is doing something on October 1st, but I'm not sure exactly what that might be. October 1st is next week. I've had all summer to read and consider and examine, but nothing came my way. My self-insured, affiliate Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy went up 11%.... what's a health exchange ... where's a health exchange.... what do they offer and will they be safe and where do I sign up? These are not hard questions. I'm at a loss to find the answers.
I know that without the passage of the ACA I would be uninsurable. My intersection with bullets more than exhausted the cap on my coverage. I'd maxed out my policy and BC/BS/AZ would have been done with me, had Congress not taken the first step toward rational health care policy in this country. Just as we now cannot imagine an uninsured elderly population, I hope that my grandchildren will be unable to imagine that I might have been an insurance pariah.
Perhaps the main-line Republicans (as CNN calls them) will be able to rein in the Tea Party and our government will continue to pay its bills. Hijacking the nation's agenda to serve a narrow set of interests has never been the way to lasting change. Social Security was controversial back in 1933; Aged Parm told me so and I believe her. This fact is, somehow, comforting to me.
Still, I wonder if FDR sat back and watched his program implode, come under attack, be held responsible for all that is wrong in the world? I think not. I want to see my President tell the citizenry that their adjustable mortgage rates will go up, that their borrowing power at the Credit Union will vanish, that everything will be just a little bit more out of reach, if the government refuses to pay its bills. I want him to remind the legislators that all they are being asked to do is to authorize the checks for expenses already incurred... expenses for which they voted.
I want him to remind voters that disability drops out of the sky, unbidden and unexpected, that a child with a chronic illness is rarely a planned for event, that moving to another state for a better opportunity means restarting your health insurance based on the body you have now... not the one the insurance company approved fifteen years ago. The ACA isn't perfect, but it's a start. It deserves our President's support.
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