Archive for Health Care
Having It Both Ways
Posted by: | CommentsRepublicans want to fall in line, the saying goes, and Ann Coulter is falling in line now that Gov. Mitt Romney is back as Republican front runner. She even likes his healthcare plan: Three cheers for Romneycare — “a massive triumph for conservative free-market principles.” After paragraphs gushing about the individual mandate’s conservative roots in the Heritage Foundation, Coulter goes “tenther” calling the 2,000-page Affordable Care Act, not bad policy, exactly, just an illegal one: “If Obamacare were a one-page bill that did nothing but mandate that every American buy health insurance, it would still be unconstitutional…”
Of course, Heritage didn’t think so when in response to the Clinton health proposal, prominent Republicans in the congress included many of its ideas in a couple of health care bills, including the “Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993” (18 Republican cosponsors and a breezy 579-page read) and the “Consumer Choice Health Security Act of 1993” with multiple sponsors in the House. Or when Mitt Romney used the Heritage model in Massachusetts. Only when the Obama White House adopted Romney’s template did Heritage and Republicans balk, as Think Progress reminded them:
– Heritage On Romney’s Individual Mandate: “Not an unreasonable position, and one that is clearly consistent with conservative values.” [Heritage, 1/28/06]
– Heritage On President Obama’s Individual Mandate: “Both unprecedented and unconstitutional.” [Heritage, 12/9/09]
– Heritage On Romney’s Insurance Exchange: An “innovative mechanism to promote real consumer choice.” [Heritage, 4/20/06]
– Heritage On President Obama’s Insurance Exchange: Creates a “de facto public option” by “grow[ing]” government control over healthcare.” [Heritage, 3/30/10]
– Heritage On Romney’s Medicaid Expansion: Reduced “the total cost to taxpayers” by taking people out of the “uncompensated care pool.” [Heritage, 1/28/06]
– Heritage On President Obama’s Medicaid Expansion: Expands a “broken entitlement program,” providing a “low-quality, poorly functioning program.” [Heritage, 3/30/10]
With Coulter singing his praises, once again it’s springtime for Mitt.
Crucial Conversation Full House
Posted by: | CommentsRob Schofield and Chris Fitzsimon came to Asheville this past week to provide a briefing on how policies out of Raleigh are affecting us all. The duo write for NC Policy Watch, a project of the NC Justice Center, who held last week’s budget symposium at AB Tech. There were over 80 attendees at this Crucial Conversation.
The two explained that their organizations provide a counterpoint to the conservative perspectives coming from Civitas, the John Locke Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity.
Recent NC polling results from Public Policy Polling were displayed early in the meeting:
On the Backs of Children and the Poor
Posted by: | CommentsYou saw the poverty facts that came out last week. Behind the rising percentages are real people struggling to meet their basic needs. Without a stable platform from which to operate, there is no time and there are no resources to utilize for purposes of escaping the poverty trap.
In light of these facts and the lives of hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians, the Republicans in Raleigh have decided to balance the budget on the backs of children and the poor. Rather than expanding revenues, they’ve targeted services for children and the impoverished.
The following statistics come from a report issued by the NC Justice Center and the United Way of North Carolina. I can’t find it online, but I’ll post the link when I can.
Medical Loss Ratio Bites Insurers
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On December 2, the Department of Health and Human Services released its rule on how health insurers comply with the Affordable Care Act’s medical loss ratio (MLR) provision. The rule is effective on January 1, 2012. Before you flip over to YouTube to watch the latest in cat cuteness, consider this headline from a contributor at Forbes : “The Bomb Buried In Obamacare Explodes Today-Hallelujah!”
The MLR was one of those hotly debated provisions during the health reform fight two years ago that by now the public has forgotten, but insurers never did. The MLR requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of consumer premiums (85% for large group insurers) on actual health care for its customers. Insurers that fail to meet the standard each year will have to rebate their customers the amount by which they underspent on providing medical care. Plus, Bloomberg reports, “Consumers won’t have to pay taxes on rebates they get from health insurance plans that violate spending rules in President Barack Obama’s 2010 overhaul.” Forbes contributor Rick Ungar argues that the MLR ruling will kill off large parts of the for-profit health insurance business:
Why? Because there is absolutely no way for-profit health insurers are going to be able to learn how to get by and still make a profit while being forced to spend at least 80 percent of their receipts providing their customers with the coverage for which they paid. If they could, we likely would never have seen the extraordinary efforts made by these companies to avoid paying benefits to their customers at the very moment they need it the most.
Declaration from Occupy NYC
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I’ve been watching the Occupy Events grow across the country and waiting to find out what it’s all about. As with so many left-leaning political efforts, there’s an air of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink to the issues raised. When I attended the protests against invading Iraq, I saw “Free Mumia”, “Keep Abortion Legal”, “End the Death Penalty”, and other activists out there piggy-backing on the message of the march.
When Occupy Wall Street began, I wondered if the same approach would occur. As of now, it’s uncertain. The movement is new, and as more people come to it, the purpose and message will adapt to meet their agendas. At some point, it’ll either boil down to something actionable (a la “Taxed Enough Already”) or it’ll peter out. Regardless of the outcome, the fact that lots of people are spontaneously coming together under interesting methods of self-governance to address local, national, and international issues is newsworthy.
In the interest of furthering the conversation about Occupy, I’m posting the “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City“. Click below the fold to read.
Rabbit Punch
Posted by: | CommentsWow! That’s terrific bunny …
Wanted: Patriotic CEOs to stop corporate moochers
They’re like the guy who shows up at your Labor Day picnic empty-handed. He drinks all your beer, eats four helpings of barbecue and leaves a huge mess for everyone else to clean up. Then he asks you for 20 bucks in gas money to get home.A troubling number of U.S. corporations behave as moocher guests at our national cafeteria. They help themselves to all the taxpayer-funded goods and services we create and pay for together and leave patriotic small businesses and individual taxpayers with the bill.
The “Texas Miracle” vs. Massachusetts, the “Socialist Hellhole”
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That’s What I’m Talking About
Posted by: | CommentsI just heard this Medicare for All ad running during Thom Hartmann’s show (via iHeart Radio). My wife says it’s also running on our local progressive AM station. It’s more issue-based than values-based (my preference), but it’s progressive, upbeat, catchy and not preachy, and it plants the kind of seeds we need planted if we expect to reclaim the national psyche. Lather, rinse, repeat. (The right wing does.)
I’ll be trying to contact these guys to see how widely they’re running these ads and how they’re being funded. I hope they’re not just preaching to the choir and are able to run them on more than just progressive radio. If we expect to change hearts and minds, we have to go to the people, not expect them to come to us. Too much of their background noise is conservative. It was a treat to hear this jingle on the radio.
Free Dental Clinic Aug. 5-6 At AB Tech
Posted by: | CommentsFrom Eblen Charities:
June 14, 2011 — The North Carolina Dental Society and the Eblen Charities will partner again to provide free dental care this summer during a Mission of Mercy event in Asheville, NC, the organizations announced.
The Asheville Mission of Mercy Dental Outreach event will be held Friday August 5 through Saturday, August 6, at the Asheville-Buncombe Technical (AB Tech) Community College Gymnasium. The clinic will begin at 6:00 a.m.. both Friday and Saturday.
Last year, the free clinic proved to be one of the largest dental outreach of its kind in the state’s history. The event served nearly 1,000 patients, providing dental x-rays, extractions, fillings, restorative care, and cleanings, with more than $400,000 worth of dental care being provided at no cost during the three-day clinic. Jack Teague, DDS, and nearly 50 dentists and more than 300 volunteers provided the services. The AB Tech Community College provided the use of its gym for the main clinic of 40 dental chairs, and opened its dental clinic with an additional 16 chairs giving their dental students the opportunity to join the outreach
Free Health Clinic Need Persists Along With Recession
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RAM volunteer dentists and student assistants provide free treatment - first come, first served
WISE, VA: A pregnant woman’s water broke as she awaited free dental care at the Wise County, VA fairgrounds on Saturday. She had stood in line in hot and muggy weather with over a thousand others to get a numbered ticket at the 12th annual Remote Area Medical (RAM) Health Expedition. According to RAM staffer, Jean Jolly, she didn’t want to leave and lose her place in line.
An ambulance standing by eventually took her to town in time to have her child in a hospital instead of an animal stall. The child might have been the first ever born at a RAM free clinic. But not without a number, joked one of RAM’s 1,700 volunteers.
Far from Washington’s “debt crisis” abstractions is another crisis, an American reality one cannot describe in words nor experience secondhand.
