EU-DIGEST

§ Plans can no longer deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions

§ No lifetime or annual limits on coverage

§ Insurers will no longer be able to drop coverage when you get sick

§ Rates for premiums will not be not based on health status or gender

§ New appeals process to challenge decisions made by your insurer

§ Within 90 days of enactment, provides $5 billion to help Americans with pre-existing conditions afford coverage

§ Starting 2014, provides tax credits to help Americans who cannot afford the cost of private health insurance.

Note EU-Digest: Only time will tell if ithe Health Care Reform benefits the average American. Right now it is a win-win situation for the Insurance Industry.

Labels: Insurance Industry, US HEALTH CARE REFORM

Health care reform was initiated to reform the system for two reasons, first to provide health care for all Americans and second to provide that health care at a reasonable cost. The Senate bill does neither and has solidified the insurance industry's stranglehold on the American consumer for years to come.

The entire bill designed by the health care industry guarantees the industry 30 million more premium payers to fill their coffers and increase profits; those with pre-existing conditions will be required to pay higher premiums and the elderly will also pay higher premiums. Even if a family of four makes 400 percent of the poverty level ($88,000 per year), their premium will be subsidized by our tax dollars.

The bottom line: US political representatives have just given the insurance industry everything but the kitchen sink. My recommendation is to buy health insurance stocks, which just hit a 50-year high, and pray you don't get sick.

Labels: Insurance Industry, Speciial Interest Groups, US HEALTH CARE REFORM

A procedural vote is slated for Wednesday afternoon, and the Senate is planning to hold the final health care vote Thursday morning. The bill appears to have the momentum and support to push it through following months of intense negotiations -- though it looks a lot different than it did when two Senate committees first considered it.

FOXNews.com - Senate Prepares Thursday Morning Vote on Health Care, Fast Exit for Christmas

Labels: US HEALTH CARE REFORM

      
Jacob S. Hacker is the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University. An expert on the politics of U.S. health and social policy, he is author, coauthor, or editor of numerous books and articles, both scholarly and popular, including The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream (2006; paperback, January 2008) and Health At Risk: America's Ailing Health System and How to Heal It (2008).  He writes:
       "Now that the core demand of progressives has been removed from the
       Senate health care bill--namely, the public health insurance option--
       should progressives continue to support the effort?

For me, the question is particularly difficult. I have been the thinker most associated with the public option, which I’ve long argued is essential to ensuring accountability from private insurers and long-term cost control. I was devastated when it was killed at the hands of Senator Joe Lieberman, not least because of what it said about our democracy -- that a policy consistently supported by a strong majority of Americans could be brought down by a recalcitrant Senate minority."

Why I Still Believe In This Bill - CBS News

Labels: Joe Lieberman, US HEALTH CARE REFORM

Labels: US HEALTH CARE REFORM

nvoking the memory of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare. The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.

Labels: US HEALTH CARE REFORM

Americans Pay More to Die Earlier -- by Brad Reed

There are times when it's comforting to imagine that at some point in US history Satan hired Dr. Frankenstein to help him stitch together their health care system.You can picture the Dark Lord standing over the good doctor in his underground lab barking orders for creating the most insane and irrational health care system in the industrialized world. "It must cost more per person than any other health care system, and it must leave tens of millions uninsured!" Satan cackled. "It must rely on private markets that give most people no choice in who covers them! It must produce hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies every year! And, and, and! It must produce a system where some patients get excessive and wasteful care, while others have to shuttle off to emergency rooms just to receive primary care treatment!

Labels: US HEALTH CARE REFORM

Obama speaking to joined session US Congress (photo CNN)

For the complete report from CNN.com click on this link

Obama wins with speech-watchers, poll says

Two out of three Americans who watched President Obama's health care reform speech Wednesday night favor his health care plans, a 14-point gain among speech-watchers, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. national poll.Sixty-seven percent of people questioned in the survey said they support the health care reform proposals Obama outlined in his address to a joint session of Congress. Twenty-nine percent opposed the proposals. Those figures are almost identical to a poll conducted immediately after Bill Clinton's health care speech before Congress in September 1993. About one in seven people who watched the speech changed their minds on Obama's health care plan. "Going into the speech, a bare majority of his audience -- 53 percent -- favored his proposals. Immediately after the speech, that figure rose to 67 percent," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "But the real question is whether those conversions will last. Bill Clinton got similar numbers after his 1993 address to Congress, but five months later a majority of the country no longer supported his plan."

More than seven in 10 said that Obama clearly stated his goals, with one in four saying he didn't express his goals clearly. Three out of four said it's very or somewhat likely that the president will pass most of his proposals on health care reform through Congress, with one in four saying it's unlikely.Seven in 10 said Obama's policies will move the country in the right direction, up 10 points from before the speech.

Labels: Barack Obama, US HEALTH CARE REFORM