Repealing Healthcare Reform will make the Republican legacy for this Congress a clear vote against the middle class. Their unfettered protection of the insurance companies at the expense of the middle class is astounding. It is easy to understand that politicians support their constituencies. However, where matters of life and death are concerned it is unconscionable.
It is well known that the Republican’s major constituency is the corporation. What is sad is that with the advent of the Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision corporations for all practical purposes will have more rights in the political process than the average middle class American. This will ensure well financed successful misinformation campaigns tantamount to the ones used in third world countries to maintain the supremacy of a few.
Repealing Healthcare Reform will kill Americans. The fallacy that only supporting the portions everybody loves is typical of Republican’s abject failure to govern fiscally responsibly. Just like they provided a drug program that many like but was paid for with borrowed dollars, they are trying to confuse middle class Americans into believing healthcare can work without some mechanism that requires all abled body Americans to lift they fair share in our healthcare economy.
While the bill will pass in the House of Representatives, it stands no chance in the Senate. Republicans know that and claim they intend to chip away at the bill by not funding the provisions as required by the law. While they may attempt this it will likely fail as more people start to realize that defunding will have a material impact on their family’s well-being.
While ultimately Healthcare Reform is here to stay, Republican’s attempt to stall will create unnecessary angst of Americans. Many will die from the fear of seeking care, from the fear of uncertainty, from temporary lapse in coverage, and simply from temporary underfunding. In effect as Republicans have been misinforming about “ObamaCare” being a death panel, they have become the purveyors of death.
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With House set to debate healthcare, government finds up to half of Americans under 65 have preexisting conditions
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 18, 2011; 9:07 AMAs many as 129 million Americans under age 65 have medical problems that are red flags for health insurers, according to an analysis that marks the government’s first attempt to quantify the number of people at risk of being rejected by insurance companies or paying more for coverage.
The secretary of health and human services released the study on Tuesday, hours before the House plans to begin considering a Republican bill that would repeal the new law to overhaul the health-care system.
A vote is expected on Wednesday. But while Republicans may muscle through a repeal bill in the House, its prospects are slimmer in the Senate, where Democrats and independents will enjoy a 53-47 majority.
The new report is part of the Obama administration’s salesmanship to convince the public of the advantages of the law, which contains insurance protections for people with preexisting medical conditions.
Republicans immediately disparaged the analysis as "public relations." An insurance industry spokesman acknowledged that sick people can have trouble buying insurance on their own but said the analysis overstates the problem.
The study found that one-fifth to one-half of non-elderly people in the United States have ailments that trigger rejection or higher prices in the individual insurance market. They range from cancer to chronic illnesses such as heart disease, asthma and high blood pressure.
The smaller estimate, by Health and Human Services Department researchers, is based on the number of Americans whose medical problems would make them eligible for states’ high-risk pools – special coverage for people denied insurance because of their medical history. The researchers arrived at the larger figure by adding in other ailments that major insurers consider a basis to charge customers higher prices or to exclude coverage for some of the care they need.
Using those two definitions, the study took 2008 findings, the most recent available, from a large federal survey of medical expenditures to figure out how many people had reported that they were bothered by those health problems, had visited a doctor for them or had been at least temporarily disabled because of them.
The study is laced with reminders about provisions of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – as the health-care law is formally known – that are designed to eliminate insurance problems for such people.
The most significant is scheduled to take effect in 2014, when the law will, for the first time, forbid insurers to charge sick patients more or reject sick applicants. Last year, two smaller changes took effect: a rule that insurers cannot reject sick children, and temporary subsidies until 2014 for a federal high-risk pool and new state ones. In their early months, the pools have not proved popular.
