“The Affordable Care Act”: A Mother’s Day Gift For Moms Throughout The United States
People always say good health is the greatest gift, so let’s make health a priority this Mother’s Day. Now that I am a mother myself, I am even more appreciative that I have health insurance that covers the care I need. All moms deserve the kind of quality, affordable care that I was lucky enough to receive while pregnant and postpartum, and Obamacare is working to make that dream a reality.
While pregnant, what did I need the most—that is, besides a foot massage? Maternity care, of course. My prenatal visits reassured me that my pregnancy was progressing as it should and my insurance allowed me to use the provider of my choosing, labor in the setting I wanted, and get the emergency care I ultimately needed. Unfortunately, only 12 percent of plans in the individual health insurance market currently offer maternity coverage. Thankfully, starting in 2014, Obamacare will require all new health plans to cover maternity care as the essential health service that it is.
Needing an emergency C-section was the first sign that I was no longer calling the shots. It’s fine if my son has his own plans, but not the insurance industry. Insurers currently can deny women coverage for specific health services or entire plans due to gender-related “pre-existing conditions” such as Cesarean sections, breast cancer, domestic violence, and sexual assault. The idea that my surgery could disqualify me from obtaining coverage on the open insurance market is both absurd and deeply offensive. But this discriminatory practice becomes illegal under Obamacare in 2014.
After my son was born, my pediatrician’s office began to feel like a second home with the amount of time I had to spend there his first year. I am lucky enough to have a low co-pay that I can afford, but for far too many families those co-pays are not just a minor inconvenience. Obamacare ensures that families can afford to bring their children in for vaccinations and other routine visits by eliminating cost sharing, such as co-pays or deductibles, for well-baby and well-child care.
Whoever said breastfeeding comes naturally? Like so many of my peers, I was surprised to encounter all sorts of difficulties with nursing. I relied heavily on my local breastfeeding center to help me diagnose and address the problems I had, an expensive but incredibly helpful service. Had I not been able to afford those hefty out-of-pocket fees, there is no way I could have continued nursing my son, providing him with valuable antibodies and nutrients and strengthening the mother-child bond. The good news is that this August, nursing mothers in new health insurance plans will receive no-cost coverage for lactation supports that include counseling and equipment.
Nursing moms who return to work also will benefit, as I did, from the requirement that large employers provide breaks and a private space for expressing breast milk. I was very thankful for this provision, especially when I heard the horror stories of women who were forced to pump in a bathroom stall or in their cars—or those who were fired for requesting pumping breaks. With such obstacles in place, it is no wonder that only 36 percent of U.S. infants are breastfed past six months, even though the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends nursing through the first year. Obamacare should help that rate finally improve.
Despite these amazing benefits and more, the health reform law is under siege. It risks being overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed by conservative politicians. This Mother’s Day, let’s give moms a gift that is truly important and will really last. Let’s do everything we can to make sure Obamacare is fully implemented and remains the law of the land.
By: Jessica Arons, Center For American Progress, May 11, 2012
“Ethically Ironic”: How Was Dick Cheney Able To Get A Heart While Many Others Wait?
Dick Cheney has just joined a list of high-profile people, including Steve Jobs, Mickey Mantle, Evil Knievel and David Crosby who, received a transplant and thereby created a controversy. Cheney received a heart on Saturay from an anonymous donor at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia after a 20-month wait. What is controversial about that? Cheney is 71 years old.
He has been through numerous previous operations that indicate he has other serious medical problems. He has only been able to survive due to the implantation of a left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) — a partial artificial heart — that has kept him going long past the point where his own heart could have kept him alive.
Nearly everyone on an LVAD winds up getting sicker and sicker and, eventually, so sick that they come off the transplant waiting list because the risk is too great.
What starts as a “bridge” to a transplant when you get an LVAD can become, the more time that passes, a final destination — you almost always die with the device. So despite his age and health problems, how was Cheney able to get a heart while many others wait?
It is concerning that a 71-year-old got a transplant. Many of those who manage to even make the waiting list for hearts die without getting one. More than 3,100 Americans are currently on the national waiting list for a heart transplant. Just over 2,300 heart transplants were performed last year, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. And 330 people died while waiting.
According to UNOS, 332 people over age 65 received a heart transplant last year. The majority of transplants occur in 50- to 64-year-olds.
Most transplant teams, knowing that hearts are in huge demand, set an informal eligibility limit of 70.
Cheney is not the first person over 70 to get a heart transplant. He is, however, in a small group of people who have gotten one. Why did he?
Cheney has an advantage over others. It is not fame or his political prominence. It is money and top health insurance.
Heart transplants produce bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The drugs needed to keep these transplants working cost tens of thousands of dollars every year. Organ donations are sought from the rich and poor alike. But, if you do not have health insurance you are far less likely to be able to get evaluated for a heart transplant much less actually get a transplant.
The timing of Cheney’s transplant is ethically ironic given that the battle over extending health insurance to all Americans reaches the Supreme Court this week.
If the President’s health reform bill is deemed unconstitutional, those who are wealthy or who can easily raise money will continue to have greater access to heart, liver and other forms of transplantation than the uninsured and underinsured.
It is possible that Cheney was the only person waiting for a heart who was a good match in terms of the donor’s size, blood type and other biological and geographical factors. If not, then some tough ethical questions need to be asked.
When all are asked to be organ donors, both rich and poor, shouldn’t each one of us have a fair shot at getting a heart? And in a system in which donor hearts are very scarce, shouldn’t the young, who are more likely to benefit both in terms of survival and years of life added, take precedence over the old?
Let’s hope we get some answers to these tough questions as we watch both Cheney’s recovery and the fate of health care legislation that is intended to minimize the advantages that the rich now have over the poor when it comes to proven life-saving treatments.
By: Art Kaplan, PhD, MSNBC Vitals; Contribution by MSNBC News Service, March 25, 2012
“Affordable Care Act For The Wealthy”: The Rest Of You Can Have Vouchers
It’s not uncommon for the über-wealthy to equip their mega-mansions with pricey private home theaters, spa-worthy washrooms, and palatial pools. Now an increasing number of the super-rich are setting aside space in their homes for another purpose: top-notch medical care.
According to Bloomberg, more well-off families are paying up to install at-home emergency rooms, which can cost upwards of $1 million, and forking over as much as $30,000 a year for “concierge care,” which puts the best-of-the-best physicians at their disposal anytime, anywhere.
“Wealthy people want to have a little exclusivity and want better service than they can get at their normal healthcare facility, and they’re willing to pay for it,” Rick Flynn, principal and head of the Family Office Group with Rothstein Kass, told Bloomberg.
Guardian 24/7, a Virginia-based medical care company founded by former White House physician Sean O’Mara, charges as much as $12,000 a month for its ReadyRooms, Bloomberg reported, which feature discreetly installed medical equipment available at the touch of a button.
If a medical emergency arises, homeowners can immediately contact an on-call emergency physician—a much faster response than waiting for an ambulance to arrive and transport the ailing homeowner to the hospital, the company’s website notes.
“Before Guardian, this kind of medical protection was only available to one person,” the company’s website says. “Now, presidential-level care can be yours—on your schedule and your terms.”
And if you thought for a minute the super-rich might have to be without immediate access to medical care outside the confines of their estates, think again. Guardian 24/7 installs any number of medical apparatuses from X-ray machines to CT scanners on yachts, motor coaches, and aircraft.
By: Meg Handley, Washington Whispers, U. S. News and World Report, March 16, 2012
“Irrational Actors”: Republican State Legislators Shoot Selves In Foot, Help Citizens
One of the main features of the Affordable Care Act is the creation of 50 state-based health-insurance exchanges, online marketplaces where people and small businesses will be able to easily compare competing plans and select the one they prefer. If you’re buying insurance on the individual market after the beginning of 2014 (but not if you get your insurance through your employer like most people), your state’s exchange is where you’ll go. While the federal government establishes a baseline of requirements for what plans offered through the exchange must contain, each state will determine exactly how theirs will work.
But after the ACA was passed, and especially after the 2010 election where Republicans won huge gains at the state level, a lot of states run by Republicans refused to take any action to create their exchanges. Like a Catholic bishop looking at a package of birth-control pills, they retched and turned away, not wanting to sully their hands at all with involvement in President Obama’s freedom-destroying health-care plan. But the law also provides that if a state doesn’t get around to creating its exchange, then the federal government will just do it for them.
Which is why I’ve always found the actions of Republicans on this issue puzzling. They all say they hate the federal government, and states can do things better. But in this case, they’re letting the federal government take over. Which is probably a good thing.
Let’s say you live in Arkansas. Who would you trust to create an exchange that works well and empowers consumers: a state government run by Republicans who think any government involvement in health care is vile, or the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, which has a huge reputational stake in making the Affordable Care Act work as well as possible? Well, you’re in luck, because Arkansas has explicitly refused to create an exchange. Plenty of other states with Republican-controlled legislatures have simply dragged their feet in the hopes that either the Supreme Court will strike down the ACA when it hears the case later this year, or that a Republican will win the White House in November and successfully repeal the law (this is a list of where exchanges stand in each state, if you’re curious).
Conservative health-care wonks seem to be divided on the issue. Here’s one (h/t Sarah Kliff) making exactly the case that I made—if Republicans just ignore this, it’ll be turned over to an administration they hate (I just happen to think that’s a good thing, while he doesn’t). But here’s another testifying before the New Hampshire Legislature, telling them not to do anything and hope it just goes away.
This offers a reminder, in case you needed one, that elected officials are not always rational actors. They’ll even do things that undermine the principles they hold, for reasons of emotion or pique or false hope. In this case, that means a lot of people living in Republican-dominated states will probably have access to an exchange that works substantially better than whatever their state would have set up. So it’ll be a happy ending!
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, March 14, 2012
“A Window Into The Future”: Mitt Romney Won’t Enroll In Medicare And Doesn’t Want Anybody Else To Either
Mitt Romney hasn’t explained his announcement yesterday that he won’t be enrolling in Medicare despite turning 65, but as Jonathan Cohn points out, Romney is at least practicing what he preaches. Romney supports Paul Ryan’s plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program, a plan that would effectively end Medicare as we know it, and Romney is putting his money where his mouth is by deciding against enrolling.
Romney’s decision is a window into the future that he promises to deliver. Instead of a Medicare program that directly provides coverage, Romney wants seniors to obtain coverage from private insurers. Depending on their income and personal wealth, a portion of that coverage would be subsidized, but the guaranteed coverage of Medicare would be eliminated.
The fact that Romney was able to forego the Medicare system without penalty or punishment puts the lie to the notion that government health care programs are tyrannical. That’s an important fact to point out, because even though any senior who doesn’t want Medicare coverage could walk away from the system, just like Mitt Romney did, the overwhelming majority of them don’t—and that’s a testament to the effectiveness of Medicare.
But even though Medicare works, Mitt Romney wants to end the program as we know it. He wants Medicare to be transformed into a voucher provider, subsidizing private insurance plans instead of directly covering medical care. For 99 percent of Americans, it would be a radical overhaul, raising costs and making it difficult if not impossible to find insurance. Given his means, Romney would do fine in such a system. That’s basically the system he’s living in now, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize most people can’t afford what he can afford. And if Medicare were privatized as he proposes, that’s exactly what he would force every American senior to do.
If you’re only concerned about personal benefit, Medicare might not turn out to be the best deal in the world for someone like Mitt Romney, who is fabulously wealthy and doesn’t need the coverage. But even the Mitt Romneys of the world are better off living in a society where senior citizens have the security of health care coverage that Medicare provides. If we were to adopt Mitt Romney’s proposal to turn it into a voucher system, Medicare would no longer provide it’s greatest benefit of all: the peace of mind that comes with knowing that every single senior citizen has the health care coverage they need.
By: Jed Lewison, Daily Kos, March 13, 2012
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 