Posts Tagged ‘medicaid’
Obamacare: What’s at Stake if it’s Repealed
05/17/2013
By Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
More than three years ago, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act and President Obama signed it into law. Last year, the Supreme Court upheld it. Millions of Americans have already benefited from its provisions, and millions more are looking forward to benefits that will soon go into effect. And in November, the American people re-elected the president as an affirmation of the law’s promise that no person should go broke if they get sick.
Yet today, for nearly the 40th time since it’s been the law of the land, House Republicans staged yet another repeal vote in their latest attempt to turn back the clock on progress and deny Americans health insurance coverage they can count on.
For the 37th time, Congress is voting to repeal the health care law, the Affordable Care Act.
Learn what’s at stake for Americans if the law were repealed.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Nine States Deny The Poor Health Care
12/28/2012
GOP Governors Deny The Poor Health Care
In Opposing Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion
By Peter S. Goodman and Jeffrey Young
RUSTON, La. — With no health insurance and not enough money for a doctor, Laura Johnson is long accustomed to treating her ailments with a self-written prescription: home remedies, prayer and denial.
Texas Rankings Disappoint
12/23/2012
 Click on the image to view: “Texas on the Brink,” a 2001 report from the Texas Legislative Study Group that includes many more rankings and supporting statistics. Not much has changed. |
Texas near the Top:
Blessed with an abundance of land, rivers, oil and other natural resources, Texas pioneers built a great state, and even today, it seems that everything is bigger in Texas. I’ve lived in this “Great State of Texas” for most of my live, moving here from Arlington, VA in 1976, and I now live in the state capitol of Austin. So I call myself a Texan, but in many ways I’m not proud of my state. Here’s why. We relish in being #1 in many things, but not these:
- Texas is #1 in the percent of population uninsured
(as if that would be something to brag about). - We have the largest number of uninsured children (#1).
- We have the most toxic chemicals released into water (#1).
- We generate the most hazardous waste (#1).
- We have the most carbon dioxide emissions (#1).
- We also have the most executions (#1).
- We have the second highest birth rate
and are 4th in the number of kids living in poverty. - We have the second highest percent of population under 18.
- We’re #2 in percent of population with food insecurity.
- We’re #4 in percent of population living below poverty.
Understanding Obamacare
10/12/2012
Healthcare became a hot potato during this political season, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Governor Romney wants to repeal “Obamacare,” but what’s actually in the law and why was introduced in the first place? To address these common questions, I’m reposting one of my first articles on the topic.
This article describes a great presentation by Dr. James Rohack on Health System Reform. Rohack is a practicing cardiologist and Director of Scott & White Center for Healthcare Policy. He is also a professor at Texas A&M Health Science Center and was the president of the American Medical Association from 2009 to 2010 during debates over Obama’s Healthcare Law.
The presentation was held in Sun City, a planned community north of Austin for retirees with active lifestyles. It didn’t include handouts, but I was able to find some of Rohack’s slides online and offer them below with my notes.
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As Our Health Goes, So Does Our Economic Recovery
09/26/2012
It’s the Health Care, Stupid:
As Our Health Goes, So Does Our Economic Recovery
By Peter Abaci, M.D., Chronic pain specialist
(original on Huffington Post)
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
– Albert Einstein
As we head into the final stages leading up to election day, expect the fight over whom and what is best for our economy to rage on. Debating how best to stimulate the economy has been anointed as the de facto topic of importance heading into our upcoming election, but let’s not forget that the health of Wall Street and Main Street is inextricably linked to the health of our citizens. As I have written here in the past, I am no economic expert, but I do work in the trenches every day in a profession that impacts our nation’s budget like no other.
The fact that doctors like me seem to drive the spending of tax dollars more than other occupations like teachers, governors, and generals tells you right there that health care is the elephant in the room of any debate on our economic future.
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A Disease-Creation Economy
09/10/2012
Money, Politics and Health Care: A Disease-Creation Economy
By Mark Hyman, MD, practicing physician (original on Huffington Post)
“There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.” –Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses
Money in politics is making our nation sicker, threatening our national security, and ultimately destroying the very economic prosperity the “money in politics” seeks to achieve. It is undermining our capacity to care for our citizens and threatening our global economic competitiveness in invisible, insidious ways. The links, connections and patterns that promote obesity and chronic disease are clear, though. The economic and social impacts are evident. As health care consumes an increasingly large percentage of our federal budget, the negative impacts of money in politics have become too alarming too ignore, and never more obvious than in this election cycle of 2012.
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Now the Real Work of Healthcare Reform Begins
07/05/2012
Roberts Saves Obamacare: Now the Real Work of Reform Begins
By Arianna Huffington
The narrow survival of the Affordable Care Act last week was certainly cause for celebration. But as the jubilation subsides, it’s important to realize that having avoided what would have been a giant step backward doesn’t mean we’ve taken a giant step forward. Because the law as it now stands is only the first step toward health care reform.
On Sunday’s This Week, Vicki Kennedy (Ted Kennedy’s widow) spoke movingly of how “health care reform was the cause” of her husband’s life. “He believed that it was a moral issue,” she said, “that it defined the character of who we were as a society, who we were as a country, and that decent, quality, affordable health care should be a fundamental right and not a privilege.” She went on to say, “Families can go to sleep relaxed and happy knowing that their children who have asthma or diabetes or allergies are covered by insurance and aren’t barred because they have a pre-existing condition.” Read the rest of this entry »
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CAPABLE means Home, not Nursing Homes, for Seniors
06/27/2012
Source: Newswise (6/26/2012) — Nursing homes do not have to be inevitable destinations for frail older adults. Many—even those with long-term health problems—can remain at home and be independent. All it takes is a little help to change “disability” to “capability”.
A handyman with a few nails to fix a wobbly bannister can make the difference between staying at home and a nursing home stay. Visits from a nurse or occupational therapist can help simplify a bewildering medication regimen or improve the ability to get around the house and neighborhood. Simple, inexpensive steps may change the equation for thousands of seniors, but in reality, services like these are rarely available for many at greatest need—the poorest and sickest older adults receiving Medicare and Medicaid.
CAPABLE, short for “Community Aging in Place, Advancing Better Living for Elders,” and a $4 million Health Care Innovation Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is about to change that reality. Read the rest of this entry »
Understanding the Healthcare Law
04/25/2012
With the Supreme Court set to decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act, you might wonder just what’s in it and why it was introduced in the first place.
That’s why I’m reposting this blog article from last year, which describes a great presentation by Dr. James Rohack on Health System Reform. Rohack is a practicing cardiologist and Director of Scott & White Center for Healthcare Policy. He is also a professor at Texas A&M Health Science Center and was the president of the American Medical Association from 2009 to 2010 during debates over Obama’s Healthcare Law.
The presentation was held in Sun City, a planned community north of Austin for retirees with active lifestyles. It didn’t include handouts, but I was able to find some of Rohack’s slides online and offer them below with my notes.
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It’s Fall – Time for Talking Turkey about Healthcare…
12/02/2011
We need to talk about healthcare, the role of funding, the need for healthcare teams, and core infrastructure from workplace culture to technology. Parts of this post began as a comment in Employee Benefit News, a LinkedIn group. Let’s start with the money.
There’s a pattern here—banks collect a 5% margin on health insurance cash flow. This is not small potatoes. Healthcare insurance, mostly self-insured employer costs, was about 33.5 percent of the $2.3 trillion spent on healthcare in 2008, i.e., almost 70 percent of the half of health cost not paid by Medicare and Medicaid (see National Health Expend Data). This annual $770 billion allows the 5% margin to feed some $38 billion into the banking sector’s P&L statement. And, the annual $770 billion flow is money banks can invest in securities markets, or can lend.
In Snake Bit, I took a different look at annual health insurance evaluation and the danger of getting Snake Bit if we don’t dig into the details, compare plans, and consider our historical and anticipated medical costs.
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