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Archive for October, 2009

Calif. Gop Urges Suit Over Health Care Overhaul

Republican state senators called on California Attorney General Jerry Brown Tuesday to join other states and sue the federal government over health care reform.

The legislators said Congress cannot force people to buy health insurance or any other products.

Attorneys general in 13 other states have already filed suit against the health care overhaul that President Barack Obama signed into law. The bill will require most Americans to carry health insurance.

“I think that many Californians share the same view that this is the greatest expansion of government in a generation,” said Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta.

State Sen. Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach, sent the letter to Brown.

“The federal government is limited in what it can and can’t do by the Constitution,” Harman said, calling the measure a violation of the commerce clause.

Brown issued a statement saying he had instructed his deputies to review the claims made by the senators.

However, Brown, a Democrat and former two-term governor, noted that all but one of the 13 attorneys general who vowed legal action were Republicans.

“Health care is not the place, with people’s lives at stake, to engage in poisonous partisanship,” Brown said in the statement.

Republicans seeking their party’s nomination for governor, Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman, opposed the health care package and supported a state lawsuit.

Poizner, the state insurance commissioner, said consumers could face higher health insurance premiums and an onerous mandate to get health insurance whether they want it or not.

Whitman campaign spokeswoman Sarah Pompei called the health care plan a “new, big government program.”

The Republican lawmakers also decried what they called an unfunded mandate, estimating the plan would cost California taxpayers billion.

Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, said voters should have final approval over the measure.

“It’s clear to me that people’s voices are not being heard in Washington, D.C., or in Sacramento,” Strickland said. “At a time when we a have high unemployment rate, this is going to be devastating to our California economy.”

The California Democratic Party said the health care overhaul will provide insurance coverage to 7.3 million Californians who do not currently have it and give a tax credit to some 390,000 small businesses in the state.

Democratic Governors Voice Concern Over Health Care Bill

Republican governors are not alone in being concerned about what the proposed health care legislation might mean for their already overstrained budgets: Democrats share the same worries.         “We’ve got concerns,” Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware said in an interview Wednesday, hours before getting elected as the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. “And we’re doing our best to communicate them. We understand the need to get something done, and we’re supportive of getting something done. But we want to make sure it’s done in a way that state budgets are not negatively impacted.”

From the start, Republican governors have been more outspokenly critical about the health care legislation – in particular, the bill proposed by Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader – which they said would saddle them with millions of dollars in additional Medicaid costs as insurance coverage is expanded. At their own meeting two weeks ago in Texas, Republican governors declared Democrats felt the same way as they did, but were less apt to say it out of loyalty to President Obama.

Asked about that, Mr. Markell responded: “Perhaps we’ve expressed some of our concerns less publicly. But I believe all governors are certainly concerned about what the potential impact is of some of these bills.”

Mr. Markell said that there was no division between governors and the administration on the need to get some sort of health care bill through; he said that he was reminded of the need in conversations with small businesses struggling with health care costs and constituents who have been unable to get health care coverage. He said his concern was some of the bills being considered would do that by shifting some of the costs to the state – but said he remained confident, after conversations with the White House, that would not be the case.

Whatever the outcome of the health care deliberations, Mr. Markell said he did not believe it would affect the electoral outcome for governors in 2010, a year in which 19 gubernatorial seats currently held by Democrats are on the ballot. The key issues, the governor said, were jobs and the economy.

And to that regard, Mr. Markell said that he was hopeful that the White House and Congress would dispose of the health care deliberations and move on to discussing some sort of jobs creation legislation.

“Right now I believe we need to be focused really significantly on the state level on jobs and on the economic climate overall,” he said. Asked if Mr. Markell thought Mr. Obama and Congress were spending too much time on health care at the expense of the economy, he responded: “Well I feel it would be terrific if they could finish health care and move on.”

Health Care Reform Weekly Easytoinsureme Health Insurance Quotes

Week of January 25, 2010

The sudden halt to health care reform’s steady march forward came as a shock to many who saw an upset win by Republican Senator-elect Scott Brown in Massachusetts as all but impossible. But if many took delight in the election outcome’s impact on health reform legislation, Aetna Chairman Ronald A. Williams made it clear in a New York Times story last week that the country still needs meaningful health care reform – reform that addresses access as well as affordability. Everyone benefits by health reform that gets at the factors driving soaring health care costs and the loss of coverage for so many Americans. While Congress thinks carefully about its next steps, Aetna will continue to support meaningful health care reform and continue to offer responsible solutions to legislative leaders.

Federal

The election of Republican Scott Brown as the new senator from Massachusetts has derailed the Congressional health care reform train, less because Brown denies Democrats the 60th filibuster-proof vote, though that is certainly a major result, and more because it collapsed the Democratic political house of cards by highlighting the power of independent voters and the frustrated anti-incumbent mood of the electorate. Whether Democrats can regroup from this wake-up call will consume their leadership from now until the November off-year elections. How Democrats handle, and how Republicans respond to, health care reform in the short term and other key priorities – such as jobs, the economy, energy and security – over the rest of the session will underscore all Congressional decisions from now until the first Tuesday in November. In short, the 2010 elections started in earnest with Brown’s victory.

Once Democrats get past the shock of losing Kennedy’s seat, they will have to grapple with health care reform, one way or the other. The early favorites, including passing the Senate bill “as is” in the House, have been dropped for now as Democrats recognize the political cost of ramming through something unpopular propelled by political muscle only. Passing a smaller, less invasive and mostly Democratic bill has only a slightly better chance, as Republicans are not too likely to “crossover” quite yet. There is a growing interest in using reconciliation (the 51-vote tactic) down the road to pass a Democratic-only bill, once the House and Senate Democratic leadership can agree to a single bill. And, there is the outside chance that Democrats will see the Massachusetts election as an imperative to craft a bipartisan bill with Republicans that can secure 70-plus votes in the Senate. Wednesday’s State of the Union speech, followed by the party issues retreats later in the week, will go a long way toward determining which path will be pursued.

Health Care Bill Would Be Disaster For The Poor

Most Americans are aware that buried somewhere in the 2,000-page health care reform bill are provisions for cutting the already- strapped Medicare program by billions of dollars. Few are aware that the bill also cuts expenditures on county hospitals currently serving the poor.

In Chicago, for example, those without health insurance go to the county hospital where they are treated without regard to whether they have health insurance. If the bill is passed, however, many of these county hospitals will either have to close their doors or deny treatment to those without health insurance.

Although the bill passed by the Senate has been depicted as using coercive means to require those currently uninsured to buy insurance they cannot afford, or as imposing additional new taxes on the American working man and family, that bill is based on a fundamental lack of understanding of how the health care needs of the nation’s poor are currently served.

The desperately poor, many of them unemployed, are not equipped to deal with complicated insurance programs, deductibles, co-pays and all the other accoutrements of the typical health care policy. They are poor, they are unemployed, they are sick, they need a place to go to be treated without red tape and procedural obstacles.

County hospitals across the country that have provided that place are now threatened with a cut-off of funding and in many cases with extinction by the current health care reform bill passed by the Senate.

A number of proposals for making health care affordable for all Americans have been put forward by those who have sought to be heard during the legislative process. All these proposals have been rejected by a Congress determined to impose government control of health care.

Among these rejected proposals is to allow people to buy health insurance they can afford. Currently, government mandates require a single man to buy maternity coverage he will never use, or to pay inflated premiums to insure against going insane. It would be similar to a government mandate requiring every person to buy a Rolls Royce instead of a Ford. And then when people can’t afford to buy the Rolls Royce, they’re without any car at all.

Another rejected proposal is to allow health insurance companies to compete across state lines, thus increasing the competitive pressure to provide affordable insurance. Proposals for modest curbs on the multimillion-dollar malpractice suits that divert billions of dollars away from health care and into the pockets of high-rolling trial attorneys have also been rejected.

Even proposals for limited but cost-effective catastrophic government insurance have been rejected by those determined to have government take over health care across the board.

Home Health Care-Selecting The Right Agency

Hiring a caregiver to come into your home to care for a loved one can be a very scary prospect. The thought of leaving a vulnerable senior or disabled adult alone with a stranger can add extra stress to an already difficult situation. Selecting a person or agency to provide these services takes research and time. There are really two ways to bring in home health care services, hire a person you find on your own, or work with a professional agency.

Professional Home Health Care service providers can basically be broken down into two different models, the registry model (Registry) and the employee based model (Agency). Both types can offer the services of home health aides (HHA’s) certified nurses aides (CNA’s), nurses (RN’s, LPN’s), companions and other services such as physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) The question for many consumers, what is the difference and which type is right for them.

Nurses registries have been around since the civil war. In this model, an agency does all of the background work, such as interviews, criminal background checks, reference checks and any other checks they feel necessary. Once a candidate has been approved, the registry will refer them to the person in need. The caregiver is considered an independent contractor by the agency and not supervised directly by the agency. This is also called the consumer directed model as the consumer is the person in charge.

With the employee based model, the agency does a similar type of screening; however, instead of referring the caregiver to the consumer, the agency employs them.

Each model has its’ pros and cons.

Pros of the registry model include

* Cost of the service is generally lower than agency model.
* Caregivers usually earn more, which tend to attract a higher quality of caregiver.
* Consumer is in total control. They decide what gets done, when it gets done and how it gets done. They decide if the caregiver stays on the job or needs to be replaced.

Cons of the registry model include:

* Person is not supervised by agency nurse.
* Caregiver is not covered by WC insurance.
* Family may be the employer and need to take out payroll taxes.

Pros of the agency model include:

* Caregivers are covered by workers comp and bonded by the agency.
* Caregivers are supervised by agency nurse.
* Agency is always the employer and deducts all appropriate taxes.

Cons of the agency model include:

* Cost tends to be higher.
* Caregivers do not earn as much as those on the registry side.
* Agency has control over when and where caregiver performs their duty. Agency can pull a caregiver if they need that person for a different case.

You will find supporters for both sides. It is up to you to decide which type of business is right for you. There are several professional resources which can also be helpful when doing your research.

To locate home health care services and read reviews about each business, go to www.caregrade.com

To learn more about nurses registries, go to www.privatecare.org

To learn more about employee based agencies, go to www.nahc.org

Why Health Care Reform Could Leave Us All Worse Off

The health care reform bills being debated in Congress threaten to shut out millions of immigrants. But Congress’ exclusionary policies toward immigrants will not simply leave immigrants worse off. They will inevitably jeopardize the nation’s economy and the health of all of us.

President Obama has prioritized health care reform to ensure that millions of Americans have a fair, affordable and efficient health care system. For immigrants, this vision is far from a reality. First, the current health care reform bill treats legal immigrants unfairly. Individuals who have waited years to come to the United States will be required to wait years in order to obtain affordable health care.

Immigrants are generally younger and healthier than the U.S. population at large. However, no one is immune to falling ill or having an accident. The current health care bill would require recently arrived, legal immigrants to wait five years to obtain the only option for affordable health care coverage, Medicaid. While low-income citizens will have access to Medicaid, the most vulnerable among us will continue to wait for affordable health care despite the fact that they pay taxes for the very programs from which they are excluded. There is no sound reason for Congress to discriminate against these individuals and prevent them from receiving basic medical care.

Congress and the White House also took an unprecedented step to prohibit individuals from buying — with their own hard-earned money — an American good that could help their families. The Senate version of the health care bill forbids undocumented immigrants from purchasing private insurance at full cost in the newly created insurance marketplaces. As a result, undocumented immigrants as well as their family members, who are often U.S. citizens or legal immigrants, will likely remain uninsured and will be forced to seek care in the emergency room.

The costs of providing health care for undocumented immigrants will not disappear after passing health care reform. It is unlikely that millions of immigrants, whose contributions keep up our standard of living and our economy functioning, will be deported. Instead, the cost of care will become the financial responsibility of the patient, the provider, the local and state governments, and every single taxpayer. Moreover, in order to exclude a few, there will be additional forms, documents, and bureaucrats that the rest of us will be subjected to. Buying the mandated health insurance could feel like a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Taxpayers will have to pay millions for this additional red tape and delay, all to keep a few people from buying health insurance with their own money.

Providers, employers, consumers, religious leaders, and state and local governments recognize that these policies are short-sighted and will cost all of us more in the long-run. Policies that attempt to exclude and ostracize immigrants also disproportionately harm all communities of color and immigrant-rich states like California and New York, further widening existing inequities in our nation. Yet because immigrants live in all 50 states, the intended and unintended consequences and costs of these restrictions will be far-reaching.

Ending discriminatory and exclusionary policies in this final round of negotiations is not only a matter of fundamental fairness and sound economics. It is required in order to not leave all of us worse off. Congress has a short window of opportunity to remove the restrictions on legal and undocumented immigrants in the health care reform bill. Doing so will not jeopardize the passage of the bill. Failing to doing so, however, will leave all of us, immigrant or not, worse off and wondering what happened to the promise of health care reform.