Posts tagged ‘insurance’
by Downtowner, posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 11:01 am
More on the concessions to ensure Ben Nelson gets greater control over my body (at least if I live in a Red State) from NYT.
Under Mr. Reid’s proposal, health insurance plans are not required or forbidden to cover abortion services, but there is a major exemption that would give states power to prohibit abortion coverage in the insurance markets, or exchanges, where most health plans would be sold.
Oh, also, Reid was also apparently required to sweeten the deal by outright buying Nelson off:
Mr. Reid’s amendment also includes a substantial increase in federal contributions to Nebraska’s costs of providing Medicaid coverage to the poor.
Which, of course, does not extend to abortion coverage. Because, you know, they are poor.
Tags: Ben Nelson, Harry Reid, health care, insurance, legislation, reform, U. S. Senate
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by Downtowner, posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Well, CNN is reporting that Ben Nelson is feeling a bit more in control of my body, so a happy camper overall.
He says:
“Anyone who is in the exchange who also gets a federal subsidy because they’re poor, if they choose a private insurance policy and want any kind of abortion coverage, they have to write that part of the premium from their own personal funds.”
Offhand I’d say that means most poor women getting subsidies will elect not to write that additional check for the coverage – can’t afford to, really, if you are poor.
No word on whether Nelson’s other demands, such as cutting the aforementioned subsidies, have also been met.
Tags: Ben Nelson, health care, insurance, legislation, reform, U. S. Senate
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by Downtowner, posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Harry Reid has indicated that he anticipates a vote on the Senate’s Festive Giant Insurance Co. Giveaway on Christmas Eve, making that a really big day for celebration by Insurance Inc.
But today is a big day too; Harry Reid says he has his 60 votes and today will unveil the final version of the Festive Giant Giveaway.
Of course, neither we nor Harry can really know that it’s final until Lieberman and Nelson have issued their public responses to the “final” version Harry thinks they’ve agreed to. We will then learn what additional perks we will have to provide to Big Insurance in order to get our money on it’s way to them.
I plan on monitoring events throughout the course of the day and hope to be back with updates, comments, despair, panic, as the situation warrants.
Tags: Harry Reid, health care, insurance, legislation, reform, U. S. Senate
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by Downtowner, posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I need health care. Which the Senate bill will neither provide, nor provide access to for uninsurable people like me.
Sorry to put the “Breaking” into the title, but this appears to be news to so many diarists and commenters that I thought it was justified.
Also, sorry to be repetitive, as I posted much of the same appeal here recently, but there seem to be so many people deluded by the belief that at least the Senate bill offers access to care for the uninsured that I can’t help thinking someone, possibly lots of people need to repeat this, in real terms, until we are debating reality.
This is a piece of junk legislation, that will lead to junk “coverage” and continued lack of care for people who are currently most damaged and most at risk because they have been uninsurable – in some cases for quite a long while. In short, for people like me, uninsurable people, it is worse than the status quo.
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Tags: health care, insurance, legislation, reform, uninsurable, uninsured
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by Downtowner, posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
My youngest daughter, Kate, is 31. She’s married with three children. She has Type I Diabetes and was medically bankrupt at the age of 20 when she fell into a coma and spent two weeks in intensive care while uninsured. She is the principal breadwinner for her family, and despite her health challenges and past financial hardships they are doing okay now. In fact, Kate is doing so well right now that the most pressing personal family problem on her mind is that her brother will be deployed to Afghanistan this spring. And that is weighing heavily on her mind, though I won’t here go into what Kate thinks of the Afghanistan escalation.
Up until the 2008 election there was no force on earth – including me – that could move Kate to so much as vote. Her take on it: there is no point, big business owns government, and nothing will change. But in 2007 Kate changed, radically, sharply, suddenly, changed her mind.
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Tags: 2008 elections, 2010 elections, Barack Obama, Democrats, early adapters, health care, insurance, legislation, public option, reform
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by Downtowner, posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
So it’s been a long few days. My company lost it’s biggest contract – the one I was assigned to for the balance of this year – last Wednesday. They are a governmental entity who shall remain nameless and their budget was cut by their state legislature. Bad news at casa Downtowner. Happened just as I was about to get on a plane to visit my daughter, son-in-law and 9 month old grand-daughter in Phoenix. So I went.
By the time I got there, one of my grand-daughters back here in Illinois was sick with the flu, and two days into the trip, my Mom (who lives in Florida, but was here in Illinois visiting my brother) was hospitalized with a wide array of symptoms, ranging from a blood infection to problems with her heart. So I’ll admit I was stressed already, but then I got the phone call…
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Tags: Bill Foster, health care, insurance, legislation, Organizing for America, public option, reform, single payer
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by John Laesch, posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
On the eve of Barack Obama’s healthcare speech on 9/9/09, residents from Illinois’ 14th District took to the streets to encourage the President of the United States to push for comprehensive healthcare reform, Medicare for all.
Thanks to Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice and the Aurora Peace and Justice group, about 50 people showed up from all walks of life to show their support for the expansion of Medicare to all Americans. More people congregated as people got off of work and those that could not stop and join us used their horns to show their support.
The Beacon News covered the event here and an in-district blogger, Bill Baar, covered it here. More photos are available here.
Tags: Aurora Peace and Justice, Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice, health care, Illinois, insurance, Kane County, legislation, public option, reform, single payer, St Charles IL
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by Downtowner, posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
If you’ve been following the local press in IL-14, you know that Ethan Hastert is currently seeking the Repub nomination to fill his Daddy Denny’s former seat, currently held by Bill Foster, and you’d also be aware that this seat is high on the Repubs wish list for recapture in 2010.
If you’ve been following the local press for the last week, you’d be able to discern that, what with their “name” candidate, and their itch to take revenge for the lost of such a high profile seat, this area has become somewhat of a priority for targeting by the opponents of meaningful healthcare reform as well.
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Tags: Bill Foster, Ethan Hastert, health care, IL-14, Illinois, insurance, legislation, reform
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by Downtowner, posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Couple of days ago I got an e-mail from my right-wing-nut sister. Well a lot of people got it; she’d broadcasted it to her entire address book. It was supposed to be a joke about the top ten things we can all expect under Obamacare. It wasn’t funny, so I didn’t laugh.
But I did lose my temper and responded “to all” with what can only be called a rant. The rant included lots of facts and figures and some helpful links, since I assume my sister is not likely to happen upon many of those fact-thingies while watching Faux News and listening to Rush. But it also included a thorough rundown of my own uninsurable and dubious state of health, along with a request that if my sister wished to helped Big Insurance execute me for sake of the conservative cause, she at least display enough shame to leave me off her e-mail list.
uh-oh
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Tags: Barack Obama, Blue Dogs, Democrats, health care, insurance, legislation, reform
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by John Laesch, posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I am a middle-class worker who has decent health insurance (an 80-20 plan) and recognizes that my recently elevated private insurance premiums are paying for those who don’t have health insurance. In addition to paying for the uninsured, I calculated that I am also paying an extra $4,000-7,000 per year into the pocketbooks of Wall Street profiteers.
Maybe my story about a $110/month increase in health insurance premiums is not significant compared to the many stories of those who lose their homes, businesses and dignity because we continue to embrace the status quo, broken, for-profit healthcare system, but it still needs to be told.
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Tags: carpenters, health care, insurance, John Laesch, legislation, public option, reform, single payer, unions
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