Health Care For All compares Obama's health care consumer-protection to-do list vs. what we've already done in Massachusetts. [Number is mine, for clarity.]
- No Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions: Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.
- No Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays: Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses.
- No Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care: Insurance companies must fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.
- No Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill: Insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill.
- No Gender Discrimination: Insurance companies will be prohibited from charging you more because of your gender.
- No Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage: Insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive.
- Extended Coverage for Young Adults: Children would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26.
- Guaranteed Insurance Renewal: Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies won’t be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick.
As it turns out, we've got 1, 4, 5, 7, and 8 already done; and 2, 3, and 6 are partially or mostly done.
It's just important to understand how far ahead of the curve we are, compared to the rest of the country, on some pretty basic standards. If we accomplish these things nationally as part of health care reform, it would indeed be a major step forward.
Of course you also need lots of increased access to care, and then create a decent marketplace for insurance a la the Connector, and a public option would be very useful indeed. But restricting some of the worst abuses in the health care market would eliminate many — though not all — of the private insurance horror stories.
The fact is that the Republicans had plenty of opportunity to implement some or all of these reforms during W. Bush’s tenure, and simply didn’t.
<
p>Even if they did it piecemeal to include only the most “free market” of changes, you think the Dems would have stood in the way. As far as I can tell, (5) is the most palatable and the easiest to implement. Let it stand alone as it’s own bill and watch it pass perhaps unanimously.
<
p>The fact is, we knew that health care was broken and getting worse throughout the 2000s, and the U.S. Republicans did nothing (or not nearly enough!) to implement simple measures to improve accessibility, fairness, and cost effectiveness.
<
p>
<
p>Had they made some reasonable changes then, they’d have taken away some of the Dem’s leverage, forcing the Dems to instead throw the Hail Mary (single payer or other mega-large reform) by taking away their ability to use a series of short, safe passes (1-8 above) to make the bill far more moderate and middle-of-common-sense.
I have a new MacBook, which allows me to tap the touchpad as a “click” but sometimes I manage to doubleclick it in just the right speed to click Firefox twice. Oh well. Thanks Eds.
The sad accompanying truth here is that, for as much progress as we’ve made, health care expenses are still a crushing burden for too many Massachusetts residents. Yes, we have made great progress. We still have a very long way to go. We must have a government-sponsored single-payer health-care system. We must take insurance companies out of the health-care delivery system. It is the only solution that works.
<
p>The Massachusetts plan has not and in my opinion will not significantly reduce the cost of health care in Massachusetts nor ameliorate the devastating impact of those costs. Massachusetts insurance companies still report record profits — profits earned, literally, in blood money.
<
p>The fact that a health-insurance company executive is even considered a viable candidate in the upcoming election epitomizes the disconnect between the GOP and our collective human values. In my view, this is the enormous vulnerability of Charlie Baker. The campaign spots literally write themselves — soft-focus images of children dying from preventable illnesses, elderly victims of medical bankruptcies weeping in interviews from homeless shelters, showing dog-eared photographs of homes lost to foreclosures at the hands of HPHC and Charlie Baker.
<
p>The question is whether we progressives have the cahunas to frame his candidacy that way.
why do I need to see a doctor for a blood pressure check? Why not enlist allied health professionals into the mix to offer more care access points and lower cost at the same time. One reason is the Mass medical Society, they dont like the idea of losing control and power. When I had Harvard Pilgrim HMO I saw mianly a nurse practioner, she spent a lot of time with me, got me excited about weight loss and i lost 30 lbs when i was seeing her. My docotr now spends about 5 minutes with em and thats it, why cant I choose to see a NP as my primary?
<
p>Doctors slam midwife, naturopath bills
State standards, licenses eyed
By Christine McConville | Tuesday, August 4, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Healthcare
Massachusetts legislators are considering bills that would establish separate boards of registries for midwives and naturopaths and that would allow certified nurse anesthetists to prescribe certain medications.
<
p>But the Massachusetts Medical Society is taking aim at all three measures, saying they aren’t good medicine.
<
p>The so-called midwives bills seek to establish a board of registration for lay and nurse midwives.
<
p>Supporters say the move will create statewide practicing standards for midwifery. In the end, they say, all midwives in Massachusetts will provide high-quality care.
<
p>But the Massachusetts Medical Society is fighting the bills’ passage, saying they don’t ensure adequate oversight of midwives and don’t provide enough patient protection.
<
p>The medical society is also fighting efforts to make naturopaths licensed health-care providers in Massachusetts.
<
p>Naturopathic medicine is a small, but growing, form of holistic health care. So far, 13 states require practitioners to be licensed.
<
p>Naturopaths say bills currently before the House and Senate would require that all naturopathic practitioners in Massachusetts be held to the highest standards of education and training.
<
p>But in fiery testimony at the State House last week, the medical society denounced the move, calling the practice of naturopathy a “large assortment of erroneous and potentially dangerous claims mixed with a sprinkling of non-controversial dietary and lifestyle advice.”
<
p>The state medical society is also opposing bills that aim to extend prescribing rights to certified nurse anesthetists.
<
p>Supporters say the measures will streamline onerous medical procedures, while critics say extending prescribing rights to more health-care practitioners will disrupt the current prescribing system.
<
p>The bills are before the Joint Committee on Public Health.
<
p>Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/jo…
“…important to understand how far ahead of the curve we are, compared to the rest of the country…”
<
p>You got that right:
<
p>Estimated 1.4 Billion Dollar unsustainable subsidized cost for 2009.
<
p>Health Care Costs in Massachusetts increasing faster then the national average.
<
p>200,000 people in Massachusetts still without healthcare.
<
p>Insurance premiums rising twice as fast in Massachusetts then in the rest of the country.
<
p>Program cost continues to jump.
<
p>Despite all the taxes the program’s deficits continue to grow.
<
p>State Lawmakers recognize what an unsustainable mess and failure this is to the point some are considering “rationing” – (caps on insurance premiums & cutting reimbursement to providers).
<
p>Massachusetts should serve as a warning to the rest of the Nation. This is what happens.
<
p>When people start rushing from the U.S. to a foreign Country to receive better life-saving health care I’ll start buying into the premise that are health care is “completely broken”. For now, it is not perfect and there are ways to improve, but H.R. 3200 isn’t the answer.
<
p>STOP blaming republicans. With an impressive majority in the House and a fillibuster proof Senate Obama needs ZERO votes from republicans.
<
p>
<
p>I’ve written about this before, and MA has no idea what a true national plan would mean. Define ‘basic’.
<
p>In many states, pregnancy coverage is an option, and employers are free to refuse to offer it. In fact, in MOST states, a newborn child cannot be added to a plan until it is 14 days old, so expensive neonatal care may not be covered (as opposed to Mass., where we demand only one deductible for a mother AND child at a birth).
<
p>Oklahoma has a ‘bad risk’ health pool, with a LIFETIME cap of $500,000 – so a kid with leukemia had better just move if coverage is exhausted at age 20.
<
p>Until Bush created Medicare PArt D, most seniors had no prescription coverage, as there WAS no Senior Pharmacy in other states.
<
p>I could go on. It’s no accident that we have some of the highest rates in the nation.
<
p>We have some of the most generous mandates in the nation, yet we think we’ll raise the other 49 states UP to our level, instead of sinking some to match other states. We tried that with Special Ed, didn’t we? Changed ‘reasonable and customary’ to ‘maximum feasible benefit’ and waited for the rest of the nation to follow? After ten years with nobody else raising their standards…we resumed ‘reasonable and customary’…
using modern Republican talking points!!
not by the power of state government to state government persuasion, but by the power of a Democratic super(ish) majority in Congress.
<
p>Will every generous mandate in MA be adopted in a national bill? Of course not. But, some will. Will every obnoxious healthy-outcome-be-damned-we-want-profit! tricks used by health insurance companies in other states be eliminated? Not unless we eliminate health insurance companies, and that doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
<
p>
<
p>The point is that MA has done it, and people like it. We pay more for it, but come on — lifetime cap? That’s horrible. A newborn can’t get insurance until 14 days old? That’s horrible. This is exactly the kind of crap which shows that insurance companies simply aren’t acting in the public’s interest… and the kind of thing that Washington can improve in September.
And Stomv – ‘we’ may like it, but so many others in other states will not that it bodes ill for Mass.-like mandates to be applied nationwide.
<
p>Example – for a while, the state required that the premium for our mandatory pregnancy coverage be broken out on health premium bills. I’d sell a polciy to a single guy, and he’d see the amount for pregnancy coverage. He’d ask if this was for his girlfriend, and I’d reply – no, it’s for YOU, but if you BECOME pregant, I’m betting that you won’t need the coverage when the tabloid offers pour in…
<
p>Multiply that by dozens of madates, and go to states LIE Oklahoma which has minimal coverage now, and ask if they’d like to quintuple premiums in return for such benefits. As YOU said, it’s a “Democratic super(ish)” majority.
<
p>We may stoop to conquer, but don’t count on standing all the way up again…
Danger Will Robinson!title of your reply. The voice and the visuals from Lost in Space just popped into my head when I read your post. Just being a wise guy. No insult intended. Respect you very much.