Honeymoon's over?

Donna13 wrote:

http://www.insurekidsnow.gov/

"Health Coverage Plans


 



 



 



A new bill signed into law by President Obama makes millions of children eligible to receive health insurance.



 



 



 



If your kids do not have health insurance, they are likely to be eligible, even if you are working and even if you have applied in the past and been turned down.



 



 



 



Your state (and every state) has its own program, with its own eligibility rules, but in many states, uninsured children 18 years old and younger, whose families earn up to $44,500 a year (for a family of four) are eligible for free or low-cost health insurance that pays for



 



 



 



Doctor visits, Dental care, Prescription medicines, Hospitalizations and much more."



 



 



 

This is not new in my state and Obama didn't sign this law into effect...at least in my state he didn't. KCHIP (Kentucky Children's Health Insurance Program) has been around for years and years.

Janet and Dan -  am glad to hear you are okay for now and I hope  that you never end up in a situation that you are ill and have to worry on top of the illness that your health bills are not covered. I am not familiar with the details of President Obama's health care plans but basically a public health care system works when those who have jobs and income pay into the insurance and those who cannot pay are insured all the same. The more people pay into the system, the better health care can be provided for all. Certainly, there is no perfect system but the society should be willing to work together to provide health insurance for everybody and should not give in to the protests of a bunch of brainwashed sociopaths who do not even know what they are fighting against.

Janet and Dan,
Your story is similar to others we have heard, especially ever since campaign season began in '07. I'm so sorry that you had to go through that and now live in anxiety over your situation. My husband Had a stroke 2-1/2 years ago and last year, prostate cancer. Luckily he had retired with health insurance paid until he turned 65 a short time ago and went on Medicare. I am several years younger and we now have to pay $500 a month just for my insurance. Like many others, our retirement fund took a nose dive with the stock markets, but at least we have about 45 acres of ground, some livestock, and own everything free and clear.

The attitude of some of these conservative nut-cases seems to be that "I have mine and the hell with everyone else." Also I know from corresponding with that cousin, Paul, that there is an attitude that these people who don't have insurance have either made that choice or they have big-screen TV's with cable reception, and a lot of other goodies that they have spent their money on so that they can't afford insurance. Now they want the government to pay for it - in other words taxpayers like himself. And these people usually claim to be god-fearing Christians!

Good grief - guns and ammo have been flying off of gun dealers' shelves because these people have been convinced by web sites, emails, and conservative talk radio that Obama will make it impossible to acquire guns, or ammunition, or will take them away. These aren't sporting weapons either. They are assault rifles and survivalist weapons that nobody should have outside of the military.

The parents of that cousin I keep mentioning also live not far from us, having come here from Colorado several years ago. They are both college educated and bright people, but last year before the election took place Ron forwarded an email to me that he had gotten from a friend back in Colorado. This email was about Barack and Michelle Obama and was full of incredible stuff about how they hated the American flag and other such rot and how they were committed to making us a socialist country. There were so many red flags in this thing that it would have been laughable if it weren't so incredible that even these college educated, bright people were believing this garbage! Ron didn't send it to me as an example of how ridiculous the political stuff had gotten. He sent it to me as in "See - THIS is what Obama is really about!" I was so upset that in doing an email to send back to him I forgot that I had something cooking on the stove and by the time I smelled it burning it was too late.

That is how screwed-up politics has become here. That a single-payer, not-for-profit health insurance system makes sense is totally a hostile idea to these right-wing people. What they see is somebody getting something for nothing, and them paying for it.

What Obama did was sign a federal law into effect that gives more federal money to the states so that they can insure many more children under their CHIP programs.  The Act he signed was called the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009.  (It would be impossible for Obama to sign a state law; only a state's Governor can do that.  Obama only has executive power at the federal level.) 

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2009pres/06/20090619a.html

Hey, this makes it much more clear (hope it is correct information):  (from Wikipedia)

"The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) – later known more simply as the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – is a program administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides matching funds to states for health insurance to families with children. The program was designed with the intent to cover uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid.

 



 



 



At its creation in 1997, SCHIP was the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since Medicaid began in the 1960s. The statutory authority for SCHIP is under title XXI of the Social Security Act. It was sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy in a partnership with Senator Orrin Hatch with support coming from First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Clinton administration.



 



 



 



States are given flexibility in designing their SCHIP eligibility requirements and policies within broad federal guidelines. Some states have received authority through waivers of statutory provisions to use SCHIP funds to cover the parents of children receiving benefits from both SCHIP and Medicaid, pregnant women, and other adults. SCHIP covered 6.6 million children and 670,000 adults at some point during Federal fiscal year 2006, and every state has an approved plan.  Despite SCHIP, the number of uninsured children continued to rise, particularly among families that cannot qualify for SCHIP. An October 2007 study by the Vimo Research Group found that 68.7 percent of newly uninsured children were in families whose incomes were 200 percent of the federal poverty level or higher.  In FY 2008, the program faced funding shortfalls in several states.



 



 



 



During the administration of George W. Bush, two attempts to expand funding for the program failed when Bush vetoed them. In February 2009, President Barack Obama signed legislation expanding the program to an additional 4 million children and pregnant women, including for the first time legal immigrants without a waiting period. On February 4. 2009, President Obama signed the Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act of 2009."



 

The healthcare system in the the US and the attitutes of so many people to it never fails to surprise me.  (And i guess its not just the health care, social spending in general.)  I mean, the healthcare system in Ireland isnt great, and with funding cuts its getting worse, but you won't be in debt for the rest of your life if you don't have insurance, and you won't be denied treatment, even though we still all complain about the fee for an emergancy room visit!  But from what I've seen in my time in the States,there seems to be a mindset among a lot of conservative people that poor people almost 'deserve' to be poor and that they are being irresponsible by not getting health insurance, because everyone knows you need it.  And as someone else said, they cite ownership of a tv or something as a sign that the person isn't really poor - what do they want, for people already in extreemly difficult circumstances to live even more miserably to prove some kind of point?!  Anyway, i hope Obama succeeds in making some kind of change in it.

[img=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vRiSGYjf-AI/SoLOo68phRI/AAAAAAAADV8/ssfmOzLu99M/s400/Lula,+entre+uma+viagem+e+outra,+alegrinho][/img]
[/QUOTE]and... what do you think about this.....????????? have times that the problem was the same here!!!!![/QUOTE]

Anyone see the movie "SICKO" by Michael Moore???
It tells it like it is!!

«¤~Mrš. BÃD GÛŸ~¤» wrote:

Anyone see the movie "SICKO" by Michael Moore???
It tells it like it is!!

Haven't actually seen it though I've heard about it a lot. It is the sort of thing that rings true to liberals and the right-wingers call MM a Nazi, disqualifying anything he has produced.

Daft thing for Jimmy Carter to say that this criticism is motivated by racism. All it would take to refute that is for Fox news to trot out a few black Repubicans to criticse Obama and Carter and the Dems will look very foolish.

As for Govt. Health Care, my first kid was born in the UK, was 10 weeks premature and spent 6 weeks in intensive care. My wife had complications, and spent a fair amount of time in hospital afterwards, in a private room. It didn't cost us a penny.

When I lived in the US, our second child was concieved. I was a student at the time, and my wife was working. She had company healthcare, but not complete coverage. We worked out that if the second child went through the same problems as the first -- as they often do -- we would have to pay $25,000. So we moved back to the UK :)

Holly2003 wrote:

Daft thing for Jimmy Carter to say that this criticism is motivated by racism. All it would take to refute that is for Fox news to trot out a few black Repubicans to criticse Obama and Carter and the Dems will look very foolish.

As for Govt. Health Care, my first kid was born in the UK, was 10 weeks premature and spent 6 weeks in intensive care. My wife had complications, and spent a fair amount of time in hospital afterwards, in a private room. It didn't cost us a penny.

When I lived in the US, our second child was concieved. I was a student at the time, and my wife was working. She had company healthcare, but not complete coverage. We worked out that if the second child went through the same problems as the first -- as they often do -- we would have to pay $25,000. So we moved back to the UK :)  

I'd venture to say, not knowing what year that second child was born, but I'd say it would be at least quadruple $25,000 now. I have health insurance through my job and it's pretty good. I have no inpatient liability, small dr. visit co-pays, small medication co-pays (mind you not free), but I see the explanation of benefits that come in the mail and I would die if I had to pay what is actually on those bills. I simply could not do it. I had to take my youngest to the ER a year or so ago bc he ear drum burst. Just that bill alone was over $2000 and we were only in the ER for about 2 hours. I didn't have to pay that of course, just my $50 ER co-pay but all the charges were over $2000.

I really hope something can be done in this country with healthcare. I honestly don't see it happening bc there are a lot of greedy people in the USA. I know there are greedy people everywhere but I see a lot of powerful people standing to lose a lot of money if this country goes to socialized medicine. Powerful people can keep this from going through.

I fear that the rethoric of COSMIC CHANGE gets in the way of gradual reforms which could already greatly improve the U.S health-care system. Last week a friend went to one of these town-hall meetings. She's a big supporter of Obama. She said herself: "I left the meeting without having learned anything about health-care and still clueless about what Obama is really struggling for". His message is ambiguous and that's a real problem because, in the lack of a clear policy, his detractors come up with nonsensical lunatic hogwash; and, of course, he ends up frustrating his supporters as well.  

When it's time for him to make things clear, he resorts to the same rethoric he used in the campaign, but he's not campaigning anymore, he has to rule the country. It's of no use to keep saying he's open to all kinds of ideas - at this point, he should NOT be open to all kinds of ideas, but rather pushing hard for a very clear and down-to-earth health-care reform bill. 

We all know what happened in July. First thing in the morning I'd do was buying the papers - I read Pelosy's speeches, searched the web and ended up finding out that what she was announcing in Congress had nothing to do with what Obama was putting forth in public - he seemed like a Republican trying to accomodate the demands of those who supported him and who took the issue of health-care much more seriously than he himself had did. 

Obama's problems began as soon as the population started to pressure him to deliver on his campaign promises. His popularity going downhill does reflect the frustration of those who had voted for him. He had nothing. He didn't have a clearly outlined health-care reform bill which met his supporters' demands. And he still doesn't have one. 

Obama should not worry about the Republicans. He should be worrying about losing the support from those who voted for him.
 
By this time, of course, you'd imagine that they'd have come up with a very sound plan ready to be put into effect. They haven't - and a bad reform is worse than no reform at all, because it'll only squander the public resources, struggling the economy without significantly improving the state of public health-care in the U.S. 

He doesn't want to say very clearly what no one wants to listen to: that in order to deliver his promises, he'll have to raise taxes in a moment of economic crisis and taking the budget deficit up into the great beyond. 

So he runs the risk of making the crisis even worse without really improving the health-care system: that is, he ends up running the risk of getting for the U.S not an European-like system, but a Brazilian one - universal coverage IN THEORY and expensive private coverage in practice. 

He has to explain to the population how he's going to reform the health-care system while:

a) expanding U.S military action in the Middle East from Iraq to Afghanistan (where there are already a lot of U.S troops), thus raising the costs of what by the time of Bush was a trillion-dollar war - now it's more than that! 
b) rescuing failed companies and banks; 
c) raising taxes in a time of economic crisis; 
d) Americans take more and more drugs they don't need;
e) Overpricing runs rampant in Medicare and Medicaid;

----

I've been to the U.S quite often lately. The impression I have as foreigner, and I find it sad because it's a country I really like and never get tired of going to and where I may well end up living, is that, at least as of now, there's a weak flip-flopper in the presidency. That's sad. Even more sad when one takes into account that the population voted for change, not continuity or inaction. 

----

Blacks:

That has nothing to do with him being black. 

My only problem with blacks is that, apart from the color of their skin, they're no different from the whites. 
     

The thing that always gets me is that taxes would have to be raised quite a lot to pay for a single payer system in order to add up to all of the money people pay for the private policies.

We have a group of doctors going around the country now trying to sell the single payer system because they can't treat patients who can't afford the cost of being treated, and then these patients show up at the emergency room in really bad shape later when it could have been avoided. That's one of the reasons anyway. The doctors are used to dealing with Medicare anyway and it would simplify their practices to just have to deal with one system, knowing what to expect.

Yara wrote:

"Obama's problems began as soon as the population started to pressure him to deliver on his campaign promises. His popularity going downhill does reflect the frustration of those who had voted for him. He had nothing. He didn't have a clearly outlined health-care reform bill which met his supporters' demands. And he still doesn't have one. 

Obama should not worry about the Republicans. He should be worrying about losing the support from those who voted for him.

By this time, of course, you'd imagine that they'd have come up with a very sound plan ready to be put into effect. They haven't - and a bad reform is worse than no reform at all, because it'll only squander the public resources, struggling the economy without significantly improving the state of public health-care in the U.S."

Please read the details of the Obama health care plan here

http://www.healthreform.gov/

also under "health care" on the whitehouse.gov website. It's all there. I think the people who behaved like hooligans in the town hall meetings are not even interested in hearing the detalis.


I think it was not smart of President Carter to say that much of the hostility towards Obama is race-related but it's stunning with how much hysteria and paranoia parts of the Republican (not all of them!!) respond to the new President. It was really funny to see people cry and scream in front of cameras because of Obama's "stay-in-school" address to American schools. How he would brainwash their kids and how he would force his propaganda on them. I really feel sorry for those kids, they must think their parents are totally nuts. I may be wrong but I do not believe that this has ever happened before when a legally elected president of the USA addressed school kids. Race comes to mind when you see and hear this...

It's not the first time Obama has been accused of being racist either, there were some people accusing him of racism because of his position on abortion also.   
Bizzarre.

@ Catqueen

I know things are not that simple. But in the main I fully agree with...Obama!  ;-)))

“I, out of an effort to give Congress the ability to do their thing and not step on their toes, probably left too much ambiguity out there, which allowed the opponents of reform to come in and to fill up the airwaves with a lot of nonsense". (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/health/policy/10health.html)

That is: I do think one of his main problems as a President is governing as if he were still a candidate, indulging himself in vagueness and amibiguity. This is a sign of weakness and lack of resolution - he was more or less forced to take a clearer stance on the issue of health-care because his popularity began to erode among his supporters. 

@ Cacatua

He's sure going to have a hard-time with this issue.

From a quite decent review of his speech (link above): "To help raise revenues to offset the cost of overhauling health care, Mr. Obama took a stand on an issue about which he has equivocated for months. He endorsed the idea of imposing a fee, or tax, on health insurance companies for “their most expensive policies.” Proponents say the idea, which originated with Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, would encourage employers to buy cheaper, less generous coverage for employees, thereby reducing excessive use of medical services.
But many House Democrats, labor unions and insurers have resisted those proposals, saying the tax would often be passed on to employers and to workers in the form of higher premiums.
That suggested a problem for Mr. Obama in endorsing the fee: If it was drafted in a way that meant new costs for union workers with generous insurance policies, that could be seen as violating a campaign promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year." 

Let's wait and see how it develops. The outline of his plan is still very vague and the problem of "how to" is being duly avoided in public discourse. 

If Baucus' plan works just as he said it should work, then some of these problems may be avoided; on the other hand, a health-care plan which is "deficit neutral" risks falling short of its goals. 

In a short time from now I may be in your country for good. I'll strike you with a deluxe edition of Tarás Bulba and send you to hospital to TEST THE SYSTEM.  ; -)))) Hehe.