Posts Tagged ‘health care reform’

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No Health Insurance Exchange in SoDak this Year

January 19th, 2012 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in health care reform, health insurance

South Dakota governor Dennis Daugaard has stated that legislation to establish a health insurance exchange will not be on the table in this year’s session.

In a news release, the governor said that conditions were too unstable to recommend creating the kind of exchange stipulated by President Obama’s health care overhaul. That law intended individual states to set up their own exchanges, meant to assist people who purchase personal insurance plans.

But Governor Daugaard feels that the U.S. Supreme Court might strike down the health care reform law, or that it might be repealed by Congress, though he’s hoping for the former outcome. Despite this, he said, his state will apply for a federal grant to help create such an exchange if South Dakota is eventually required to do so.

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Judge Says Indiana CANNOT Defund Planned Parenthood

June 29th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in health care reform, health insurance, women and insurance

Last Friday, June 24th, a federal judge ruled that the state of Indiana may not block state and federal public funding of Planned Parenthood only because the medical organization provides abortions. The ruling also granted Planned Parenthood an injunction on the state’s attempt at defunding.

The decision, made by U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, in Indianapolis, agreed with the federal viewpoint that individual states may not disqualify Medicaid providers just because they also happen to be abortion providers, nor may the states do anything to restrict the freedom of Medicaid patients to select their own health care providers.

Bryan Corbin, the spokesperson for the Indiana attorney general’s office, said that the state will probably appeal this ruling.

The law, which went into effect last month, made Indiana the first state in the country to refuse to disburse Medicaid funds meant to be used for breast exams and Pap smears to Planned Parenthood. The organization, which provides health care to about 9.300 Indiana clients who receive state-federal health insurance for low-income and disabled Medicaid recipients, lost about $1.4 million because of that legislation.

The state’s argument was that federal law disallows Medicaid-covered abortions in most circumstances, and that such procedures are indirectly funded because financial statements from Planned Parenthood show that Medicaid funds are comingled with revenue from other sources. The state believes that this means the state-federal health insurance plan for low-income and disabled people might therefore be subsidizing some of the overhead costs for space where abortions are performed.

Pratt’s ruling said that Planned Parenthood would feel “dire financial effects” because of the law, and that the defunding meant basic health care would be denied to Medicaid patients who use the facility.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana has actually been running without Medicaid funding since Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed the law into force on May 10th, but wasn’t forced to stop seeing Medicaid patients until last week, when the donations from private sources, used to cover those patients’ bills, ran out.

Nationally, less than 3% of the medical services Planned Parenthood provides are abortions, or abortion-related.

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In Brief: AZ Governor Vetoes Health Care Bill

April 21st, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in health care reform, health insurance

Earlier this week Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona vetoed SB 1592, a bill which directed the Governor to form specific compacts with other states on behalf of Arizona, in order for citizens there to purchase health care insurance across state lines.

Her, reason, she wrote in her veto letter, included the fact that directing the governor to sign such an agreement would violate the separation of powers requirement outlined in Article 3 of the Arizona constitution.

While Governer Brewer was wielding her veto stamp, she also vetoed Arizona’s so-called “birther” bill, which would require political candidates to provide specific documentation (beyond their short-form birth certificates) in order to appear on ballots in the state, and another bill that would have authorized students to carry guns on campus.

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Excerpts From President Obama’s Speech About the Budget

April 14th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in health care reform, health insurance

Yesterday, President Obama made a speech about his plan for sensible budget reform. As health care is one of his pet issues, and one we believe is vitally important, we were pleased to hear his views on that subject.

What follows are a two numbered excerpts from the speech:

1. “Our approach lowers the government’s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself.

“Already, the reforms we passed in the health care law will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion. My approach would build on these reforms. We will reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments. We will cut spending on prescription drugs by using Medicare’s purchasing power to drive greater efficiency and speed generic brands of medicine onto the market. We will work with governors of both parties to demand more efficiency and accountability from Medicaid. We will change the way we pay for health care — not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results. And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.”

2. “But let me be absolutely clear: I will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in this society. I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves. We will reform these programs, but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment this country has kept for generations.”

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Friday Film Strips: Government Shutdown Over Planned Parenthood

April 8th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in friday filmstrips, health care reform, health insurance

As you probably know, there’s a threat of a government shutdown if a budget isn’t agreed to by midnight tonight. One of the issues is funding for Planned Parenthood, but it’s NOT about abortion because there are already laws preventing Planned Parenthood from using government funds for such procedures. De-funding Planned Parenthood would remove access to birth control, cancer screenings, and other health care for low-income women around the country.

But don’t take my word for it. Watch this week’s video:

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Louisiana Says No to Insurance Exchanges

March 29th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in alternative health plans, health care reform, health insurance

Governor Bobby Jindal and the state legislature in Louisiana have decided to opt out of the creation of a state insurance exchange as outlined in the federal health insurance overhaul, choosing to let the federal government administer the program.

Bruce Greenstein, Secretary of the State Department of Health and Hospitals, has confirmed this decision, and said that with it, Lousiana has become the second state to so decide.

The exchanges are insurance markets meant to allow consumers to choose a subsidized private insurance plan from a range of coverage options and levels. The deadline to have them all up and running, whether they’re run by the states or by the feds, is 2014.

Greenstein believes that federal officials haven’t provided enough detail about how the exchanges should be run. He also said he thinks insurance premiums will go up under the new system, and if that happens he doesn’t want the state government to take the blame.

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52 Million American Adults Uninsured in 2010, Study Says

March 16th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in health care reform, health insurance

Want to hear something really scary? A new study says that roughly twenty percent – or nine million out of 43 million adults who lost jobs in the last two years – ended up without any health insurance, and that nine million represents 57 percent of everyone who lost their insurance when they lost their jobs, at least according to the healthcare research and reform advocacy group The Commonwealth Fund.

Further data from the study showed that 25 percent of people who lost their employer-sponsored health insurance were able to find other coverage, while 14 percent paid COBRA premiums to keep their job-based coverage. For many others, however, 16 million out of an estimated 26 million adults who tried to buy health insurance on the individual insurance market in the last three years found it difficult or impossible to find coverage they could afford, and 9 million said they were either turned down or charged more because of an existing health problem, or had a pre-existing condition excluded from their new policy.

The data gets worse. According to the survey 52 million American adults had no health coverage at some point in 2010 while the number of uninsured adults was only 38 million in 2001. The most likely people to be uninsured were adults in families with low-to-moderate incomes (under $44,100/year for a family of four) with 54 percent of lower income adults and 41 percent of moderate income adults being uninsured, while only 13 percent of adults with higher incomes lacked insurance coverage.

Further information from the survey says that 73 million people were either paying off medical debt or were having trouble paying medical bills, while 25 percent of adults with chronic conditions either skipped regular medications, or skipped filling a prescription.

Sara Collins, the author of the study and vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, explained, “The survey shows that over the last decade, increasing numbers of people across the income spectrum went without health insurance, avoided timely health care because it was too expensive, and struggled with medical debt. Millions of working families reported making difficult trade-offs between paying off their medical debt, buying other life necessities, and saving for the future.”

Collins also said that last year’s federal health care reform laws will, “…ensure that families will have the financial means to get the health care that they need, both in good economic times and bad.”

Well, unless the Republicans in Congress don’t kill it.

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