Nominate Your Health Care Reform Champion of Change
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The White House Champions of Change program wants to honor those people who have helped people in their communities take advantage of the Affordable Care Act’s growing benefits and those who have championed access to health care for everyone in their community throughout their careers.
Before the nearly two-year-old Affordable Care Act was passed, children were refused insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition and people with chronic conditions ran out of insurance coverage because their expenses hit lifetime limits. Now young adults under the age of 26 can stay on their parent’s coverage.
Affordable Care Act Saves Seniors $2.1 Billion in Drug Costs
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The Affordable Care Act has saved nearly 3.6 million people enrolled in Medicare $2.1 billion on their prescription drugs in 2011, finds a new report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says the health care reform law signed by President Obama in 2010:
is already saving money for millions of Americans with Medicare. As we move forward, we will close the donut hole completely and save even more money for everyone with Medicare.
The Affordable Care Act—which Republican lawmakers are fighting to repeal—provides a 50 percent discount on brand-name prescription drugs and, beginning this year, a 14 percent discount on generics. Last year, it provided a 7 percent discount on covered generic medications for people who hit the prescription drug coverage gap known as the donut hole, with more than 2.8 million beneficiaries receiving $32.1 million in savings on generics.
Overall, the 3.6 million Americans who hit the donut hole saved an average of $604 on the cost of their prescription drugs. The Affordable Care Act closes the donut hole completely by 2020.
Click here for a state-by-state look at donut hole savings figures for today’s donut and here for a fact sheet.
Affordable Care Act Helps Real People in Real Ways
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Republican presidential campaign pyrotechnics can’t hide the record of a party that has turned its back on ordinary Americans. It’s worth remembering how, a year ago, the Republican-majority House of Representatives tried to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
What would have happened if they had succeeded?
- 2.5 million young adults would have no health insurance.
- 2.65 million seniors would have paid $1.5 billion more for prescription drugs.
- 24.2 million seniors would pay for preventative services they are getting for free.
And that’s just the beginning. A short report from the White House highlights how the Affordable Care Act is making insurance more available and affordable for millions of Americans.
It’s good reading at a time when the Affordable Care Act repeal is still a GOP battle cry, with all the presidential hopefuls and most Republicans in Congress vowing to overthrow the law—and trying to scare voters in the process.
Check out the Center for American Progress’ animated video (above) explaining the benefits of reform. The video was developed by MIT economist Jon Gruber, an adviser on both the Affordable Care Act and the Massachusetts health care reform program.
Insurance Commissioners Bow to Insurers, Consumers Face $1.2 Billion Bill
One of the Affordable Care Acts most important consumer protection provisions requires health insurers spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on actual medical care, not wasteful administration, marketing or executive pay and bonuses.
But yesterday, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) endorsed a Big Insurers-backed plan to weaken the law when its members voted to urge Congress and the Obama administration to exempt brokers’ fees from the calculation—known as medical loss ratios—used to determine a company’s premium total.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D. W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, says exempting those fees would allow insurance companies to retain billions of dollars that the health care reform law requires then to give back to consumers in the form of rebates or lower premiums. Click here for a letter Rockefeller sent to the NAIC prior to yesterday’s vote. Last year the NAIC defeated a similar effort. Read the rest of this entry »
Court Upholds Affordable Care Act, Tosses Virginia Challenges
A federal appeals court yesterday threw out two lawsuits that sought to overturn the Affordable Care Act. The suits are part of a coordinated move by Republican governors, state and federal lawmakers and right-wing groups to kill 2010 health care reform law.
Since its inception, the Affordable Care Act has benefited tens of millions of people, including parents of children with preexisting conditions, women getting mammograms with no out of pocket cost, seniors saving thousands of dollars on their prescription drugs and young adults now getting covered on their parents’ plans.
In Thursday rulings, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed challenges from the state of Virginia and Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., that claimed the health care reform law was unconstitutional. Read the rest of this entry »
Republicans Pass ‘Robin Hood in Reverse’ Budget Plan
On a near straight party line vote (235-193) this afternoon, the U.S. House passed the Republican budget plan that privatizes Medicare, cuts corporate taxes and taxes for the wealthy, cuts Medicaid funding repeals health care reform and costs up to 2 million jobs. All Democrats as well as four Republicans voted against the bill. (Get the vote breakdown here.)
Republicans say the huge spending cuts in the plan, developed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), are needed to reduce the federal deficit. But just a causal glance at the math shows the Republican budget plan cuts $4.3 trillion in spending and hands out $4.2 trillion in tax giveaways, mostly to the wealthy and corporations.
Even more disturbing, according to Moody Analytics and the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the Republican budget will cost between 1.7 million and 2.2 million jobs in the first two years alone. Last night in Chicago President Obama said: Read the rest of this entry »
Vermont Health Care Bill Seeks Universal Coverage
While Republican lawmakers like House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) continue their efforts to repeal the new health care reform law, last week Vermont moved a step closer to universal health care coverage when the state House of Representatives passed sweeping health care legislation, Said House Speaker Shap Smith (D):
This bill takes our state one step closer to a system that ensures that all Vermonters have access to the care they deserve and contains costs.
The bill, which must still pass the state Senate, would eventually move forward to single-payer system, something that Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) campaigned on last year. Following the vote he said the bill would make Vermont
the first state in the country to make the first substantive step to deliver a health care system where health care will be a right and not a privilege, where health care will follow the individual, not be a requirement of the employer, and where we’ll have an affordable system that contains costs.
The Vermont AFL-CIO, which backed the bill, plans to hold public forums throughout the state to explain the legislation and build support for the bill. Click here for an in-depth look at legislation by Lauren Else at In These Times.
Happy Birthday, Health Care Reform—Don’t Let Republicans Spoil the Party
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Today is the first anniversary of the landmark Affordable Care Act that has already helped tens of millions of Americans acquire or receive better health care and that has reined in health insurance companies’ most abusive practices.
Yet congressional Republicans keep trying to repeal health care reform. What are they against? Take a look at just some of the Affordable Care Act’s benefits the repeal would destroy.
- Millions of seniors are receiving free preventive care, such as mammograms and colonoscopies, and relief from skyrocketing prescription drug prices—such as getting $250 if they reach the “donut hole” and a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs.
- For small businesses, job-creating tax credits are available to help cover their employees. More small businesses are now providing coverage.
- Adult children can stay on their parents’ health plans until they’re 26, which provides much needed access to care and peace of mind in this tough economy.
- The Affordable Care Act ends unconscionable abuses like dropping you because you fall ill or because you made a mistake in your paperwork. It bans the practice of denying your care or charging you more for having a pre-existing condition—about 129 million people. It also ends annual and lifetime caps on coverage.
- For the first time ever, the insurance companies are being held accountable, capping how much they can charge, limiting excessive profits and putting the brakes on bloated compensation for CEOs.
First Anniversary Approaches for Health Care Reform Law
The Affordable Care Act turns one year old Wednesday and hundreds of events are scheduled around the country to mark the health care reform law’s anniversary and fight back against Republican attempts to repeal the law.
Health Care for American Now (HCAN) Executive Director Ethan Rome says:
One year later, Republicans still have no health care plan other than to take away prescription drug discounts for seniors, no-cost preventive care for everyone, small-business tax credits and consumer protections like the ban on denying care or charging more because of pre-existing medical conditions.
In an op-ed piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said that when President Obama signed the health care reform bill into law march 23,
the country took a giant and long-overdue step toward equitable health and social policy.
McDermott: ‘Republicans Have Always Hated Medicare’
Today’s House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Medicare was billed as an examination of how the health care reform law will impact the 45-year-old program that provides health care coverage for nearly 40 million seniors.
But Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) cut right through the smoke screen laid down by committee chairman Rep. Dave Camp (R- Mich.).
While today’s hearings is supposed to be about the new health care law’s impact on Medicare, it is really about taking the first step towards advancing Congressman Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future,” which would transform the Medicare system into a voucher program.
It would kill Medicare as we know it and force seniors to go out and shop around for health insurance with a voucher. Do Republicans really think that insurance companies are going to be jumping up and down to provide senior citizens with health insurance?
The latest attack on the Affordable Care Act comes as no surprise. The new House majority’s first act wasn’t addressing the broken economy or offering job creation proposals. It was a vote to repeal the health care reform law and a vow to take it apart piece by piece and starve it by refusing to appropriate funds. Read the rest of this entry »
