HHS Launches ‘Helpdesk’ for New Health Care Reform Law
If you have any questions about the new health care reform law—from “What are my health insurance options?” to “How do I get coverage with a pre-existing condition?”—HealthCare.gov is the place to go. Think of it as the nation’s “Helpdesk” for health care decisions.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says the just-launched website helps consumers
take control of their health care and make the choices that are right for them, by putting the power of information at their fingertips. HealthCare.gov makes it easy for consumers and small businesses to compare health insurance plans in both the public and the private sector and find other important health care information. Read the rest of this entry »
House or Senate Health Care Reform? Compare for Yourself
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Over the coming days—and maybe weeks—U.S. House and Senate leaders, along with the Obama White House, will be working to shape one health care reform bill from the two each chamber passed earlier this year.
Now is a good time to compare the two and we’ve posted a comparison here. After you’ve compared the bills, mark you calendar for Jan. 13 to join in a National Call-In Day to the House to demand health care reform that works for working families. See details below.
The pair has many common elements that will help working families cope with the ever-rising costs of health care and address serious flaws and shortcomings in the nation’s health care system.
Health care reform advocates say that more than three-quarters of the bills’ provisions share such features as consumer protections, more affordable coverage for active workers and retirees and seniors, expanded coverage and cost containment.
Health Insurance CEO’s $73 Million Bonus Covers a Lot of Co-Pays—and Other Health Care News
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Millions of working families are struggling to pay the ever-rising costs of health care or going without, and they await what Congress will do with health care reform.
But one person who won’t have to worry about the final shape of health care legislation is H. Edward Hanway. He just retired as CEO and chairman of the board of the health insurance behemoth CIGNA.
Even if his co-pays double and his deductibles and premiums rise, his $73 million retirement bonus—not to mention $12 million compensation in 2009—should take care of those pesky increases. Read more at the Health Care Journal of Northern California.
Meanwhile, the House and Senate leaders are meeting this evening with President Obama to try to hash out the next steps in the health care battle, now that both houses have passed bills with significant differences.
Senate Passes Health Care Bill
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The Senate passed health care reform by a 60-39 margin shortly after 7 a.m. today.
While passage of this legislation continues the momentum for health care reform, the Senate bill itself doesn’t live up to the kind of reform we need. The bill has many positive features, but it falls short in three key areas:
• It is paid for by a tax on working families’ health benefits.
• It fails to provide a public health insurance option, which would control costs by giving insurance companies real competition.
• It does not do enough to make sure employers are living up to their responsibility.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said:
For this health care bill to be worthy of the support of working men and women, substantial changes must be made. The AFL-CIO intends to fight on behalf of all working families to make those changes and win health care reform that is deserving of the name.
The House bill is the model for genuine health care reform. Working people cannot accept anything less than real reform.
Lie of the Year: ‘Death Panel’ Attack on Health Care Reform
This year, opponents of health care reform hit new lows in promoting misleading, inaccurate or flat-out dishonest information. The worst of these lies was the scam that health care reform would create “death panels” whose members would judge whether to end seniors’ lives.
The website PolitiFact called the death-panel myth the “Lie of the Year,” and the watchdog group Media Matters named its originator, Betsy McCaughey, as “Health Care Misinformer of the Year.”
The vicious, absurd fairy tale of “death panels” got its start in July, when McCaughey, a former New York lieutenant governor, claimed on the air that, in a reformed health care system, seniors would be mandated to attend counseling sessions where they’d be told how and when to end their lives.
Trumka: Senate Health Care Bill Must Change to Be Real Reform
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The health care bill being considered by the U.S. Senate is inadequate and too tilted toward the insurance industry, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today.
In recent days, as the Senate has debated health care reform, small numbers of senators have held health care hostage by threatening to block a vote. The new proposal by the Senate puts the interests of insurance companies—and senators who would rather look out for the insurance companies—ahead of real reform.
Trumka said the top priority now is to fight over the rest of the legislative process to fix the bill and make sure we can pass real health care reform:
The labor movement has been fighting for health care for nearly 100 years and we are not about to stop fighting now, when it really matters. But for this health care bill to be worthy of the support of working men and women, substantial changes must be made. The AFL-CIO intends to fight on behalf of all working families to make those changes and win health care reform that is deserving of the name.
Hundreds Rally in Washington State for Health Care Reform
More than 600 people rallied in Seattle this weekend as part of a statewide push for health care reform. Union members, religious leaders, community activists and elected leaders came together for the rally.
Jacqueline Hix, one of the speakers at the rally, told how she was hurt by our broken health care system:
My family and I were the status quo. We had nearly a million dollars in insurance coverage. We were middle class, we had stellar credit, we owned our own home and we were preparing to buy a farm so that we could start a new life as self-employed.
All of those dreams were destroyed in less than a second when I was broadsided by a vehicle on my way to work. I had to take a year-long leave from work—at the end of that year, I was let go from my job and my family lost its health and disability insurance. Our family went from middle class to bankrupt.
Fighting for Real Reform on Capitol Hill and Across the Country
Today and tomorrow, more than 100 union leaders and activists from around the nation are visiting their senators and representatives to let them know they urgently need to pass health care reform—the right way.
The exact shape of the Senate’s bill is in flux right now, and the union leaders are pressing members of Congress on three key issues:
• Inclusion of a public health insurance option;
• Making sure employers do their part in providing health care for employees; and
• Stopping a new tax on working family health benefits.
Union activists are also bringing thousands of handwritten letters to members of Congress to let them know their constituents want reform and are worried about a tax on benefits.
Freshman Senators Fight for Lower Costs in Health Care
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Today in the U.S. Senate, 11 first-term senators are introducing a package of amendments that will improve the Senate’s health care bill by getting health care costs under control.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the Senate should pass this set of amendments to improve health care for all families and make our health care system more sustainable in the long term:
These senators have their eyes on what’s most important to all Americans—affordable, high-quality health care that will be there when we need it. We must transform our current health care system into one that rewards value-constraining cost growth without compromising care.
A number of the amendments announced today would, individually, represent significant steps forward from the current draft Senate legislation. Taken together, however, they amount to a robust expansion of critically important provisions in the legislation.
Fix Health Care Right—Don’t Tax Benefits
We’re continuing our campaign for real health care reform with a new AFL-CIO TV ad that sends a clear message: “Pass Health Care. Don’t Tax Health Benefits.” The ad, which started running in key markets around the country over the weekend, emphasizes that taxing benefits will lead companies to cut benefits and will shift cost burdens to families that can’t afford it. It urges Congress to pass health care reform all Americans can afford.
The Senate’s health care bill would set a tax on health plans worth more than $8,500 per year for individuals and $23,000 per year for families. For workers in high-risk occupations, for retirees 55 or older and for residents in the 17 highest-cost states, the bill would tax plans worth more than $9,850 for individuals and $26,000 for families.
This would amount to an enormous tax on workers’ health care benefits, one that would grow rapidly, as insurers increase premiums by an equivalent amount. It would shift health care costs onto the backs of workers—including many of the most vulnerable workers—without bringing down the cost of health care.
