Here’s What Health Care Reform Means for Working Families
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| The AFL-CIO is running an ad in support of health care reform in newspapers in the Washington, D.C., area. |
Within days, the U.S. House will vote on a historic health care reform bill that will cover everyone, cut costs and protect families from insurance company abuses.
The House bill, H.R. 3962—the Affordable Health Care for America Act—has provisions that will help families now and in the long term, all while decreasing the nation’s deficit.
Although some provisions of reform will require time to implement, here are key changes that will kick in immediately, providing direct and critical relief to millions of working families:
- An immediate insurance program for high-risk uninsured people to buy into.
- Ending “rescissions”—prohibiting insurers from nullifying coverage when patients file claims.
- Ending the lifetime caps on how much care insurers will cover.
- Allowing young people to stay on their parents’ policies until age 27.
- Allowing workers who have lost coverage because they lost their job to extend COBRA coverage.
- New incentive programs to increase the number of doctors.
- Funding for community health centers.
- Reducing the “donut hole” in Medicare prescription drug coverage—which right now doesn’t cover any drug costs between $2,700 and $4,050.
- A new fund to help employers pay for coverage for early retirees.
Drop Dead? Is That the Way Republican Reps. Talk to Seniors?
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Opponents of critically needed health care reform continue to demonstrate how out of touch they are with working America—and in a recent egregious comment by a House Republican, the opposition has also insulted the nation’s seniors.
Here’s what Florida Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite said Tuesday on the House floor:
“Last week, Democrats released a health care bill which essentially said to America’s seniors: ‘Drop dead.’ ”
Tony Fransetta, president of the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, is outraged by Brown-Waite’s injudicious and downright ugly comment.
Rep. Brown-Waite’s remarks earlier this week were not only inappropriate and inaccurate, but they were a misleading and divisive attempt to scare Florida’s seniors in the current debate over national health care reform.
Prescription Drug Donut Hole: ‘Sweetheart Deal’ for Big Pharma
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Phil Feaster, a retired truck driver from Fort Washington, Md., is one of more than 24 million seniors in Medicare’s prescription drug program, the program that is supposed to cover most of the prescription drug expenses for participants.
But Feaster, a member of the Alliance for Retired Americas, like 3.4 million other Medicare Part D enrollees, falls into a very expensive “donut hole.”
For Feaster, it’s a $700 a month hole that he hopes will be closed by comprehensive health care reform legislation introduced today in the House of Representatives.
Speaking at a Capitol Hill press conference yesterday, Feaster said:
My generation likes to tell it like it is: The donut hole is a rip-off. You pay money, but get nothing in return. Can you imagine going to a restaurant where all they give you is an empty plate—but yet they still force you to pay for a full meal? Of course not.
