President Obama has already voted, have you? |
The Obama administration will soon take on a new role as the sponsor of at least two nationwide health insurance plans to be operated under contract with the federal government and offered to consumers in every state.
These multistate plans were included in President Obama’s health care law as a substitute for a pure government-run health insurance program — the public option sought by many liberal Democrats and reviled by Republicans. Supporters of the national plans say they will increase competition in state health insurance markets, many of which are dominated by a handful of companies.
The national plans will compete directly with other private insurers and may have some significant advantages, including a federal seal of approval. Premiums and benefits for the multistate insurance plans will be negotiated by the United States Office of Personnel Management, the agency that arranges health benefits for federal employees.
Walton J. Francis, the author of a consumer guide to health plans for federal employees, said the personnel agency had been “extraordinarily successful” in managing that program, which has more than 200 health plans, including about 20 offered nationwide. The personnel agency has earned high marks for its ability to secure good terms for federal workers through negotiation rather than heavy-handed regulation of insurers.
John J. O’Brien, the director of health care and insurance at the agency, said the new plans would be offered to individuals and small employers through the insurance exchanges being set up in every state under the 2010 health care law.
No one knows how many people will sign up for the government-sponsored plans. In preparing cost estimates, the Obama administration told insurers to assume that each national plan would have 750,000 people enrolled in the first year.
When the Affordable Care Act was passed WITHOUT the public option, I know a lot of people were really upset. Myself included.
But then I read somewhere, and I wish I could remember where, that this was just the first step of Obama's ultimate plan, and that once the bill had passed it would be tweaked, and tweaked until the programs offered had finally forced most of the health care insurers out of business, and then we would, for all intents and purposes, move to the single payer health care system that the progressives had long been hoping for.
I think that this could be the beginning of that tweaking process.
Now please keep in mind that Mitt Romney has promised that on "day one" he is going to repeal Obamacare. And if that happens, we can all kiss goodbye ANY hope of seeing our broken health care system repaired once and for all
Mitt Romney, like all Republican politicians, works for the health insurance conglomerates, and they will do ANYTHING to save their livelihoods.
This is our man.....he has a hidden agenda alright and it's all for us. He is dragging this country into the 21st century kicking and screaming...and this also means the pharma corps are gonna be screaming right along with the anti EPA corps like Koch. Oh boy...I hope the bankers go the way of the dinosaurs too. He is gonna need to wear body amour from now on.
ReplyDeleteNow I understand why the right is freaking out over Benghazi and making up stories even more outlandish than they did about ACORN.
ReplyDeleteThey do not want Americans to have access to the same plans that our elected officials have, because the insurance lobby is no doubt against anything that doesn't screw millions of us. GOBAMA!
And Go to Hell, right wing!
Gryphen, your post reminds me of:
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of non-USA single payer, Sarah Palin knows how great single payer is, her family went to Canada for healthcare when she was a child. Now she had Todd with his enough Alaska native bloodline so they can use the Indian Health Services (if not for Sarah, at least for the rest of the kids and grandkids).
For too many years the insurance companies and the drug companies have run America. Putting the screws to the citizens is their foremost goal and it has cost families hit with catastrophic illnesses to lose their businesses, their homes, their life savings etc.
ReplyDeleteI know these things because my long career as a nurse observed the antics of those organizations taking from the stricken family.
Why should any pill cost $300? My son was battling Hodgkins Lymphoma and the doctor ordered the prescription (not covered by his EXCELLENT insurance plan) and when I went to pick it up it was for 6 pills @$300 each!!!!!!!!!!!! T
The pharmacist said they could not dispense just one pill as the Rx read to dispense 6! I told him that if his pharmacy only had 1 in stock he would have prepared it and told me to come back later. I finally purchased 2 as that was all I had in my checking account in the middle of the night.
My sister-in-law died of lung cancer (never smoked nor did my brother) and her medications prescribed by one of the foremost cancer centers (not covered by Medicare) were exorbitant. I got them connected with a pharmacy in Canada cutting the cost by thousands per month.
GWB then said no out of country medicines permitted or you lose your Medicare. My brother paid out of pocket until her death. He quipped that if he could rob one bank per month he thought he could afford to buy food and gas plus her meds.
Think about it. Not all folks are so lucky as to have relatives or savings that can help in these unfortunate, unplanned disastrous life-threatening sicknesses.
There comes a time of reckoning when the bullies need to be put in their place and the drug and insurance organizations are bullies. If other countries can provide the same meds for so much less, manufactured by the same companies, labeled with the same corporate name then who is being the fool?
I am so sorry for the illnesses that your family has had to endure. Screw GWB saying no to out of country prescriptions. I was on SS and went to Canada anyway, never had a problem with it. While I can't say that you or anyone else would not have a problem, I can say, how would SS know you went to Canada?
DeleteDon't forget though, that Rmoney's boast to repeal O-Care on Day One is absolute BS. The Republicans in the House have to put forth legislation to repeal it, the Senate too, and then they have to pass it for Rmoney's signature.
ReplyDeleteEven IF the R's win the White House (HA!), they face quite a bit of opposition to repeal within their ranks and the Dems (naturally), so to eliminate O-care is not so easily done.
Given that the R's are likely to lose the White House and lose some seats in the Senate and House, I don't think they stand a snowball's chance in hell...
The republican motto should be "I'm melting"
DeleteLooking forward to this plan, and hoping to enroll in it when it's available. The hospital my husband and I work at has, this year, slashed our health coverage and more than doubled our out of pocket costs. Nobody can read in the information given us and find out what, exactly is covered- meaning they can stop coverage for anything they choose except what's mandated by regulation- that would be flu shots and screening mammograms. I don't know any single employee who's happy about their coverage and we thought it couldn't get any worse.
ReplyDeleteIvyfree
Being an insurance broker in CANADA, the whole healthcare schmozzel in the United States is what caused me to pay attention to American politics.
ReplyDeleteIn 2007, I can remember hearing that 70% of Americans were totally pissed off at how badly they were being ripped off, and demanded some real reform to a system run by snake oil salesmen and outright criminals.
To my horror, the pendulum swung the opposite way, in a short time!
Many millions of dollars and a national network of propaganda caused the same percentage to suddenly be AGAINST the reforms of the Affordable Care Act.
Its so sad to witness how easily the opinions of a nation, can be twisted by those with enough money to do so.
Isn't it amazing? I don't know why some Americans are so ignorant. I can't wait to prove my brother-in-law wrong about the ACA. He is one of the people it's going to help the most; the self-employed. His personality is the know-it-all kind. Maybe that's the personality trait of Republicans that makes them impervious to new ideas and information?
DeleteI can't effin' wait for single/universal health insurance. It should just be a part of the FICA tax. Or better yet instead of using so much of the tax money we already pay on these stupid needless wars, spend it on health insurance and health care.
ReplyDeleteToo many American families are going under do to issues related to health insurance.
totally agree. i am eskimo and my health care is covered but i know too many families are destroyed financially by the present (non) health care system. obama/biden 2012. VOTE for goodness sake!
DeleteRomney just shows his ignorance saying all the things he's going to do on Day One, all of which are things that are done by Congress, or at the very least with congressional approval.
ReplyDeleteIf a the President could do all those things, President Obama could have put all his programs into effect without being stonewalled by Republicans in Congress.
Off subject, I haven't had time to read all the new comments, but am I the only one who wonders where the tubal-ligation post went?