ACA

Putting ideology above the health and safety of the citizens:

Today, for example, about 94% of adults under 65 in Massachusetts have health coverage, the highest rate in the nation. The state guarantees coverage through Medicaid or commercial insurance under a plan developed in 2006 by then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, and Democratic state lawmakers. By contrast, only 68% of working-age Texans are insured, the lowest rate. Residents of the two states also have vastly different health outcomes. Potentially preventable deaths, a measure of the overall effectiveness of a healthcare system, are 36% higher in Texas than in Massachusetts, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The realization of just how inhumane the rejection of Medicaid expansion is, is probably what drove Aldona Wos to desperately try to deflect responsibility. She got caught and exposed by the mainstream media, but they need to take mortality rates like the ones above out of the editorial pages and put them where they should be, on the front page. There is no plane crash or natural disaster that takes anywhere near the lives that cancer does, and refusing to take steps that could prevent those deaths is borderline criminal negligence. If that isn't "newsworthy", I don't know what the hell is. Speaking of shifting responsibility:

If you work for an organization, you can get the organization to sign on to the ever-growing letter urging Governor McCrory to expand Medicaid under Obamacare to allow people making under $15,000 a year in income to get health coverage.

Today our friends at Action NC have a petition for individuals to sign too urging the Governor to act on this commonsense change, paid for entirely by the federal government for the first three years (the feds pay 90% of the costs into the future).

500,000 of our fellow citizens are counting on NC to let them get quality health care for the first time on January 1, 2014. Let's help.

This came across my screen today ... a reasoned and informed perspective about health care spending. The sky is not falling. Never has been.

Grasping at ideological straws:

"I have a bias toward wanting to do it in the state, having a state-run program," McCrory said. "I'm not willing to accept a program that's state-run in name only and it's really being controlled by the federal government. If the federal government has got our hands tied on a state-run program, then we might as well hand it over to the federal government and not create our own bureaucracy in the state."

Dude, don't make me go back and grab quotes from when you were brown-nosing Congress over transportation funding. And before you wash your hands of the entire, bloody affair, read the Milliken Report:

But it's not clear (to me) what her options are:

Unfortunately, Goodwin added, “the shot clock has pretty much run out unless the clock is rewound.” The General Assembly hasn’t passed enabling legislation, so the state probably will yield control initially to the feds. It should try to take a larger role as soon as possible, but it may be locked in to a system it wouldn’t choose for itself.

I saw a statement recently by (I think) Harold Brubaker saying it was "up to the Governor", but since this piece of trash is the only thing to come out of the GOP's broken Legislative machine:

Subject: Affordable Care Act

The health care law is being implemented and North Carolina lawmakers will decide whether all adults (ages 18-64) who have annual incomes at less than $15,000 per year will have access to quality, affordable health care through Medicaid.

Attend the upcoming meeting and join the conversation on how the health care law is currently helping your family, and how access to health care in your community could be improved by expanding Medicaid.

WHO: NC Council of Churches & NC Justice Center invite you to an important meeting on health care

WHEN: Monday, September 17

WHERE: Martin Street Baptist Church

LOCATION: 1001 E. Martin Street, Raleigh 27601

TIME: 6:30 - 8:30 PM

RSVP to reserve your seat by contacting either:

Nicole Dozier at 919-856-2146 – nicole@ncjustice.org or
Pamela Sessoms at (919) 833-9756 – martinstbaptist@nc.rr.com

Leaving the federal government to create one for us:

The Senate didn’t act on the House bill, with leader Phil Berger deciding to wait to see how the U.S. Supreme Court would rule. Once the court upheld most of the act last month, Berger didn’t take it up in the final days of the legislative session. Now North Carolina is facing a deadline it cannot meet.

There's more to legislating than just stripping away funding for needed services and gutting regulations that protect citizens. You also have to build some things, instead of betting on a longshot horse and then burying your head in the sand when said horse goes lame.

From Paul Keckley

States are now ground zero for health reform: the law puts enormous pressure on states to act quickly and decisively. Should they implement an insurance exchange, or default to a federally run alternative? Should the state’s Medicaid program be expanded per the law? And how quickly and effectively can states implement eligibility systems to optimize fraud detection and verify eligibility for government programs?

Can the GOP in North Carolina do anything quickly and decisively without screwing up? Not likely IMHO.

There is a lot not to like about the Affordable Care Act. As an advocate of single-payer there is no reason for me to rehash them all here. But I would like to share a personal success story of the bill.

A few months ago my wife began having severe issues. I don't know what her exact diagnosis was called (mainly because it was made throughout multiple ER visits), but it was certain that she needed some form of uterine surgery.

My wife did not have insurance. This is not because she did not want to carry insurance. It was because, while her employer provided insurance, they did not offer it to part time employees. Which she was. Even though she worked 30+ and many times forty hours per week. and of course no private insurer would touch her because now she had the dreaded preexisting condition.