Male Insurance Care Reform Passes

And this NOW statement below does not even get to the issue of forced insurance as a subsidy to the gazillion dollar profits of the insurance industry - the lack of a public option, the raiding of the Medicare funds, the high cost of supplemental Medicare coverage or even the high cost of regular insurance and the lack of a public option. For single individuals the "benefits" of this bill do not start until 2014, when Bo is out of office, but the liability starts immediately. When the Repubs win the next election (based on opposition to the dems so called "immigration reform") they will immediately repeal the benefits and leave the insurance subsidies in place.

BTW 1: Do you know what the fine is for a company that does not insure because of a pre-existing condition? One hundred dollars a day. Keep a sick person struggling for enforcement for a year and you avoid the $100,000.00 operation because by then the sucker should be dead. Not only that but they can sell across state lines, so when you have to litigate a claim you will have to do so in a federal court instead of a state court. No one but insurance companies can afford to sue in a federal court. Not even upper middle class families can afford federal court litigation. Health insurance premiums will be capped at just under ten percent of a family’s income, but this will not include already high co-payments, or deductibles.

BTW 2: Did you know Stupak's own son committed suicide with one of the guns Stupak had lying around the house. Stupak says it was because the boy was on the wrong medication or over medicated. This says everything about how fetus lovers treat fetuses once they are actually born. The forced pregnancy crowd approves of child abuse - calls it discipline - then when the kids become criminal or depressed or violent, they always blame someone else. Because reality is not where the forced pregnancy jerks are comfortable. Stupak ought to be in prison for child abuse but instead he is elected to Congress.

Update from Reclusive Leftist: Go there and read it. GC is too busy puking because of this picture at the RL site. And then I read this:

RL comment: la-t-da says:

I am actually much more concerned about the “new protections” for the
conscience clauses extending to the insurance companies. I call NOW on Sunday to
ask they had not addressed that. They said they were working on their second
statement, but when it was released they still did not address it.

“Under the Act, longstanding Federal laws to protect conscience (such as
the Church Amendment, 42 U.S.C. §300a-7, and the Weldon Amendment, Pub. L. No.
111-8, §508(d)(1) (2009)) remain intact and new protections prohibit
discrimination against health care facilities and health care providers because
of an unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for
abortions.”

Let’s all remember this is the 2nd EO he has issued since in
office. The first was to to overturn the Bush 11th hour clause. It really only
“ordered” HHS to write new language. They were supposed to get back to us but I
never saw it. Suppose “new protections” for insurance companies is getting back
to us

and then comes this:

“Health insurance premiums will be capped at just under ten percent of a family’s income, but this will not include already high co-payments, or deductibles.”
This seems inaccurate. I don’t think there is any cap on premiums for most people.

There is a subsidy that would effectively cap premiums at 9.8% of a family’s income *for people who are unemployed or who work for employers who don’t offer insurance and who make less than 400% of the federal poverty level.* It does not apply to people whose employers offer insurance unless they make less than the FPL. It doesn’t apply to people who are covered by Medicare or Medicaid.http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/P.....-insurance

As noted, the 9.8% cap is only for premiums, not other out-of-pocket costs. What is not noted is that the “the premium credits will be tied to the second lowest-cost silver plan in the area”. Silver plans cover only 70% of health services. So for people who buy individual policies through an exchange (and otherwise qualify), the amount that they pay for the second-worst plan that pays for ~70% of their healthcare services will be capped at 9.8% of their income. If they buy a better plan, it will cost more than the 9.8% (or other) cap.http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm
Many people who must purchase health care insurance will not be able to afford to use it even if they are lucky enough to have their premium costs capped at 9.8% or less.

The new law also eliminates the subsidies for Medicare Advantage plans. This is awful for anyone on Medicare since those plans will now have to cut costs or reduce benefits (probably both) to make up for the lost subsidies.
It puts an annual cap of $2,500 on the amount that can be contributed for healthcare to flexible spending accounts. That amount was previously uncapped.

Those accounts allow employees to pay for medical expenses with pre-tax money (i.e., the money contributed to the account is not subject to federal, state, or Social Security taxes). These accounts are very important for people with disabilities or chronic medical problems because they greatly reduce out-of-pocket costs.

Finally, it subjects more medical costs to income taxes. Currently any medical expenses in excess of 7.5% of your income are deductible for federal income tax purposes but the law raises that floor to 10%, beginning in 2013. This hurts taxpayers with high medical expenses, such as the disabled or those with chronic illnesses.

Health Care Reform Victory Comes with Tragic Setback for Women's Rights

Statement of NOW
President Terry O'Neill
March 21, 2010

As a longtime proponent of health care reform, I truly wish that the National Organization for Women could join in celebrating the historic passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It pains me to have to stand against what many see as a major achievement. But feminist, progressive principles are in direct conflict with many of the compromises built into and tacked onto this legislation.

The health care reform bill passed by Congress today offers a number of good solutions to our nation's critical health care problems, but it also fails in many important respects. After a full year of controversy and compromise, the result is a highly flawed, diminished piece of legislation that continues reliance on a failing, profit-driven private insurance system and rewards those who have been abusive of their customers. With more than 45,000 unnecessary deaths annually and hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies each year due to medical bills, this bill is only a timid first step toward meaningful reform.

Fact: The bill contains a sweeping anti-abortion provision. Contrary to the talking points circulated by congressional leaders, the bill passed today ultimately achieves the same outcome as the infamous Stupak-Pitts Amendment, namely the likely elimination of all private as well as public insurance coverage for abortion.

It imposes a bizarre requirement on insurance plan enrollees who buy coverage through the health insurance exchanges to write two monthly checks (one for an abortion care rider and one for all other health care). Even employers will have to write two separate checks for each of their employees requesting the abortion rider.

This burdensome, elaborate system must be eliminated. It is there because the Catholic bishops and extremist abortion rights opponents know that it will result in greatly restricting access to abortion care, currently one of the most common medical procedures for women.

Fact: President Obama made an eleventh-hour agreement to issue an executive order lending the weight of his office to the anti-abortion measures included in the bill. This move was designed to appease a handful of anti-choice Democrats who have held up health care reform in an effort to restrict women's access to abortion.

This executive order helps to cement the misconception that the Hyde Amendment is settled law rather than what it really is -- an illegitimate tack-on to an annual must-pass appropriations bill. It also sends the outrageous message that it is acceptable to negotiate health care reform on the backs of women.

Fact: The bill permits age-rating, the practice of imposing higher premiums on older people. This practice has a disproportionate impact on women, whose incomes and savings are lower due to a lifetime of systematic wage discrimination.

Fact: The bill also permits gender-rating, the practice of charging women higher premiums simply because they are women. Some are under the mistaken impression that gender-rating has been prohibited, but that is only true in the individual and small-group markets. Larger group plans (more than 100 employees) sold through the exchanges will be permitted to discriminate against women -- having an especially harmful impact in workplaces where women predominate.

We know why those gender- and age-rating provisions are in the bill: because insurers insisted on them, as they will generate billions of dollars in profits for the companies. Such discriminatory rating must be completely eliminated.

Fact: The bill imposes harsh restrictions on the ability of immigrants to access health care, imposing a 5-year waiting period on permanent, legal residents before they are eligible for assistance such as Medicaid, and prohibiting undocumented workers even to use their own money to purchase health insurance through an exchange. These provisions are counterproductive in terms of controlling health care costs; they are there because of ugly anti-immigrant sentiment, and must be eliminated.

Fact: The bill covers only 32 million of the 47 million uninsured in this country, does not contain a meaningful public option and provides no pathway to a single payer system like Medicare for all. Democratic negotiators crumpled before powerful business interests and right-wing extremists, and until they get a spine there will be no true competition to help rein in costs.
The bottom line is that everyone -- citizen and non-citizen, undocumented immigrant and visitor -- has a fundamental human right to health care. This right has been denied in the U.S. for far too long, while the rest of the industrialized world moved ahead to assure universal and affordable care for their people.

Greenconsciousness Notes: This is how NOW in stupid political correctness becomes irrelevant as a political action group. No US citizen gets free health care in Mexico. Yet NOW thinks US citizens should pay for the world's health care. The US should pay for all the overpopulated catholic forced pregnancy victims fleeing from Mexico AND other countries to take our jobs in the US. CAN'T YOU SEE THIS POLITICAL POSITION IS EXACTLY WHAT THE GLOBAL ELITE ARE MANUFACTURING FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT? That is, LET THE US TAXPAYERS PAY FOR THEIR WAGE SLAVE'S MEDICAL CARE. The global elite live like kings and the US working and middle class should pay for all the misery they flood into our country while they own yachts, slaves and mansions . Mexico legalized drugs. Why doesn't their system tax drugs and open free clinics that US citizens can use?

NOW can raise funds from the illegals and special visa workers. Illegals/SVW are already getting millions of state and federal tax dollars from the state Depts. of Workforce Development (read corporate subsidies) which funds groups like United Migrant Opportunities (UMOS) to provide housing, child care, and to train "farm workers" so they can speak enough English to take union jobs. Disgusting. ( United Migrant Opportunity-Services/UMOS INC.-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Audited Financial Statements-For the Year Ended June 30, 2008 -Andrea & Orendorff - 6300 76th Street Suite 200 - Kenosha, WI 53142 - (262) 657-7716 )

We call upon President Obama and elected officials in both houses to commit to a process of steady improvement of our health care system that will result in true reform with universal coverage, realistically affordable rates and no discrimination. We still have a lot of work to do before we can genuinely celebrate.

Greenconsciousness Notes: To protest this joke on women, if you can, donate to the Women's Medical Funds, which pays for poor women's abortions. Most of these women already have too many children to support. Who are these women? Click here.

NOW Political Action Committee Endorses Connie Saltonstall for Stupak Seat

Statement of NOW President and NOW/PAC Chair Terry O'Neill
March 17, 2010

The National Organization for Women Political Action Committee is proud to announce our endorsement of Connie Saltonstall for Congress, representing Michigan's 1st District. Saltonstall is taking on reproductive rights foe and health care reform obstructer Rep. Bart Stupak in the state's Democratic primary this August.

What a relief that a courageous feminist candidate stepped up to the plate to challenge the co-author of the anti-choice Stupak-Pitts Amendment. Thanks to Connie Saltonstall, Stupak's bullying attempts to use health care reform as an opportunity to restrict women's access to abortion will be contested at the polls. Saltonstall stated: "I believe that [Stupak] has a right to his personal, religious views, but to deprive his constituents of needed health care reform because of those views is reprehensible."

Saltonstall is a strong supporter of the full range of feminist issues, including reproductive justice, affirmative action, pay equity, constitutional equality and equal marriage rights. More specifically, she is in favor of repealing the Hyde Amendment, fully funding the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, rescinding the Defense Of Marriage Act, expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act to add paid leave, and undoing the Bush-era damage done to Title IX.