Posts Tagged ‘health insurance reform’
Death by profit
Long after midnight, some years ago, I found my son in the fetal position on the floor outside our bedroom door, in intense pain. We rushed him to the hospital. Pancreatitis, it was. He received good treatment. And in some days, he mostly recovered.
- Image by Marquette La via Flickr
That night came to mind just now as I read these paragraphs from Sojourners:
Two weeks ago, Sam* died suddenly. He was only 21 years old, strong and healthy, preparing for a life ministering to youth. Cause of death: acute pancreatitis and previously undiagnosed diabetes. Reason for death: no access to health care to treat the incredible pain in his stomach – until it was too late. The bottom line: While angry protesters disrupt town hall meetings and national organizations spread fear-based lies, lives are lost.
The current health-care system leaves you and me just as vulnerable to lack of care as Sam was. Health-care reform is just as much an issue of justice, of preserving and celebrating life, as it is an issue of caring for the vulnerable. [...]
[T]he current system “renders the best health care to the wealthiest, depletes the savings of solidly middle-class Americans, and leaves 46 million with no health-care coverage at all.” [...]
[A]t Sam’s funeral there were no angry shouts or accusations. There was only shock and grief among the 400 friends and family members who attended.
Had I been born in a different situation, that death would have happened at my house; that shock and grief at my church. I would still know it today.
How long will we tolerate the fact that profits are more important than lives in America? How did we become so hard-hearted as to turn our backs on the victims of such perversion? What kind of monsters have we become?
* Name changed to protect the privacy of his family.
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- The Religious – and Personal – Voice for Reform (hcfama.org)
- Diabetes Case Shows Pitfalls of Treatment Rules (nytimes.com)
- Shimkus, Durbin Eschew Town Hall Meetings on Health Care Reform (chicagoist.com)
- Elderly Health Care Zealots Protest Barbara Boxer Book Signing (sfist.com)
- Commentary: Frightening future if reform fails (cnn.com)
- 70% of individuals covered by some form of private insurance still pay on average 43% of their total health care expenditure (iflizwerequeen.com)
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Resources for fact-checking health reform claims
Nine websites for untangling fact from fiction
So you heard someone say something was a part of health insurance reform, and you’re wondering if it’s true. Where do you turn? Here are some honest efforts to bring facts to the table and set rumors and speculations aside. The list is quoted from a post of Nate Van Duzer.
Start with this regularly-updated site from the Kaiser Family Foundation that compares the different reform proposals on the table.
Factcheck.org is a trusted source of nonpartisan myth-busting and truth-telling. For the latest information about whether new advertisements, speeches, or e-mails tell the truth, visit this site.
A summary of factcheck.org’s research into several arguments surrounding health-care reform, published July 14, 2009.
“A Primer on the Details of Health Care Reform” from The New York Times, published August 9, 2009.
“10 Health Care Reform Myths” from CBS News, published August 6, 2009.
“Fact or Fiction? The Truth About Four Health Care Fears” from ABC News, published August 13, 2009.
8 Myths about Health Care Reform from the AARP Magazine, published July/August 2009.
A good source of current news, background information, and analysis all in one place.
Interviews and analysis of five capitalist democracies and how they each do health care.
Nate Van Duzer is the policy intern at Sojourners.
To learn more about health-care reform, click here to visit Sojourners’ Health-Care Resources Web page.
Truth is ever the friend of justice. Go get it.
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- At Last: A Mainstream Answer to Fearmongering on Health Care (themoderatevoice.com)
- Insurers Insist We Really Don’t Need A Public Plan. Sorry, Guys, We Don’t Trust You. (crooksandliars.com)
- AHIP Using Familiar Playbook in Fighting Reform (dailykos.com)
- Side-by-Side Comparison of the Health Care Proposals (democracyforvancouver.org)
- FACT CHECK: Health Care Reform Debate (abcnews.go.com)
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Media: GOP ‘death panel’ claims like insisting ‘the earth is flat’
Outstanding video: News media anchors express astonishment that GOP leaders (Iowa’s own Chuck Grassley being today’s lead) would be so brazen as to fabricate the “death panel” scare. It’s like insisting “that the earth is flat.”
The truth? A Republican Congressman wrote a provision into one of the House bills calling for insurance payment to be available to people who want to consult their physician about making a living will.
That’s it. The rest is simply made up. There is no government involvement at all.
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- Grassley Wants Political Cover, But Americans Want Health Care (campaignsilo.firedoglake.com)
- Grassley Protects His Party’s Interests, Not Yours. Senator, Why Are You Ignoring Our Desperate Need for Health Care? (crooksandliars.com)
- No Backlash? (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
- Kyl Shows Who’s Really in Charge of Baucus Committee (dailykos.com)
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Iowa State Senators: “Grassley Should Start Listening to Iowans”
- Image via Wikipedia
The Des Moines Register:
“The will of Iowans and the rest of America is marching steadily toward reform.”
The following is a guest opinion on health care reform by State Senators Jack Hatch and Joe Bolkcom that appeared in Saturday’s Des Moines Register. [I encountered it as a reprint at Blog for Iowa - Monte]
As we head into August, a few Washington lawmakers are standing in the way of health-care reform that America desperately needs. While patients are denied crucial treatment and families go bankrupt from medical bills, Sen. Charles Grassley and a cadre of his Senate colleagues have provoked a stir by steadfastly refusing to support the most essential piece of President Barack Obama’s proposal: a public health-insurance option. We think it’s time for Grassley to start listening to Iowans and work with the president for real health-care reform.
A public health-insurance option would introduce much needed competition into the health-insurance market, extending quality care to as many as 300,000 Iowans, while providing incentives to insurance companies to offer their current customers a better deal. Unfortunately, in a July 30 Des Moines Register editorial, Grassley said he opposes giving Americans the choice of a public option “because it is a pathway to a completely government-run system.” Read the rest of this entry »
GOP’s healthcare “think tank?” It’s owned by an insurance company.
In this brief video clip, a host of GOP lawmakers rattle off the words “Lewin Group” to substantiate their woeful stories of the Very Bad Things that will happen if there’s any serious health insurance reform.
Newt Gingrich calls the Lewin Group “respected.” Charles Grassley labels it a “think tank.”
Then CNN calls it “owned”—lock, stock, and barrel—by an insurance company.
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Remember how they used to give us tobacco industry “experts” to convince us tobacco was harmless?
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