New Health Reform Links

Found some new links for the health reform bill legislation, my thanks to CNN for them.

House Bill: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/14/house.health.care.bill.pdf

Senate Bill: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/14/senate.health.care.bill.pdf

In all fairness, they may be long papers, but they are double spaced and have varying fonts sized throughout. 

Also, I know a lot of people today at Obama's newest town hall meeting event were sort of questioning the rush of getting legislation passed.  Well, I guess it wasn't so much the people in attendence at the event, but rather the people they were interviewing on CNN.  However, I think that several things need to be pointed out.

First, it is not easy to get legislation passed and if you are attempting something like this you want to have a lot of specifics in the bill because it will be difficult to get amendments added or removed in the future (but not impossible).  A lot of people don't realize that our system is set up in a way that discourages immediate change.  The fact that these Congress men and women were able to get legislation this detailed written so quickly is really amazing, which just goes to show how many Senators and Representatives support the idea.

Secondly, this isn't really happening that fast.  Just because they haven't been vocalizing it since January or before doesn't mean that they haven't been working on it for a long time.  I imagine that someone like Senator Ted Kennedy probably has a health reform bill sitting in his office somewhere that was left over from 1994.  So, in reality, even though it may seem soon to us, this is something that has probably been happening behind the scenes for a while. 

I think it is also important to take into account that all of the provisions in the legislation is to implemented by 2013.  So health insurance agencies and the legislature have 3 full years to fine tune the policy and procedure and health insurance agencies have that much time to figure out how to implement the policy and procedure.

So when I hear someone say that it's too much, too soon it makes me think that they are not as informed as they would let on.  Also, it's been 15 years since any kind of health care legislation was introduced in Congress.  And quite frankly, it should have been done then.  But it wasn't and now we're in an even bigger mess than before.  Suffice it to say, this is badly needed and long over-do.  And most of the criticism against the legislation is not only largely wrong and misrepresented, but essentially worthless because neither bill is the final draft and there are to be two semi-final bills that will be merged into one final bill.  It should be kept in mind that just because people complain about a specific part of the bill it doesn't mean that it will be removed from the final version.  The legislators drafting the bill will be the ones making the final decisions, regardless of what some critics or proponents say.

It also got me thinking, people who belong to factions always believe that their opinion is the majority position.  Every organization always believes that their cause is the better, more just cause and that they are the ones who are right and will reign supreme.  Remember that the next time you are watching commentary on TV.

The Upside of Failed Health Care Reform

As you know by now I am a full-fledged supporter of health care reform.  I may not agree with the way the national government or the constituents, for that matter, have been going about it, but I believe that it needs to happen and it needs to happen fast.

But here's what I think could be the bright side of this whole circus if the national government fails to pass this health care reform bill.  A very good portion of the states have bills in the work for health care reform at a state level.  Many states are already talking about making it illegal for agencies to deny preexisting conditions, denial of effective medical procedures and gauging premium and medication prices.  I live in the Commonwealth of PA and according to one local organization we're the state that has made the most headway in passing a single-payer system bill.  However, our state is also in the grips of still trying to pass a budget for the year.  I believe they are almost a month and a half late on passing the budget. 

There is one website I found that has the states and their organizations and resolutions http://americanhealthcarereform.org/states.html however I can't tell you if all the links work.  I know one of the links for PA didn't go through. 

However, if you do a quick google search you will easily find other links directing you to organizations in your state or local area that are in the midst of health care reform.

There are probably many opponents of national health care reform who are not being heard because they simply support a state-based health care reform.  I know that I would be in support of state-based reform and in fact I actually expected the national plan to just stipulate that states must create individual single-payer systems themselves.  The national plan far exceeded my expectations. 

I believe that the state-based reform would solve a lot of the problems many people oppose, such as debt.  States have to balance their budgets to zero every fiscal year, unlike the national government which can rack up mounds of debt.  And you won't have to pay for everyone in the nation, which is a plus.  Instead your tax money would go towards only the people in your state.  So how far the money goes depends on how many people have jobs, and how many people are unemployed.  States would be able to make their own rules and regulations about health reform.  It may make the market in your state more varied.  I know that in PA most of the health insurance comes from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and it's getting expensive, in fact all the health care in PA is extremely expensive and not very comprehensive.  You may pay $300 a month for coverage that doesn't cover illness at all.  You would still be in loads of debt and still have to apply for charity from the hospital or doctor.

The best thing about state-based reform, actually, this is just the best thing about states in general, is that if a state passes a law that proves to be brilliant, efficient and effective, then all other states have the ability to adopt that same legislation, or a version of it, for themselves.  This has happened on many occasions, most notably, with sex offender laws and registries.  In fact, sometimes states get the legislation so right that the federal government will end up adopting the legislation themselves, because it have proven to be beneficial to many, many people.

So anyway, what do you guys think? Would you be willing to support state-based reform? Do you think it should have been up to the states in the first place?  Do you think that the national government is actually going to get anything passed amidst all of this anger and contempt?  How do you feel about single-payer at a state level?

HR 3200 Online Text

Well, I’m back with more health care reform stuff.  First of all I’d like to say a little about some things that have happened in my region lately.  I’m from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and as some of you may know Senator Arlen Specter recently switched political parties, going from Republican to Democrat.  This move helped in shifting the balance of powers in the US Senate.  Today, he held, as many Senators and Representatives have, a town hall meeting discussing health care reform.  Now, today’s meeting didn’t get as crazy as they have in other states, but there were a few things that I noticed that I wanted to point out. 

First, many of the people there were not so much against health care reform bill HR 3200, but rather they were in attendance because they are angry at Senator Specter for switching parties.  I think this is absolutely disgraceful.  Anger and spite have never solved any problems.  Some of us need to learn how to leave our bitterness at the door when it comes to everyone in this nation.  Secondly, it seems that most of the issues people tend to have with the bill are all claims that have been proven untrue, such as the concept of a death panel or that this bill will ultimately lead to socialism, etc.  There’s absolutely no proof of any of these things happening as a result of the bill’s passage.  My feeling is that people who are still hanging onto these crazy notions are never going to change their minds.  They have already drank the kool-aid and they’ve gone back for seconds. 

With all of that said, I am offering everyone here on PNN the opportunity to read HR 3200, the House of Representatives health care reform bill.  There are many places where you can find this bill but here are the two that I suggest.

The first would be the easiest to locate and download.  Go to www.congress.gov and you will be redirected to the Library of Congress.  Around the center of the page there is a search box with two options underneath.  Select the bill number option and enter ‘HR 3200’ and you will automatically be directed to the health care reform bill.  Under the bill’s information there is a table in which one section reads ‘text of legislation’.  Click on that and you will be taken to another page where the bill has been broken up into sections for easy reading.

Another site is www.opencongress.org. You should be able to find the text on the right side of the page, right at the top of the list which has the most viewed bills of the month.  This site is nice because it has a built in notes and comments section and you can vote on whether or not you support the bill, but be WARNED!  My computer had a hard time opening the text file, which I believe is in a PDF.  I’m not sure how it opens but my guess is it’s not in sections like the previous site.  My advice would be to read the text from congress.gov and then comment on it and vote for it on opencongress.org. 

I hope these links are found to be beneficial, and remember everyone – an argument not based on fact is just an opinion.

*Update* I've started reading the text of the bill and I realized I should give you all some tips before starting to read the bill yourself.  First of all, it's not as long as you may think.  Most of the sections are short and succinct.  Secondly, keep a dictionary handy in case you come across a word you're not sure of.  Government talk can get a little complicated but overall the text has proven easy to read thus far.  I also suggest taking the time to really read the sections over and over until you get a good understanding of what they are saying.  Many things in bills can be interpreted several ways, this usually gets fixed in the revision process if it proves to be confusing for more than a few people.  Just keep in mind - you're a constituent, not a legislator, so don't get frustrated if you're not sure about what you are reading.  If there are any questions I might be able to help, mainly because I'm a nerd and I read State Legislature bills all the time.  I get them in email updates.  Check your state leg website, I'm not sure if all states offer session updates like PA does.

Health Reform Article

Great article clarifying misrepresented facts on both sides of the debate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090802/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_fact_check

More Health Care Reform

Want to know exactly what Obama's plans are for yourself, instead of listening to a bunch of mumbo-jumbo from third parties, then check out http://www.healthreform.gov

And for those of you wondering why I am so incredibly obsessed with health care reform.  Well, I'm a 23 yr old unemployed, college student who doesn't qualify for any health insurance because I have unknown preexisting conditions.  However, even if I did qualify for health insurance, how would I pay for it?  I'm on a state plan waiting list but I'm on a list of 150,000 plus people so I doubt that's going to happen soon.  And the worst part is that one of the ways I could qualify for insurance is to find out what exactly my condition is but that's not going to happen because I can't (nor can anyone in my family) afford to pay the upfront costs for the necessary CT scans and testing.  ANd on top of that I can't get a job because of the economy and my illness, nor can I attend classes full time because of my illness and I can't afford to have my grades suffer anymore as they have in the past year due to my illness.  Does anyone see a pattern here? I can't get better because I'm uninsured and I can't get insurance because I's sick! Does that make sense to anyone?

So to all of you who are opposed to reform, a public option, or an expansion of Medicare, why?  Why should I have to suffer, or possibly become more sick because of your unfounded concerns?  Why should I have to wonder everyday if my headache is a severe condition or my stomach problems are a cysts, ulcer or infection?  Why should I have continue to live this way because of someone else's distrust of the government?  Why should I have to fear for my life because everyone else is too selfish to help me out financially until I can get back up on my feet?

And for all of you people who think that the drain on health care is illegal immigrants - NEWS FLASH - there are more uninsured Americans in this country than there are uninsured illegal immigrants.  Uninsured Americans are a bigger drain on the this economy than illegals.  I know.  When I went to the emergency room twice last year because of my health problems (which by the way the hospital did nothing for because they didn't want to spend money out of pocket either) I qualified as a charity case, which meant that all of you paid for my emergency room care.  This happens more than you think.  And not just will illegals.  So pull your heads out of your enthnocentric racists asses.  But don't think that you paid for everything cause I still had to pay for all of the scans and doctor costs which amounted to about 4,000 dollars that set me and my family back during a time where we couldn't afford to be set back.  This isn't just my story mind you.  There are hundreds of thousands of people, millions even, who have to live like this everyday. 

So what do you think about health care reform now?  What if it were you struggling with your health everyday, forced to not know why you feel as horrible as you do every single day?

Update Health Care Reform

The AARP and President Obama had another Health Care Reform chat today.  This time they mentioned a petition that you can sign here at http://www.healthactionnow.org/Default.aspx The Petition is on the left hand side of the page and I think it's great that they are keeping track of the numbers on a map.  It just puts the whole thing into perspective a litte better than just hearing a few people on talk shows.  There is also an area where you can share your experiences, positive or negative, with health care or insurance. 

Health Care Reform Petition

If you support a single-payer system or just down right want to get health care reformed, go on to this site http://www.healthcare-now.org/petition/ to sign the petition.  You will receive an email to confirm your e-signature within 24 hours.  Just click the link in the email and you'll have officially signed the petition.  Also, stick around and browse the site for information about health care reform. 

Now, I acknowledge that this is an independent organization, and I have not gotten around to reading all the content on the site, but I believe that the petition is worth signing.  Even if the organization is promoting a system that you're not necessarily crazy about, by signing the petition you will at least be stating to local and national legislators that you are in favor of some kind of reform.