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Rep Louise Slaughter: Despite Republican Claims, Real Reform has Come to American Healthcare

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ProSense Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 05:59 PM
Original message
Rep Louise Slaughter: Despite Republican Claims, Real Reform has Come to American Healthcare

Despite Republican Claims, Real Reform has Come to American Healthcare

by Rep Louise Slaughter

In addition to my post below, I encourage you to read today's post by dansac titled "How HCR is helping real lives 'It really is a pinch-me moment", as well as The New York Times excellent profile of real families being helped by health care reform.

Hi Folks,

Its good to be speaking with you again. Having been involved with such dedicated advocates for progressive ideals energizes me when times are tough and the hill looks steep and long. Kossacks have been a much needed voice over the past two years in particular, as the Democratic Congress has led an uphill battle to solve vital issues facing all Americans today. One such issue is of course, healthcare. Today, we celebrate a milestone as new elements of the Affordable Care Act become law. Among the changes:

If you currently have health insurance, the following changes take effect at the start of your plan year:

•Your health coverage cannot be arbitrarily cancelled if you become sick
•Your child cannot be denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition
•Your child can stay on your health plan up to age 26
•Your health plan cannot put a lifetime limit on your health coverage
•Your health plan’s annual limits are phased out over three years

If you are buying a new health insurance plan, you will have the above protections, plus:

•You have the right to key preventative services without deductible or co-payments
•You have the right to both an internal and external appeal
•You have the right to choose your own doctor
•You have the right to access to out-of-network emergency room care at in-network sharing rates

In human terms, this means that today, a recent college graduate who cannot find work will be able to receive healthcare while they search for their first job. Today, a child born into the world will not go without health coverage because an insurance company doesn’t want to pay for a “pre-existing condition”. Today, insurance companies will be forced to begin the process of eliminating annual limits, so when you get sick, you can get affordable care until you’re healthy, not until your insurance no longer wants to pay.

In short, today marks another day where the Democratic Congress has taken action to value American lives over insurance company profits.

more
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RC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 06:29 PM
Response to Original message
1. How long till we get Single payer, Universal Health Care?
Phase out the paradisaical health insurance companies?
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niceypoo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 06:58 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Protection from gouging?
Five years, is it?
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Rosa Luxemburg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 08:47 PM
Response to Reply #1
42. It's a start
and it's better than REpublican privatization.
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Milo_Bloom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 07:05 PM
Response to Original message
3. lol.
"Today, a child born into the world will not go without health coverage because an insurance company doesn’t want to pay for a “pre-existing condition”. "

Well, this has already been proven false.
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 07:05 PM
Response to Original message
4. Louise Slaughter speaks the truth..it's real Reform and it's
Edited on Thu Sep-23-10 07:07 PM by Cha
a great foundaton to build on. And, we wouldn't have had it if the gNOp had gotten their way and certain professional leftists who remain clueless.
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JuniperLea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 07:21 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. Exactly...
We had to start somewhere. Insurance companies should have never been allowed to make a profit, period. This is blood money!
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dflprincess Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:15 PM
Response to Reply #4
17. You can't build anything on a foundation that's already rotten
Edited on Thu Sep-23-10 09:18 PM by dflprincess
which is just what the insurance act is trying to do by keeping the same old crooks in charge of access to care.

Medicare was the foundation that should have been built on - that's what LBJ expected would be done when the he signed the bill that actually gave seniors a way to access care, not just "coverage".
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:22 PM
Response to Reply #17
18. Oh, they're going to build on it alright..inspite of all the negative
nellies in the world. :bounce:
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dflprincess Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:35 PM
Response to Reply #18
23. Perhaps you'd like to explain when & how
After 2014 when the last of the provision go into force and people find out that this is nothing but a transfer of private and public money into the pockets of the same crooks who've robbing us blind for years? There is nothing to build on in this bill. The CBO says by 2019 the number of uninsured will be growing again and from day one the bill will increase the number of underinsured.

All they did was buy another corrupt industry more time to make more money. In 10 years we'll be right back to square one.

We needed reform that would give us access to care not require the purchase of the same crap we're already stuck with.
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jefferson_dem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 07:26 PM
Response to Original message
6. " Despite Republican Claims..."
As we see in this thread alone, we also have some (apparantly) on this side of the isle that need a dose of reality as well.
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FrenchieCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 07:41 PM
Response to Original message
7. K&R!
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 07:41 PM
Response to Original message
8. On what fucking planet do we "have the right to choose our own doctor"?
You get to choose from the useless parasitic insurance company's list, and they get to change the list any damned time they feel like it. And your employer gets to change insurance plans any time they feel like it. I'd have to get to be a landed immigrant in Canada to get to choose my own doctor.

"Today, a child born into the world will not go without health coverage because an insurance company doesn’t want to pay for a 'pre-existing condition'. "

Yeah, right. Unless your employer doesn't offer dependent coverage and your insurance company just doesn't have any policies that cover children.
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JuniperLea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 07:54 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. I'm sorry... can you elaborate?
I've read your post three times and it still doesn't make sense to me... I can't tell what side of this you're on.

A lot of us have to pay in addition to what our employer pays for our insurance... and family coverage is pretty expensive... your last sentence seems to assume that everyone has insurance, and it's pretty much all the same... yet before, you... hmmm... curious.
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 08:33 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. People defending HCR by saying we can now choose our doctors make me want to vomit
The situation is the same as it always was. Your insurance company and/or your employers dictate who your doctor is going to be. This isn't a problem if you pick someone off your list and like her/him. However, the insurance companies constantly drop prividers, and employers frequently change insurance plans, which means that your relationships with providers are constatnly disrupted.

What I'm saying about kids with pre-existing conditions is that this wonderful new benefit may or may not apply to them. It just makes me mad for anyone to claim that such kids are now taken care of when only some of them are, for reasons that parents have no control over.
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ProSense Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 08:38 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. .
Earth
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:05 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. I don't have that right. Nobody I know has any recourse
--when our fucking useless sociopathic shitstain insurance companies take our providers off their lists. Anyone who thinks that normal people have control over that is s smug jackass.
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Jeff In Milwaukee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:30 PM
Response to Reply #8
20. Not entirely accurate....
The point is that if you like your doctor and your health care plan, health care reform doesn't require you to change. It's true that your current plan might change tomorrow and your doctor might not be on their provider list -- but that's the action of the insurance provider and not the reforms.
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:49 PM
Response to Reply #20
24. It fucking well IS the action of the reforms
Because the "reforms" left mass-murdering sociopaths standing between patients and providers.
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Jeff In Milwaukee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 08:19 AM
Response to Reply #24
28. Thank you for your insightful response
:eyes:
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area51 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 11:23 AM
Response to Reply #8
30. +1

Each day, 273 people die due to lack of health care in the U.S.; that's 100,000 deaths per year.

We need single-payer health care, not a welfare bailout for the serial-killer insurance agencies.

We don't need the GingrichCare of mandated, unregulated, for-profit insurance that is still too expensive, only pays parts of medical bills, denies claims, bankrupts and kills people. Republinazi '93 plan:
"Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005."


"We will never have real reform until people's health stops being treated as a financial opportunity for corporations."
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golfguru Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 08:51 PM
Response to Original message
12. With reform like this who needs enemies!
Edited on Thu Sep-23-10 08:52 PM by golfguru
For profit private insurers (FPPI) get a gift of 40 million additional paying
customers, courtesy of middle class workers who will pay higher premiums
and higher taxes.

There are NO restraints on premium hikes by FPPI in the bill.
The FPPI's are free to increase your premiums as high as necessary until
their profit goals are met. Annual rate hikes as high as 34% are already
showing up in this year with majority to reset higher on January 1st 2011.
Note that the average premium increase has been under 9% per year over
last 10 years.

No competition to FPPI from public option to keep rate hikes under control.
This was the only effective means of restricting run away rate hikes by
private for profit insurance corporations.

Competition to FPPI from across the state lines by other FPPI's is missing in bill.
So each state has it's FPPI operating as a monopoly without outside competition.

Nothing in the HCR bill to restrain frivolous malpractice suits which end up
costing all consumers of health care more.

No wonder democrats all over the country running for election are running away
from it and I can't blame them one bit. I have not seen any democratic political
ads from candidates running in 2010, touting the HCR bill.
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CTLawGuy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:13 PM
Response to Reply #12
16. this stupid talking point needs to be put to bed
40 million people were valiantly standing tall against private insurance by rejecting insurance despite the insurers' desperate pleas to buy their product?

In reality the insurers didn't want most of these 'customers' because they are money losers, and now they are stuck with them.
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golfguru Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:30 PM
Response to Reply #16
21. Most of those 40 million can not afford
the premiums the private insurers will charge them, so that cost
will be shifted and paid by the other 260 Million who are insured.

And that is just fine with me except there is no restrictions on
high they can jack up rates for the 260 million.

How is a 34% rate increase justified?
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 02:19 AM
Response to Reply #16
26. Right, And the entire population gets fucked over to pay for it
Since "deficit neutral" means only that the government isn't going to get stuck with the bill. That means insurance companies will score big by impoverishing everybody else.
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:24 PM
Response to Reply #12
19. This Real Reform was enacted in spite of the Enemies of Change and
Real Progress.
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golfguru Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:33 PM
Response to Reply #19
22. If this reform is so good why not a single dem is pushing
it in their election commercials? OK may be 2 out of 300 are touting it.
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ClarkUSA Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 12:17 PM
Response to Reply #22
33. Because anti-HCR propaganda is hard to penetrate even when the facts are on one's side.
Edited on Fri Sep-24-10 12:19 PM by ClarkUSA
Some people here are a prime example.

BTW, do you have any facts to back up your numbers?

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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 12:41 PM
Response to Reply #33
35. Thank you.
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golfguru Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 06:47 PM
Response to Reply #33
39. My numbers are based on what I see on TV and hear on radio
I have not come across a single democratic political ad praising
HCR or that the candidate voted for it.

But even though I watch a lot of political programs, I do not have
access to all the ads running in 50 states, so there may be some.

I would like to know who. The HCR is probably the only issue on which
I can not side with whoever signed off on that bill.
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baldguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 08:45 PM
Response to Reply #39
41. Relying on the RW corporate media to be informed is your first mistake.
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golfguru Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 09:42 PM
Response to Reply #41
43. All media is not right wing
Besides I have seen & heard dozens, may be hundreds of democratic ads.
Are you saying their ads are being censored by the media? That sounds
totally preposterous opinion.
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HughMoran Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:05 PM
Response to Original message
14. K&R
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young but wise Donating Member (760 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 09:11 PM
Response to Original message
15. This is good news.
Could always be better, but like this.
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-23-10 10:05 PM
Response to Original message
25. I respect what Louise Slaughter has to say about this instead
of those who anonymously post on the internet.

Implementation Timeline..

http://healthreform.kff.org/timeline.aspx
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 02:20 AM
Response to Reply #25
27. She doesn't have to care. She's in a safe district n/t
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JustAnotherGen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 09:54 AM
Response to Reply #27
29. Amen
I interned for her in the early 90's as a college student - and she was my biggest champion when I went all whistle-blower on Global double Crossing. People in Rochester aren't going to get rid of Louise anytime soon.
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 12:40 PM
Response to Reply #25
34. She's safe because she does care..she's a well respected Rep
in New York..and she knows immeasurably more than anonymous interneters.
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okieinpain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 11:41 AM
Response to Original message
31. what i don't understand is how do you call something evil
socialistic pandering then turn around and tell the people yeah we can get you some of that. is that not a checkmate move for the dems, can someone tell me why every dem out there is running with that. "the repugs are pledging to get you something that we already have". just mind boggling to me.
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ClarkUSA Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 12:14 PM
Response to Original message
32. Republicans are not the only ones making false claims about HCR. Oddly enough, some DUers do it 24/7
Obviously, they need to educate themselves:

Despite Republican Claims, Real Reform has Come to American Healthcare
by Rep Louise Slaughter

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=453467&mesg_id=453467


:thumbsup:

K&R
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JuniperLea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 01:19 PM
Response to Reply #32
36. Thank you...
I for one am sick to death of seeing RW Party Of No GOTP talking points spewed here.
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Honeycombe8 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 02:22 PM
Response to Original message
37. A post in DailyKos is not the way to inform the public about the HC bill.
Don't they know that? Most people don't read that forum, and of those who do, about 100% of them are liberals.

They need to inform the public at large.

The NYT article sounds interesting, but seriously, what there needs to be is an article that lists the main parts of the HC bill, stating what each part is in plain language. With bullets. Something the average American would understand. THEN the article could give examples.
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JNelson6563 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 05:16 PM
Response to Original message
38. Just another corporate sell-out!
:sarcasm:
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baldguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 08:42 PM
Response to Original message
40. Love Louise, my Rep.
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HuckleB Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-24-10 09:46 PM
Response to Original message
44. Kick! (I'd recommend it, if I could.)
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