Insuring kids nice, but too expensive, Rick?

Rick Santorum Rejects Obamacare’s Success At ‘Pro-Life’ Event
By Scott Keyes on Dec 15, 2011
Link
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/12/15/389859/santorum-rejects-obamacares-success-at-pro-life-event/

At a pro-life event in Iowa yesterday, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (R) spoke out against new data showing that 2.5 million young adults now have health coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Ignoring the good news, Santorum insisted that health care reform had “failed miserably” by not doing more to bring down costs and said that insurance was “too expensive” to cover young adults.

Asked if he saw any contradiction between attending an event that celebrated life and criticizing the health law for extending health coverage to living people, Santorum replied that he didn’t:

KEYES: Could we get your reaction to the new study that the Affordable Care Act extended coverage to 2.5 million young adults in this country?

SANTORUM: How about the same reaction that’s also caused a dramatic increase in the price of health insurance? In fact, a substantial increase in the cost of health insurance to millions of Americans. It has failed miserably in the one area the president suggested it would have the most impact, which is decreasing the cost of health care in the country. [...]
KEYES: But if we’re at an event though celebrating life, shouldn’t we be pushing to cover more young adults like the Affordable Care Act is doing?

SANTORUM: No. Again, if government had unlimited amounts of money we could cover everybody with all the coverage in the world, but of course we don’t. The objective President Obama sold to the American public was that this would reduce health care costs, make it more affordable, save the government and people money, and thereby expand insurance. It is not doing it in that fashion. It is simply spending more money and wasting more money.

KEYES: So it’s just too expensive to cover the kids?

SANTORUM: It’s too expensive, number one. Number two, it’s the wrong approach in solving health care, which is government-run, top-down and that’s why it’s wasteful and inexpensive.

Despite Santorum’s claims, the government is not financing the coverage expansion; the ACA allows families to keep young adults on their existing health plans until they turn 26. The provision has added more young people to health care risk pools and has had a negligible effect on premiums.

The fact that Santorum dismissed this achievement at a pro-life event demonstrates just how much Republicans are willing to let their dislike for President Obama’s policies shade their judgment of policy outcomes. For years, the Republican Party has fought the perception that they care more about pre-birth fetuses than post-birth humans who are struggling to make ends meet. Santorum’s remarks Wednesday did little to shed that reputation.

Fees or taxes?

Tennessee family home burns while firefighters watch
By Eric Pfeiffer | The Sideshow –

December 6, 2011 LINK

A Tennessee couple helplessly watched their home burn to the ground, along with all of their possessions, because they did not pay a $75 annual fee to the local fire department.

Vicky Bell told the NBC affiliate WPSD-TV that she called 911 when her mobile home in Obion County caught fire. Firefighters arrived on the scene but as the fire raged, they simply stood by and did nothing. "In an emergency, the first thing you think of, 'Call 9-1-1," homeowner Bell said. However, Bell and her husband were forced to walk into the burning home in an attempt to retrieve their own belongings. "You could look out my mom's trailer and see the trucks sitting at a distance," Bell said. "We just wished we could've gotten more out."

South Fulton Mayor David Crocker defended the fire department, saying that if firefighters responded to non-subscribers, no one would have an incentive to pay the fee. Residents in the city of South Fulton receive the service automatically, but it is not extended to those living in the greater county-wide area.

"There's no way to go to every fire and keep up the manpower, the equipment, and just the funding for the fire department," Crocker said.

The South Fulton policy produced precisely the same nightmare scenario last year, when homeowner Gene Cranick--who had likewise failed to pay the $75 annual fee for rural Obion County residents--saw his house engulfed by flames as South Fulton firefighter watched close by. That incident sparked a debate among conservative pundits over the limits of fee-for-service approaches to government. For his part, Mayor Crocker stressed that the city's firefighters will help people in danger, even those who haven't paid the fee.

"After the last situation, I would hope that everybody would be well aware of the rural fire fees, this time," Crocker said

HCR coming through for breast cancer victims

Op-Ed

'Obamacare' to the rescue

A woman who felt President Obama had let the middle class down has changed her mind.

By Spike Dolomite Ward

LA Times LINK

December 6, 2011

I want to apologize to President Obama. But first, some background.

I found out three weeks ago I have cancer. I'm 49 years old, have been married for almost 20 years and have two kids. My husband has his own small computer business, and I run a small nonprofit in the San Fernando Valley. I am also an artist. Money is tight, and we don't spend it frivolously. We're just ordinary, middle-class people, making an honest living, raising great kids and participating in our community, the kids' schools and church.

We're good people, and we work hard. But we haven't been able to afford health insurance for more than two years. And now I have third-stage breast cancer and am facing months of expensive treatment.

To understand how such a thing could happen to a family like ours, I need to take you back nine years to when my husband got laid off from the entertainment company where he'd worked for 10 years. Until then, we had been insured through his work, with a first-rate plan. After he got laid off, we got to keep that health insurance for 18 months through COBRA, by paying $1,300 a month, which was a huge burden on an unemployed father and his family.

By the time the COBRA ran out, my husband had decided to go into business for himself, so we had to purchase our own insurance. That was fine for a while. Every year his business grew. But insurance premiums were steadily rising too. More than once, we switched carriers for a lower rate, only to have them raise rates significantly after a few months.

With the recession, both of our businesses took a huge hit — my husband's income was cut in half, and the foundations that had supported my small nonprofit were going through their own tough times. We had to start using a home equity line of credit to pay for our health insurance premiums (which by that point cost as much as our monthly mortgage). When the bank capped our home equity line, we were forced to cash in my husband's IRA. The time finally came when we had to make a choice between paying our mortgage or paying for health insurance. We chose to keep our house. We made a nerve-racking gamble, and we lost.

Not having insurance amplifies cancer stress. After the diagnosis, instead of focusing all of my energy on getting well, I was panicked about how we were going to pay for everything. I felt guilty and embarrassed about not being insured. When I went to the diagnostic center to pick up my first reports, I was sent to the financial department, where a woman sat me down to talk about resources for "cash patients" (a polite way of saying "uninsured").

"I'm not a deadbeat," I blurted out. "I'm a good person. I have two kids and a house!" The clerk was sympathetic, telling me how even though she worked in the healthcare field, she could barely afford insurance herself.

Although there have been a few people who judged us harshly, most people have been understanding about how this could happen to us. That's given me the courage to "out" myself and my family in hopes that it will educate people who are still lucky enough to have health insurance and view people like my family as irresponsible. We're not. What I want people to understand is that, if this could happen to us, it could happen to anybody.

If you are fortunate enough to still be employed and have insurance through your employers, you may feel insulated from the sufferings of people like me right now. But things can change abruptly. If you still have a good job with insurance, that doesn't mean that you're better than me, more deserving than me or smarter than me. It just means that you are luckier. And access to healthcare shouldn't depend on luck.

Fortunately for me, I've been saved by the federal government's Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, something I had never heard of before needing it. It's part of President Obama's healthcare plan, one of the things that has already kicked in, and it guarantees access to insurance for U.S. citizens with preexisting conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months. The application was short, the premiums are affordable, and I have found the people who work in the administration office to be quite compassionate (nothing like the people I have dealt with over the years at other insurance companies.) It's not perfect, of course, and it still leaves many people in need out in the cold. But it's a start, and for me it's been a lifesaver — perhaps literally.

Which brings me to my apology. I was pretty mad at Obama before I learned about this new insurance plan. I had changed my registration from Democrat to Independent, and I had blacked out the top of the "h" on my Obama bumper sticker, so that it read, "Got nope" instead of "got hope." I felt like he had let down the struggling middle class. My son and I had campaigned for him, but since he took office, we felt he had let us down.

So this is my public apology. I'm sorry I didn't do enough of my own research to find out what promises the president has made good on. I'm sorry I didn't realize that he really has stood up for me and my family, and for so many others like us. I'm getting a new bumper sticker to cover the one that says "Got nope." It will say "ObamaCares."

Spike Dolomite Ward is the founder and executive director of Arts in Education Aid Council, a nonprofit organization that is restoring the arts to public schools in the San Fernando Valley. http://www.aieac.org

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times