It was a great talk by Dr. Friedman last night with a large crowd of 70. The outrage was definitely there. A video by Julie Sokolow will be forthcoming of the talk. Posted here is an interview with former Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein and Physician Margaret Flowers on how to use the information gained from researchers like Friedman and this site.
Via: The Advisory Board Company The Fiscal Year (FY) begins every July 1 in every state, the Federal FY begins October 1. This year the legislature passed and the governor signed a $28.4 billion budget. The Republican controlled State Senate voted 40-10 to include Medicaid (sponsored by House Republican Dan Moul of Adams and Franklin county) expansion in the budget (where the federal government would pick up 100% of the tab for the first three years). These Republicans joined all Senate Democrats in voting yea:
However the Housevoted 108-94to remove and recommit this amendment (with Rep. Moul voting yea) to the Public Welfare Code with Gov. Corbett still declaring his opposition. All Democrats plus two Republicans (DiGirolamo and Harkins) voted nay.
The Pennsylvania Health Access Network promises that the battle is not over. Their arguments for Medicaid expansion are very similar to those for Single Payer. If some Republican legislators can be persuaded to vote for Medicaid expansion, maybe they can on Single Payer. This is a good case of the level of polarization in the PA legislature.
**Update**
MSNBC's Chris Hayes talks about Gov. Corbett's refusal to support Medicaid expansion. He interviews the head of the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics about it's effect on the poor.
Healthcare for All PA state Board Member and past PA Now President has written an article in http://civilrightsadvocacy.net/ on her own personal struggles with the insurance industry. It is reposted here with her permission. The name of the blog has changed to Healthcare for All PA PUSH to reflect that we are a chapter of the statewide organization.
Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) has reintroduced his National Health Care plan bill HR 676, “The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act.”
I strongly support a universal national health care program such as HR
676. I also support any effort by any state to implement a state-based
single-payer health care plan. Why? For many reasons.
My life was threatened by the multi-company, private health insurance system we currently have.
I received a bone marrow transplant in 1989 from my identical twin
sister. Although I had no problem finding a match, I had to jump through
many hoops and barriers put up by the two health insurance companies
covering my sister and myself. In the case of my insurance provider, I
was refused coverage of the donor portion of the transplant because my
twin sister wasn’t on my health insurance plan.
In the case of my twin sister’s insurance provider, they refused to
cover her portion of the transplant because she “wasn’t sick.” Then the
hospital administration said that they would not perform the transplant
until this conflict between the two insurance agencies was resolved with
a guarantee of payment by either or both companies. And my doctors said
that if the resolution did not occur rapidly, I would be dead within
the year due to the seriousness of the form of leukemia that I had. According to Health Care for America, health insurance companies
profit by denying–not by providing–healthcare. Health insurance CEOs of
the top 10 health insurance companies today typically enjoy an average
of $10,000,000 in annual compensation–salary, bonuses, stock options,
etc.
Back to my story. I went into battle mode against the insurance
companies when I was told that they would let me die because of their
bottom line and attempts to deny coverage. Because of the support and
advocacy I had through the organization where I self-purchased my health
insurance (the National Organization for Women), we were finally able
to get me the life-saving transplant that I needed. And I am here today. This experience is why I became an advocate for a single-payer health
care system rather than the current system that allows private
companies the ability to deny critical health care to “save” their
bottom line for profit only.
Other Reasons why I support a Universal Health Care Plan at Either the National or State Level.
It is the ethical and moral to treat all people, regardless of economics or status when they are sick.
A 2009 article in the Journal of Public Health
reports that approximately 45,000 people on average die each year due
to lack of health insurance. One of the goals of The Affordable Care Act
(ACA) is to reduce the number of people without health insurance, so
that premature deaths from lack of coverage would also be reduced. People will continue to struggle to receive health care coverage
and treatment with both passage of the ACA and the Supreme Court’s
decision declaring the ACA as constitutional while allowing states to
opt out of the expanded Medicaid program for low-income people. The Centers for Disease Control acknowledges that access to coverage
will improve under the ACA. But that acknowledgement holds a caveat;
they state, “Even after ACA is implemented fully, some persons eligible for coverage might go uninsured.” The ACA will not fully resolve this ethical and moral threat to peoples’ lives.
Some states are threatening people’s health care and lives based on decisions either by their legislature and/or their governors.
These states place people who could have been covered under the
Expanded Medicaid program in continued jeopardy since they will neither
be able to sign up for Medicaid nor be able to afford private health
insurance through the ACA’s health care exchanges. The 13 states that
have already threatened the healthcare of their citizens are Alabama,
Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.
Five states – Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, Virginia, and Wyoming—are
leaning towards opting out of coverage. Kentucky, New York and Oregon
haven’t yet made their decision, but do appear to be leaning towards
opting into full ACA with the expanded Medicaid coverage. All remaining
22 states plus the District of Columbia have opted into full ACA with
the expanded Medicaid coverage. Via: The Advisory Board Company For the low-income people living in the 18 states that have either
opted out of or are considering opting out of the expanded Medicaid
coverage, nothing changes for them since most of these individuals will
not be able to afford private health insurance in the new health care
exchanges under the ACA.
A Single Payer, Universal Healthcare program would cover everyone.
According to predictions by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Commission on Taxation,
we will we still have 30 million uninsured in 2023 under Obamacare. At
the same time, health care costs for our nation, states, and families
will continue to increase. A single-payer, universal healthcare program
could cover everyone at lower cost. Everyone in and no one out
regardless of income or health status.
The BETTER Alternatives: National and State-Based Single-Payer Plans
The plan introduced by Representative Conyers is basically an
expansion of the efficient and cost-effective Medicare system currently
used by the elderly and people with disabilities. Its overhead (all
costs other than for healthcare) is much lower–and patient satisfaction
is much higher–than under for-profit healthcare. And it would cover
everyone regardless of their economic or health status without fear of
an insurance company denying coverage to save their bottom line.
Similarly, legislation is being considered in about half of the
states to create state-based single-payer healthcare programs. Some of
these states’ legislatures have held hearings and/or had votes on
universal healthcare. Vermont
has already passed a law that sets in place the possibility of a
single-payer healthcare program by 2017. 2017 is the year that the
ACA—aka “Obamacare”—allows states to try other healthcare plans IF they
cover at least the same number of people with at least the minimum
coverage under the ACA. Obamacare is now the law of the land. It is an improvement over what
we had before 2009. It is also the basis from which we can work towards a
comprehensive healthcare program. We could do it nationally, such as
with HR 676. Or, like Canada, we can start at the state level.
So check out HR 676. See if your Representative is one of the 40 current co-sponsors. If not, meet with him/her, tell your personal story about why you support an expanded and improved Medicare for All,
and ask them to co-sponsor the bill. If he/she is already a co-sponsor,
ask your Representative to take the next step. They can hold a
town-hall meeting on universal healthcare to hear from their
constituents. They can also call on the chairs of the three committees
reviewing HR 676 to hold Congressional hearings on HR 676. These three
committees are the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, and the House Natural Resources Committee. Also get active with your state-based single-payer organization.
These local and state-based single-payer health care groups will let you
know how can help with your state-based legislation. Healthcare NOW
has a full listing of state- and local-based organizations. If your
state does not have a single-payer chapter yet, contact Healthcare NOW
at their national office in Philadelphia, PA; they can help you to organize a plan for your state.
All other “advanced” nations have already adopted comprehensive
healthcare systems. All deliver better health outcomes at a lower per
capita cost than the USA. Let’s get cracking. Let’s do it here in the US
of A as well.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett-R will make his third budget address to the state legislature on Tuesday, Feb. 5. He is expected to promote plans to privatize the state liquor store system, to further keep the state's budget balanced without raising taxes on the wealthy or Marcellus shale drilling. He also may announce whether or not Pennsylvania will participate in Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (you can see where all the state's stand on this in the map below). This is all going on as he is suing the NCAA for sanctioning Penn State for it's role in the Jerry Sandusky scandal while at the same time being investigated by the current PA Attorney General for his own role in covering up the scandal while he was PA Attorney General.
Via: The Advisory Board Company
To top it off he is engaging in hardball negotiations with the 14 state owned universities with about 100,000 students (including my Alma Mater IUP) faculty union (APSCUF) over their contract. APSCUF voted to authorize a strike in December there is a discussion from the Rick Smith Show (They did reach the framework for an agreement today which must be voted on by the membership). The website Raging Chicken Press has good coverage of this and other state issues. The changes in public higher, primary, and secondary education should be just as alarming as efforts to resist creating a single payer plan. The arguments for expanding Medicaid in PA are very similar to those for single payer.
Healthcare for All PA will be coming out with an economic impact study which will show how it will save individuals, large and small businesses, and municipalities a lot of money on healthcare while covering everyone. Details are to come. In Pennsylvania's 330 year history, no Governor has ever been voted out of office. True PA Govs were only allowed to serve two terms since the 1960's but you get the point. A new Quinnipiac poll suggests Corbett has a good chance at becoming the first with such a distinction with him having a 36% approval versus a 42% disapproval rating. There is time for him to turn things around between now and November 2014 and the opposition will need to be organized. He will have wealthy backers. **Related Posts**
The Census Bureau has two estimates of the uninsured that comes out every year. One for the national and state level which is based on the Current Population Survey and the other for the State and County level which is the Small Area Health Insurance Estimates or SAHIE that I've written many posts about here. The bureau has just some out come out with national and state estimates as well as SAHIE. The national under 65 year old uninsured rate went down from 18.4% in 2010 to 17.9% in 2011 which reflects an estimated total of 47.9 million in 2011 and of 49.1 million in 2010. Former Gov. Jennifer Granholm (born in Canada) on her Current TV show was stressing how the total number of insured increased from 256.6 million in 2010 to 260.2 million in 2011 but that increase is mostly due to increases in population.
The estimate for Pennsylvania was 12.7% in 2011, 12.9% in 2010, 12.7 in 2009, and 11.1% in 2008. This difference is not statistically significant for 2009 thru 2011 which means that we should conclude that there are no differences for those years. The SAHIE uses a different survey for 2008 to 2001. 2011 will be out next summer. The estimates won't always agree but the general trends should be close. The top 10 counties for 2010 and 2008 can be seen below.
Counties with larger populations have smaller margins of errors or MOEs. the counties with large MOEs such as Bedford (rate 14.4% +/- 1.2%) should have rates that differ from Philadelphia (16.5% +/- 0.7%) but maybe not Sullivan (15.9% */- 1.6%). We can be confident that the top 10 counties are all significantly higher than the state rate of 12.1% (+/- 0.2%).
Below are the rates for 2008. We can see that except for Sullivan County, whose rate and MOE hardly changed, the other top counties significantly increased in the rates of uninsured since 2008. At the bottom is a table with the state and county trends for all 67 counties in Pennsylvania from 2007 to 2008. The 2007 estimate are based on the Current Population Survey. I do this to show what impact the recession is having on Pennsylvania's uninsured. C3 board member Mike Stout often says we need to "strike while the metal is hot." Looking at these statistics can show us where the metal is hot.
**Update**
The Census Bureau came on C-SPAN's Washington Journal to discuss the national numbers with poverty results and information on how it relates to the widening income gap in the US. You can see the 48 minute segment here.
