UPDATE, July 29: Rep. Mike Ross announced today that Blue Dog Democrats and Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, have struck a deal that will reopen committee deliberations on the bill. "The legislation will now exempt small businesses with a payroll less than $500,000 from paying for any government-sponsored health coverage - double the $250,000 in the initial draft," Patrick O'Connor reports for Politico. "The new version of the bill also has a breakthrough on the concept of health care 'co-ops,' seen by some as an alternative to a public plan. States would be allowed to create co-ops for residents to buy private insurance. But the Waxman-Ross deal will also keeps the 'public option' of government-sponsored health care." (Read more) Across the Capitol, there is "an emerging consensus among a bipartisan group of senators" on a bill, The Washington Post reports.
In Prescott, Ark., population 3,600, many residents are forced to go uninsured because of skyrocketing health care premiums. They also suffer from physician shortages, caused in part by limited reimbursements for federal programs like Medicare. Health-insurance reform bills in Congress aim to address those problems, but Prescott's congressman, Democratic Rep. Mike Ross, says other parts of the legislation steer him to vote against it.
Ross is skeptical whether a public option for coverage will benefit his rural constituents in the long run, Eric Pianin and Ann Carrns report for Kaiser Health News. Ross and other fiscally consertvative Blue Dog Democrats say the various bills would not solve many problems unique to rural areas, and until changes are made, they will vote against it. "What we’re talking about is containing the cost, slowing the rate of growth of health care down where it can grow at the rate of inflation,” Ross said in an interview, “If we don’t, it’s going to bankrupt this country.” But at the same time, Ross and other Blue Dogs are calling for changes to hospital and physician reimbursement rates – tactics that will likely drive up the cost of Medicare and Medicaid, the writers note.
The only hospital in Prescott’s county closed in 1995 partially due to low federal reimbursement rates and the number of underinsured and uninsured residents in the town continues to grow. But while most Blue Dogs agree on rural health care equality, they say the funding cannot compromise rural employers already facing a poor economy and rising health costs. “You know, it’s easy to provide everybody a shiny new insurance card,” Ross said. “But what’s important here is they actually have access to a doctor once they get the insurance card.” (Read more)
As our rights are infringed upon by our own government, Americans and those here legally will never benefit from a decent health care plan, owing to the abomination called ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. By an Act in United States Congress passed in 1986, Hospital and ambulance services must provide care to anyone needing emergency treatment in spite of citizenship, legal status or capacity to pay. The predicament being that 20 million plus illegal immigrant families are using this law, for even minor ailments such as the common cold. Why should foreign nationals sign up for health care or anything, when they can get Taxpayers to pay for it all..?
ReplyDeleteBut this is not just an American dilemma, as it has been forcibly imposed on subjects of the European Union. This is causing a major derailment in the EU, because both legal and illegal entrants are stealing away the single payer medical care providers, to the citizens who have paid into the system from the time they first started work.
A decent controlled governmental health care benefit, can—NEVER--be established, when a startling report disclosed the details of a cloaked meeting between nationwide businesses and open-borders groups working under the radical cover of the IMMIGRATIONWORKSUSA a lobbying group. The secret Capitol Hill National Summit" took place last month and revealed the sinister intention behind the lobbying entities efforts.
Tamar Jacoby, who runs ImmigrationWorksUSA, kicked off the conference by stating the true aspiration of the coalition. The basic target is to promote THE FREE FLOW OF LABOR INTO THE USA, with—AS ALWAYS-- the taxpayer being the beneficiary for corporate welfare. They want expedited cheap labor, where no American worker—NEED APPLY!
WE MUST ACT NOW, OR IT WILL BE TOO LATE! These special interest lobbyists are well furnished with money from corporate America. We must empower mandated E-Verify as part of the Save Act, where everybody is screened in the workplace. Call your lawmaker TODAY! at 202-224-3121 I Want a health care system--even government run. BUT IT"S SURE TO FAIL, IF TAXES ARE BEING EXTORTED TO PAY FOR FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS?
Millions of phone calls from angry Americans are jamming the Washington Switchboards. It is making these pandering politicians to corporate welfare, very anxious. Support for the bi-partisan E-VERIFY PART OF THE SAVE Act, which will expand E-Verify and protect American Workers! We must focus on the monolithic problem in terminating illegal immigrants-and the jobs that attract illegal aliens. WE WILL ALWAYS BE PAYING FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS, UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING NOW? Many GOP members are against a Path to citizenship for lawbreakers, so we mostly need the phones ringing in the ears of Democrats, who see the millions of illegal aliens as a positive voting block. WE MUST STOP IT NOW OF SUFFER FROM IRREVERSIBLE POPULATION GROWTH.
DEMAND NO AMNESTY! NO FAMILY UNIFICATION KNOWN AS CHAIN MIGRATION! BUILD THE ORIGINAL FENCE! NO MORE HEALTH CARE OR ANY OTHER KIND OF BENEFITS FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. CLOSE THE BORDER AND STATION THE NATIONAL GUARD. $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS, JUST IN RETIREMENT BENEFITS? Learn uncorrupted facts at NUMBERSUSA.