Elderly Woman at a Soup Kitchen

The “Senior Hunger Report Card” released by Meals On Wheels found that one in seven seniors in America – 8.3 million people – were faced with the threat of hunger in 2010, a 78% rise since 2001. The study found that while the threat of hunger for the U.S. population as a whole had decreased since the end of the recession in 2009, it rose for people age 60 and older, mainly among those earning less than twice the poverty level in 2010.

“There is no question that we are failing our seniors, some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens,” said Enid A. Borden, CEO of the Meals On Wheels Research Foundation, in a statement. “The numbers spell out our failure with clarity, and at the same time they call us to action. No one in this, the richest nation on Earth should face the threat of hunger, no one. And seniors, who have little power to change their circumstances, deserve our special attention.”

Says It All

At greatest risk were seniors living in the South and Southwest, minorities, people who were divorced or separated, the disabled, and seniors age 60 to 69. In terms of geography, the threat of hunger for seniors increased in 44 states since 2007, the report found.

Hunger translates into economic challenges for the U.S. economy, noted the authors of the report: “… food insecurity is associated with a host of poor health outcomes for seniors such as reduced nutrient intakes and limitations in activities of daily living. This implies that the recent increase in senior hunger will likely lead to additional nutritional and health challenges for our nation.”

James P. Ziliak of the University of Kentucky and Craig Gundersen of the University of Illinois authored the report.

Opinion

Medicare Card

As a disabled American, let me put this in hard numbers for you: I have a monthly income from Social Security Disability Insurance of slightly over $1,100 a month (I held down decent paying jobs when I worked). After subtracting for rent, utilities, phone, car insurance, medical insurance premiums, co-pays for my prescriptions, gas, over-the-counter medications, and payments on old bills… that leaves me about $30 a month to pay medical deductibles and co-pays and the 20% Medicare doesn’t cover, laundry, toilet paper…

However, the powers that be have set the bar so high for Medicaid that according to their calculations I “earn” $150 a month too much to get Medicaid to back up my Medicare. I just got the hospital bill for a 3-day stay in January: $1,200 after Medicare. I’m still waiting for the bill for another stay in February. I can get Medicaid if I show that I have paid over $900 out-of-pocket each six months. Let’s see, $50 a month times six months equals $300. I be screwed.

A man walks down the street collecting cans in Reading, PA. (Getty Images via @daylife)

I honestly don’t know how I’m going to pay that $900 every six months. Use the Fingerhut catalogue for toilet paper, I guess. I was better off on our state’s low income health insurance (VHAP)… but I don’t qualify for that anymore, because I’m now on Medicare. I cannot imagine how people only getting $600 a month are surviving.

I only qualify for $175 a month in food stamps. Between my coronary artery disease and my diabetes, I should be eating a diet heavy in protein and fresh vegetables and fruit. Right. I be screwed again.

I cannot, on my food stamps and income, eat the type of diet I should be. That means that I am technically an uncontrolled diabetic, which has led to issues with my kidneys. My blood work still sucks, which means the CAD is also uncontrolled, so I’ve got two coronary arteries at risk of blocking and killing me.

I eke out the food stamps with visits to the local food shelves. I try to not do that too often, because there are so many people worse off than me.

Women shop for clothes at a thrift store in Reading, PA (Getty Images via @daylife)

I wish I could work. Really. I miss being able to go to Denny’s, for crying out loud. I miss being able to buy clothes in a real store, or even the Salvation Army. I know that when my van finally dies, I won’t be able to replace it (the cars-for-the-poor program in my state is only for working poor families, not disabled singles).

I do not wonder that more and more seniors, disabled and displaced are at risk of hunger. Increases in assistance on one hand are negated by revised income limits on the other. Some programs have been cut to the bone, meaning lower benefits or none at all. The Low Income Heating Assistance Program is a favorite for Congress to cut when they need to look “firm in their resolve” to cut government expenses.

They do not care that all forms of heating fuel, from wood to electric, have gone up in price, some of them drastically in the past ten years. They do not care about the seniors trying to survive with thermostats set to 55^o. They do not see the little children sharing a bed with their parents so they can stay warm while they sleep.

Let me rephrase that; they do not want to see. They know these people are out there. They are passing laws to make it harder for these people to vote. They are trying, all over the country, to disenfranchise the poor, the elderly, the disabled. They do not want America’s most vulnerable citizens to vote this year.

They are afraid.

Related articles

• Eating is NOT a privilege: It’s a RIGHT! (cleanyourplate.net)
• Number Of Seniors Facing Threat Of Hunger Spiked 78 Percent Over Last Decade (thinkprogress.org)
• Proposed Medicare Cuts of Concern to Spectrum Generations: Hearing on May 9, 2012 (thevalleyvoice.org)

According to Brad Sears, Williams Institute Executive Director, stated that “This study shows that local governments can play an important role in making sure that employees with same-sex partners have access to the same benefits enjoyed by all employees.”

The Williams Institute noted that:

San Francisco was the first locality to enact what is known as an equal benefits ordinance (EBO) in 1996. Since then, 17 cities and counties—from Los Angeles, California, to Dane County, Wisconsin—have adopted their own statutes. The ordinances simply require that any benefits a local contractor provides to spouses of employees also be provided to domestic partners. One state, California, also requires its contractors to provide equal benefits by law.

The study evaluated data from 16 of the 17 localities with EBOs and found widespread compliance with almost no resistance from contractors, almost no enforcement costs and no other adverse effects. Localities reported that staffing burdens were minimal; only one hired a permanent, full-time staff member, and a few hired temporary or part-time staff to administer the ordinance. The localities also estimated that the EBOs resulted in little increase in contracting costs compared to their overall budgets.

Sears wrote that “Offering domestic partner benefits is inexpensive, so it makes sense that localities estimated only minimal increases in contracting costs. Research shows that when companies offer domestic partner benefits to same-sex partners, health insurance costs rise less than half of one percent. Even when different-sex partners are included, the increase is still less than two and a half percent.”

Christy Mallory, the study’s co-author, stated “Many successful businesses have said that they offer domestic partner benefits for economic reasons so it is not surprising that the localities in our study reported in almost every case that contractors were willing to offer the benefits if they did not already.”

Of course, Viagra usually is covered, and that is far more important to the old, white guys than the whole women’s health issue.

Well, the FRC is having some kind of video conference or such tonight, but in announcing that, they stated:

As part of the Obamacare health care mandate, beginning next year any organization that offers health insurance to employees will be forced to cover contraception, sterilizations, and abortifacients — no matter what their objections. This is not only an attack on the consciences of employers and employees, but a direct attack on religious freedom. This mandate must be stopped.

The outcry is growing even as the Obama administration attempts to stifle dissent. While church leaders around the country voiced their disapproval to the mandate on Sunday, the Army’s pulpits were silent. According to several sources, the Chief of Chaplains issued an Army-wide gag order, warning priests not to read any letter resisting the policy.

No one ever explains how it is an attack on religious freedom, or on the consciences of employees. It is, of course, something of an attack on the conscience of employers, but they should trust their employees enough to give them the option to use contraception.

What this comes down to is controlling others and not really to something like trusting employees or actually trusting that their teachings are being learned.

Well, that just goes to show how screwed up fundamentalist Christianity is, I guess.

Medicare has its flaws. The co-pays and deductibles have created a very strong industry in Medicare-supplemental insurance. Because it starts at age 65, there are far too many people who put off routine medical care until it kicks in, a factor that certainly impacts the costs of Medicare. The biggest problem with Medicare, and Medicaid for that matter, is the way doctors refuse to be involved with the program.

The programs pay less than private insurance pays, and they involve a lot of complicated paperwork. For Medicare and Medicaid patients, finding a doctor is often frustrating and aggravating. Frequently, Medicaid patients in particular find themselves being treated by somewhat less-than top-level physicians. A senior citizen, moving to a new community or coping with a doctor retiring, have to spend days on the phone trying to find a new doctor. The situation is so severe in some areas that the Federal government has a program to subsidize doctors who will accept Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Not fixing the automatic reimbursement cut will result in more doctors refusing to treat Medicare patients. We don’t need this. Until we finally join the rest of the world in having nationalized health care, we need more doctors willing to accept these patients. Our health care system places a great financial burden on physicians – first with paying off their enormous student loans, then with the costs of opening an office or buying into an existing practice, and then the operating expenses of an office which include ridiculously high premiums for malpractice insurance and employee health insurance. Asking doctors to accept a 27.4% cut in their pay for certain patients is unacceptable.

Related articles

• Medicare in America: ‘It has to get better’ (money.cnn.com)
• New UnitedHealthcare ‘Medicare Explicado’ DVD Educates Hispanics About Medicare and Medicaid Benefit Options (multivu.prnewswire.com)
• States Still Struggling to Pay for Medicaid (reason.com)
• Why the American Medical Association Had 72 Million Reasons to Shrink Doctors’ Pay (forbes.com)
• Consumer Driven Healthcare Proponents Finally Proven Wrong (forbes.com)

Willard "Mitt" Romney

The number has been drilled into Republicans’ heads – 76% of Americans disapprove of the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare. What is never mentioned is that 38%, half of those 76%, disapprove because there was no public option. The “there’s no public option” disapproval is never discussed among conservatives because that would totally skew the numbers and show that 62% of us agreed to the concept of reforming health insurance.

 The idea behind the public option was a simple one. It is more based in Vermont’s Catamount program than in Romneycare. Those who have no access to health insurance through their employers can join a state-operated health insurance plan. They pay premiums based on their income, but the premiums are usually way below those charged for private or even employer-provided health insurance. My husband and I pay over $450 a month for employer-provided health insurance and that is actually on the low end of the scale. My friend, who works only 36 hours a week at a supermarket, pays $65 a month for herself. She pays $160 per person less on the Catamount program for better coverage than we have through a private insurer. She has dental, we don’t.

 The so-called “public option” would have created exactly what the Republicans say capitalism thrives upon – free and open competition. As it currently stands, there is little competition among the health insurance companies. The public option would have drawn away private company customers. They would have been forced to give customers what they want or lose customers. It’s simple capitalism. But with the amount of money that the insurance industry has poured into politics, it was a doomed idea. The public option was sacrificed to get the rest of the Affordable Care Act through the Senate.

 Now, Mitt Romney has raised the public option as part of his ideas for Medicare and Medicaid. Well, that was how the morning pundits were interpreting his health care plan. In reality, Romney was embracing the Ryan proposal – handing the elderly a voucher and telling them to go buy private insurance. The only difference is, he would allow seniors to choose whether to remain in Medicare as it is currently constituted or use the vouchers for private insurance. Ryan’s plan would have forced seniors into private insurance.

Of course, Paul Ryan is all for the Romney plan, even if it is as vague and unformed as his own was. No one says how big the vouchers would be and therein lies the fault line in it – private insurance is extremely expensive. Even with the bargaining power of hundreds of thousands of enrollees in my health insurance, the actually premiums are over a thousand dollars a month. Our employer/supplier pays over half the premium. Match those premiums against an average Social Security benefit of a thousand dollars a month and you can see the problem.

Medicare includes a premium and deductions and co-pays. Without supplemental insurance, Medicare is barely enough to keep the elderly from having medical bills that bankrupt them or force them to choose between their medications and food. The drug program that Bush created had no provision for negotiating lower medication prices, which has resulted in states and private citizens looking to Canada for cheaper medications. Canada’s public health care system negotiates drug prices.

No one should get excited about Romney’s health care or Medicare proposals. Stick around a week and they will change. Mitt Romney will not own his own health insurance plan in Massachusetts, so he is groping around trying to find something that will get him elected. Of all the Republican candidates, Romney is the one who will spin around like a top until he finds the winning formula. That is why he never seems to poll above 30%, usually around 25%. Republicans know he’s the best candidate for luring Independents, but they resent the way he twists in the wind.

If his “public option” option resurrects the debate over the real public option, then his plan will be worth our attention.

Here’s the bottom line on a public option – Vermont is the healthiest state in the union. The reason we are the healthiest isn’t our access to fresh food or being exercise addicts. We tend to turn into couch turnips in November and don’t resurface until April. It’s our health insurance. We have state insurance for unemployed adults, state insurance for children and a state program for the working poor. Our health insurance system doesn’t leave anyone out. I would kill to have VHAP – the program for the unemployed. I spend too much time watching the deductible and co-pays on my employer-provided insurance and trying to figure out if I can afford the tests my doctor wants. No, I can’t. My income is too tight for me to take on hundreds of dollars of medical bills for a full-spectrum blood work-up.

There is a reason for the high cost of Medicare that no one understands or appreciates – the lack of good medical coverage before 65. It’s not just the uninsured who suddenly find that they have health insurance and can get medical care. It’s also those who have health insurance and can’t afford the deductibles and co-pays who defer care. I’m one of them. I put off medical tests because I can’t afford them. And I pray that nothing goes seriously wrong for the next two years. If we had access to affordable health care before 65, we would not place such a burden on the Medicare system.

Saying that Mitt Romney has embraced the public option is disingenuous. It’s like saying the void of space is filled with stars. Yes, there are stars, but the void between them is still empty. People are looking at the undefined area of Romney’s proposal, the transition from Medicare to vouchers, and seeing the public option. They are claiming that when seniors have a choice between Medicare and vouchers, the rest of the public will see the benefits of a true public option. Just like Paul Ryan seeing Romney’s proposals as confirmation of his own brilliance, those who see a public option in Romney’s plan are engaging in self-delusion.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that in calling Romney’s plan a “public option” the liberal commentators are just being devious, nefarious and despicable….trying to undercut his support among Republicans.  They wouldn’t do something like that, now would they?

Related articles

• Mitt Romney Loves Medicare Very Much And Won’t Ever Let Anyone Take It Away, No Matter What (reason.com)
• Romney Plan Would Privatize Part of Medicare (online.wsj.com)
• Romney Proposes to Privatize Medicare (blogs.wsj.com)
• What Mitt Romney’s Fiscal Plan Says About GOP Tax Cut Mania (swampland.time.com)

The Bank of America is moving to equalize the cost of health care for same-sex couples on bank-sponsored health-care plans.

Presently, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) forbids the federal government from recognizing the validity of same-sex marriages. So under federal law, employer-provided health benefits for same-sex partners are counted as taxable income, if the partner is not considered a spouse or dependent. Additionally, gay employees cannot use pretax dollars to pay for their premiums — unlike their opposite-sex married counterparts.

However, starting next year, B of A employees with same-sex partners will begin receiving reimbursements for the extra taxes they pay for health insurance.

According to the New York Times:

The banking giant will provide the reimbursement once a year, and it will be calculated for each employee on an individual basis. “We regularly review our benefits plans to ensure they meet the diverse needs of our employees,” said Ferris Morrison, a spokeswoman for the bank.

Bank of America also says  this option will only be offered  to gay couples,  since heterosexual domestic partners have the option to marry and avoid the extra taxes.

Related articles

• Bucks: Bank of America Equalizes Health Costs for Gay Employees (bucks.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Pres Obama: Months Not Years Until DOMA Struck Down In The Courts (lezgetreal.com)

U. S. Citizens With Private Health Insurance

Very little of the Affordable Health Care Act is force right now. The details and the big stuff won’t happen until 2014, unless the Republicans manage to kill it in 2013. One of the things that is already in force is a provision to allow parents to keep their children on their health insurance until the child reaches age 26. The previous cut-off age ranged from 18 to completion of college/age 22 or age 24, depending on the insurer. Those cut offs hit hard at young people who were in college or in jobs that didn’t offer health insurance, like almost all retailers and food service companies.

The new law has significantly reduced the number of uninsured Americans between the ages of 18 and 26, according to a new Gallup poll. In late winter, 2008, there was a previous low of 26.7% uninsured 18-26 year olds. The highest number was in mid-2009 at 28.7% and has dropped to 24.2%, lower than the beginning point for this study..

The number of uninsured 26 to 64 year olds has increased. Fifteen percent were uninsured in January, 2008, and that number has climbed every month since, reaching 19.9% last month. The number of uninsured over the age of 65, when everyone should be receiving Medicare, has remained fairly constant between 2.9% and 3.7%, usually around 3.2%. Gallup offered no explanation why any person over 65 would not have insurance.

There is a mistaken belief among conservatives that the uninsured are unemployed. In truth, most are working Americans. They are either working for themselves and find private insurance prohibitively expensive (to the tune of $1,500 a month in premiums) or they are working part-time. One of the standard ways that retailers, food and hospitality service businesses hold down costs is by keeping their employees below the hours-per-week threshold for supplying benefits. That ranges from around 26 to 36 hours per week depending on the state. Then, the employees enroll in a state program for themselves if one is available and those with children sign up for the Medicaid programs that insure children. So, to increase their profit margins through holding down employee costs, these businesses transfer the cost of insuring their employees or employees’ children to other taxpayers. The employees end up working multiple jobs if they can get them, two or three part-time jobs just to survive. Of course, the unemployed can also be uninsured, it depends entirely on which state they are living in.

This year, Vermont was ranked as the healthiest state in the Union, and the primary reason was our state’s health insurance system. The unemployed, the underemployed and those not given access to group health insurance by their employers either receive state health insurance or can buy state insurance at incredibly low rates. The same coverage that we get for $450 a month, a friend gets for $120 through Catamount. Having clean air, clean water and the availability of cheap fresh food through Farm-To-Family and other programs also contributes to our overall health.

For all Americans, the percentage of insured has dropped from 85.2% in January, 2008, to 82.4% today, while the uninsured has risen from 14.6% to 17.4%.

Related articles

• In U.S. Significantly Fewer 18- to 25-Year-Olds Uninsured (businessinsider.com)
• New Report Shows “Significant” Drop in Uninsured Young People, Thanks to Affordable Care Act (whitehouse.gov)
• Spike in US young health coverage (bbc.co.uk)
• Health coverage up among young adults: Is “Obamacare” working? (cbsnews.com)
• More Evidence That ObamaCare Works (themoderatevoice.com)

The Michigan State House, Lansing

The Republican legislature in Michigan is taking up House Bills 4770 and 4771 this week to end the offering of health insurance to unmarried partners. The fact that these bills have been pushed by two openly anti-gay officials is blurring the underlying issue – this bill would hit straight couples as well as same-sex couples.

The bills would end the health care benefits for other eligible adults living with a state employee. Currently, those benefits are under an extension granted by the Michigan Civil Service Commission in January. The bills would not only terminate that extension, but prohibit the granting of those benefits in any other government in the state – from cities and towns, from public universities, from anything that might be considered a “government” entity – and prohibit unions from including them in collective bargaining.

The bills are being pushed by Republican Representative Dave Agema of Grandville and Attorney General Bill Schuette, who are pushing for anything that might make life difficult for gays and lesbians, which has naturally taken this debate into the issue of gay rights, but “eligible adult” can, in certain circumstances, also mean a straight partner, a child or a parent. All sorts of combinations of adults are denied the rights that are granted by a marriage license, and forced to enter into multiple legal contracts, paying out money for lawyers, for something that should be accessible with a simple partnership contract.

Sometimes, we are so focused on the rights of one group, we lose sight of others who are also being harmed. Emily Dievendorf, Director of Policy for Equality Michigan, issued the following statement: “These bill are yet another desperate attack on our community. Radical lawmakers are attempting to interfere with local employment policy and weaken working families’ ability to care for their loved ones. They are trying to codify their anti-gay biases into law. It’s simply intolerable and voters should be furious. Tens of thousands of public and private employees in our state have access to health care benefits for unmarried partners. Policies that provide such benefits are used throughout the country to treat employees fairly and retain talented workers. Leaders from Fortune 500 companies, public school districts, and municipal governments across the country know that their workforces are stronger when employees are able to take care of their families. Passage of these bills would help run our state into the ground. We call on the House to vote these bills down immediately and send a message that lawmakers value fundamental fairness, strong working families and a healthy workforce.”

Most major companies provide partners’ benefits. Some allow a broad definition of what constitutes a “family” to include any dependent, adult or child. Just attacking these bills as a “gay issue” misses the broader point and dismisses the possibility of broader support. What benefit does a state gain by cutting off access to health insurance for any population? Will those people then be eligible for Medicaid? Just processing the applications for assistance will place strains on the Michigan bureaucracy. Will they join the mass of uninsured Americans who are straining our medical system with unpaid bills? Few people think of the cost of the uninsured, but their situation hurts all of us. We pay for them in state and federal programs to provide health care for the poor. We pay for them in our health insurance premiums and medical bills which seek to re-coup the losses created by the uninsured. We pay for them in their lost work hours and lost school time because the denial of access to basic health care results in them only getting help when their health is in crisis and more time-consuming and expensive to treat.

We as a society are trying to find solutions to the problem of being 37^th in the world in health care delivery while being the most expensive country in the world in health care costs. Cutting anyone off from health insurance just makes the problem worse. Michigan House 4770 and 4771 impact far more than the gay and lesbian partners of civil servants. They impact the economy of the whole state.

Related articles

• MI House Approves Stripping Domestic Partner Benefits From Workers (lezgetreal.com)

A provision in the healthcare reform law means that preventative measures to keep women from getting pregnant should be mandatorily covered by all private health insurance companies with no cost to the patient. Of course, Tony Perkins is hardly happy with this state of affairs. He recently went on the offensive in a manner not unlike his attacks against Chaz Bono.

He recently wrote:

To be clear, the federal government is mandating that all private health insurance plans cover contraceptives and sterilization services (including those with abortifacient mechanisms of action) free of charge. Organizations that provide insurance to their employees will be forced to cover such services, even if they object. The effect is that the cost of these “free” services will be shifted to plan participants through higher premiums both to employees in employer sponsored plans, and to individuals in the individual insurance market.

The HHS regulation contains an exemption only for certain group plans, not insurance in the individual market. Moreover, the exemption is unacceptably narrow for churches, but would not include religious businesses or other organizations that have moral or religious objections to such coverage.

Of course, he is also upset over morning after pills and the like:

The mandate includes drugs deemed “contraceptives” by the FDA even if they can cause abortions like Plan B and Ella. (RU-486 is not included since the FDA approved it as an “abortifacient”.) Employers and people who object to these drugs should not be forced bear the costs for free abortions. This mandate will violate the conscience of millions of Americans, and it goes against the current conscience protections in law precisely to stop government discrimination.

HHS is receiving public comment only on the definition of “religious employer” that is so narrow as to only include churches, but not businesses or other groups. We are writing to ask that you speak up on behalf of life and conscience protections for all groups or individuals that have conscience objections to any contraceptives as well as those that can cause abortion. We urge you to submit “public comment” to HHS by clicking on the following link. FRC has provided suggested comments below.

Ah, well, you see, the FRC is upset because, well, they do not get to deny women the right to not get pregnant. In fact, this is a common theme among these groups. They want to return to the days when women were subservient, homosexuality illegal, and the only ones to have rights were those who were men born with penises. It is not surprising that they are attacking the rights of women.

Just a friendly reminder that Perkins and the FRC are not just after the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans people, but also after the rights of women throughout the nation.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer

Arizona cannot deny healthcare benefits to the same-sex partners of state employees according to a ruling by the 9th Circuit. The court found that the state’s money-saving argument was insufficient. The appeals court, which is based in San Francisco, upheld an injunction that bars enforcement of the 2009 law that eliminated healthcare coverage for domestic partners of Arizona employees. The year before, the state’s voters approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. That came after a similar amendment was defeated.

The suit came from nine lesbian and gay state employees who sued Arizona, Governor Brewer and other officials in Phoenix alleging violations of their rights to equal protection and due process. The state’s arguments were premised upon the notion that they had to cancel the beneifts in order to save money. They did not show how much the benefits cost the state, or how much they were going to save.

US District Court Judge John Sedwick ruled that the law was likely unconstitutional and that the plaintiffs were apt to suffer great harm if it were to go into effect. The ruling was unanimous, and found that the state’s justification was doomed to fail even if the state could figure out how to explain its cost-saving theory.

Judge Mary Schroeder wrote for the court’s three-judge panel “Of particular significance to the district court was the fact that while the plaintiffs produced expert analysis on the impact of the law on the state’s expenditures and found it minimal, the court was not provided any evidence of the actual amount of benefits the state paid for same sex partners. Defendants nevertheless contend on appeal that this law is rationally related to the state’s interests in cost savings and reducing administrative burdens. As the district court observed, however, the savings depend upon distinguishing between homosexual and heterosexual employees, similarly situated, and such a distinction cannot survive rational basis review.”

According to Court House News:

The state admitted that 698 domestic partners had participated in its health plan in 2008-09, the first year it was available to them, and that 893 domestic partners had participated in 2009-10, the benefit’s final year. But Arizona provided “no information … as to the number of same-sex domestic partners participating in the state health plan, nor the total claims of same-sex domestic partners,” according to the ruling.

Arizona had also argued on appeal that the trial court improperly recognized a constitutional right to health care. But the 9th Circuit said the argument, and many other of the state’s claims, relied on a misunderstanding of the District Court’s order.

Schroeder also wrote “The court held that the withholding of benefits for same-sex couples was a denial of equal protection. The state is correct in asserting that state employees and their families are not constitutionally entitled to health benefits. But when a state chooses to provide such benefits, it may not do so in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner that adversely affects particular groups that may be unpopular.”

Countries With Universal Health Care

The Federal Appeals Court in Atlanta has declared the Affordable Health Care Act unconstitutional. This one is going to end up in the Supreme Court because the lower courts are dividing on their rulings. The critical issue is the individual mandate, which would require nearly all Americans to have health insurance from some source, the same way Hawaii and Massachusetts have required it.

I’m waiting for someone to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the mandate that car owners must have auto insurance, and homeowners must have homeowner’s insurance, and in a flood plain must also have flood insurance if they have a mortgage. If it is unconstitutional for the Federal government to require health insurance, then why can states mandate auto insurance and mortgage lenders mandate up to four different insurance policies?

If we can’t have a Federal mandate for health insurance, can we have a law barring people who have jobs qualifying for Federal health insurance programs because their employers won’t provide insurance? I am really tired of having my federal taxes used to provide health insurance for the children of Walmart employees and my state taxes providing health insurance for small business employees.

The Republican mantra about the health care law is “it will kill jobs.” Yep. Business owners are threatening to fire people if they have to find a health insurance policy that they can provide access to. It’s not even as though the law demands that the business pay the entire premium for health insurance. Hell, the Feds don’t, so why should businesses? Instead, they prefer to keep their employees below the state threshold for providing benefits and let Medicaid provide insurance for their employees’ children.

In the 67 years since Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared that health care should be part of our Second Bill of Rights, every effort has been expended to protect the private insurance industry, until our health care costs twice as much as the next most expensive country in the world and our health care delivery keeps dropping lower and lower every year. We are currently 37^th in the world. THIRTY-SEVENTH!! Thirty-six countries have lower infant mortality rates, lower maternity mortality rates, better access to health care services, long life expectancies, lower rates of communicable diseases, lower rates of deaths from controllable and treatable conditions, better ratios of medical service providers to population, etc. etc. on every possible measure of human health and well-being.

The American people are not benefitting from our alleged “best health care system in the world.” (Millionaire Rush Limbaugh’s words.) The insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are benefitting from our health care system. They have the money to buy our politicians and protect their industries. All the American people have is illness, untreated controllable diseases and early death. All the American people have are politicians who are now telling us that we as a nation cannot afford public subsidy of our health care for those who are denied access to health insurance by their employers. All the American people have is a political movement that says we should all accept the loss of health insurance as a benefit of employment since so many private sector companies have figured out how to avoid the expense. All the American people have is the prospect of a two-tier health care system, with the rich getting the best care money can buy and the rest of us, both the dwindling middle class and lower classes, lining up for hours at free clinics and rationing our medications.

All we have is a nation sliding toward parity with Somalia and Darfur for health care delivery because one portion of our population has been conditioned to believe that health care is not a human right and anyone who says it is is a stinking commie. Nationalized health has not infringed in any way on democracy in Canada, Australia, England, Germany, France or any other republic with the intelligence to know that private insurance simply increases costs and denies care. One-third of us wanted a public option. One-third of us supported the law the way it is. We are being denied our human right to health care by one-third of this county. What every happened to majority rules as long as it does not oppress a minority?

Related articles

• Appeals Court Rejects Health Insurance Mandate (npr.org)
• The Latest Health Care Court Case (whitehouse.gov)

During the past four years, the United States Postal Service lost $20 billion. Though it is called the United States Postal Service, it is no longer a government agency, but a privately run corporation with government oversight. The Postal Service has suffered from the parcel delivery competition and the use of computers for everything from personal messages to bill notification and payment. USPS had already announced the closure of hundreds of smaller post offices. This new cost cutting plan would lay off 120,000 employees.

The bigger news, if it is possible to be bigger than laying off 120,000 workers, is a request to cut the Postal System free from the Federal health insurance system and pension systems. This is looked upon as a move that could seriously impact Federal benefit programs and Federal employment contracts.

This is also something I am very familiar with, being the wife of a retired Federal employee.

Federal employees are subsidized in their purchase of private health insurance. The subsidy amounts to less than half the premium costs. Having Federal Employee Health Benefits is not necessarily cheap, but it does offer a wide range of plans to choose from. Each jurisdiction has certain insurance plans that it can offer, in addition to two national plans (it may be three now, but was two last time I looked). The employee can choose a high or low option plan as well as choosing coverage for self or self and family. The most popular choice for Postal Employees has traditionally been a company called Mail Handlers, which is available to all Federal employees.

When we quit Mail Handlers three years ago, they had rewritten the plan to include four separate deductibles – office visits, hospital stays, prescriptions and tests. The thing that really ticked us off was the letter from Bush’s head of employee benefits saying how hard she had worked to get the best packages possible.

If the Postal Service can find better, less expensive plans for their employees, more power to them. But the fact that their employees are all over the country, and the scarcity of nationwide plans makes this sort of iffy.

The pension system is a whole other thing. Federal pensions are not what people think they are. It’s not retiring at nearly full pay at 50. Those days ended with Ronald Reagan. Someone told Reagan that Federal employees didn’t pay into Social Security. They forgot to tell him they didn’t get Social Security either. The Federal employee retirement system was self-contained and self-sustaining. So, on Reagan’s order, the Feds got moved into Social Security and the Federal Retirement system became a supplement to SS. In fact, if one retires before the age of 62, he/she gets forced into Social Security at reduced benefits at 62. There is at least a month there with only half the previous retirement payment before SS kicks in. Out of that pension check comes health insurance premiums for those under 65 and life insurance premiums, along with taxes. The payments are about half of the Social Security checks, and equally subject to Congress’ decision about cost-of-living raises. There is a Federal equivalent to a 401k account, the Thrift Savings Plan. It’s value is just like a 401k, entirely dependent on what you can afford to put in above the minimal amount put in by the government.

If that sounds like a really good deal, please remember one thing. Federal employees make around 80% of what private sector employees make in identical jobs. It only appears that Feds make more because the Federal government hires so many specialists – scientists, engineers and the like. It skews the averages.

Chances are whatever happens in the Postal Service will not impact Federal employee benefit packages. The much larger problem in both the Postal Service and the rest of government is the lay-offs. With massive budget cuts in the Federal government, there will be lay-offs somewhere, just as there have been lay-offs in state and local governments with budget cuts. The last bloody thing this country needs is a few hundred thousand more unemployed people.

Related articles

• Clock ticking on Postal Service budget crisis (money.cnn.com)
• Postal Service proposing cutting 120,000 jobs (msnbc.msn.com)
• Here Comes “Going Postal” The Sequel: US Postal Service To Cut 120,000 Jobs To Avoid Bankruptcy (zerohedge.com)
• Letter Carriers React to Postal Service Proposal (prnewswire.com)

Verizon picketers (photo by AP)

I’ve been racking my brains. I can’t remember the last honest-to-goodness, widespread labor strike in America. Was it the one where Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers? We’ve seen local strikes, but nothing approaching what started today on the East Coast.

Over 45,000 Verizon workers walked out at midnight Saturday. Don’t worry, your cell phones will still work, unless the sunspots interfere with them. The division these people work for is the landlines and Internet networks.

Dozens of strikers assembled outside Verizon’s New York City headquarters re-enacting that time-honored ritual of walking the picket line. Their signs said they were “on strike for middle-class jobs.”

Verizon wants to withhold more from their employees’ paychecks for health insurance. Gee, wonder where they got that idea? Can we say Scott Walker, John Kasich, the Republican governors who waged battle against public sector workers on this issue?

I know all the arguments about how union demands killed American manufacturing. Funny thing is, if you go back to the near-collapse of Chrysler in the 1970′s, that is not what you will see. The UAW was willing to work with CEO Lee Iacocca to find reasonable ways to cut costs. The biggest detriment to Chrysler’s competitiveness against the new power of Toyota was health insurance. As Iacocca explained, Toyota could make a car for up to $1,200 less simply because Japan had nationalized health. There were a couple of other factors involved in Toyota’s rise, most especially the fact that they researched what Americans wanted in a car and then built it, instead of building it and then convincing people they wanted it, but that was not part of the conversation at the time. Nationalized health, in Iacocca’s view, was a necessity to the survival of America’s manufacturing base.

The one good thing you can say about Verizon is that it hasn’t solved its health insurance costs by cutting its employees to part-time to avoid health insurance and transfer the burden of health care for employees’ children to the Medicaid system the way retailers have. On the down side, no major employer in this country has chosen to endorse the public option in the health care reform bill or faced down an insurance company over the exorbitant rates they charge.

Related articles

• Verizon unions on strike…over health care benefits, what’s new? (quinnscommentary.com)
• Health Insurance In the US Sucks (pilatesandreikiinparadise.com)
• Germany’s Recovery and American Manufacturing (lezgetreal.com)
• Verizon workers go on strike (news.blogs.cnn.com)
• Verizon Unions Go on Strike as Contract Negotiations Break Down (businessweek.com)

10 July 2011
by Bridgette P. LaVictoire

Chalk this up to another reason to bring down the Defense of Marriage Act and to clearly state that the reason why the Right want to keep DOMA in place is to punish a minority group for whom sexual attraction to people of the same sex is rooted in a very physical reality. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, some twenty-two school and city workers are taxed well beyond that which their colleagues are because they are lesbian or gay and they are married. What is more, they have put their spouses on their employer-provided health insurance, but, because of DOMA, that means that their health insurance coverage is considered taxable income by the Federal government.

Those twenty-two employees of Cambridge, Mass, pay an additional $1500 to $3000 per year in taxes, but the city government wants to rectify that by establishing a stipend that will attempt to defray those costs for their workers. It is estimated that the cost of doing this will be about $33,000 per year.

Cambridge city councilor Marjorie Decker stated “This is about equality. This is a city that models what equality really means.” The push began in January to put an end to what council members felt was an unfair and discriminatory tax. Leland Cheung, another councilor for the city, said “This is ultimately a fairness issue. Two people who do the exact same job should be paid exactly the same for what they are doing at work.” Cheung and E. Denise Simmons, another councilor, pushed the measure. Simmons is openly gay.

Of course, Kris Mineau, the president of the anti-marriage group Massachusetts Family Institute, stated “It’s a travesty of using taxpayer monies to circumvent a national policy.” The real travesty is that Mineau and others seek to punish lesbians and gays for being biologically different than they are.

Because homosexuality has a biological root to it, and because religion is a lifestyle choice, the courts are starting to take measures that put homosexuality into a legally protected class with regards to civil rights. Mary Bowe-Shulman of Acton, Mass, who is one of the plaintiffs challenging DOMA, said “I think that’s a wonderful thing for [Cambridge] to make up for that.” Bowe-Shulman loses $7,080 a year to federal taxes because of this law. She and her wife of six years have two children and could really use the money. She also pointed out the psychological problems of being treated differently saying “It just makes me feel like my family is being treated differently than everyone else’s.”

Hopefully, the push to end DOMA will mean that these laws will no longer be necessary in the near future.

Source

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

A long time ago, a group of Vermont legislators dedicated a lot of time and effort to revising the state’s criminal code. It was a monumental job, cleaning out stupid old laws, streamlining and combining overlapping ones, addressing new problems with modern language. Shortly after the statutes were adopted, however, it was discovered the hard way that they had inadvertently made armed robbery a misdemeanor.

The Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) ran to over 2,000 pages. Around half of that dealt with voiding old legislation that had to be ditched before the new legislation could be enacted. Purely from the perspective of creating and writing legislation, it was a remarkable achievement. Nancy Pelosi’s joke about reading it after they passed it was just that, a joke. No one ever reads all the stuff about voiding old laws. They concentrate on what the new parts say.

Somewhere in those 2,000 plus pages there was a small errror involving a small group of people. It seems that after 2014, if a couple retire at 62, they could have a combined income of $64,000 a year and qualify for Medicaid because their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted against their eligibility.

Where can I sign up? Oh, 2014. That’s too late for me. My husband retired from the Federal Court System. As a retiree, he was allowed to retain our health insurance. We pay $470 a month, almost one-third of his pension, for a health insurance policy with a $700 deductible and a 20-25% co-pay depending on use. That deductible is equal to my monthly take-home from my part-time job. We barely make it from one end of the month to the other (long story involving extended family). That deductible is the reason we don’t have anything done that we can avoid.

In 17 months, he will go on Medicare and I will switch to Vermont’s health insurance for the working poor, Catamount. We will both be paying premiums, but about $300 a month less than we are now. The coverage is actually better. Catamount has dental.

$64,000 a year sounds like a lot, until you figure taxes (Social Security is taxed based on other income), and such things as mortgage payments and car payments and supporting your kid who can’t get a job. The premiums on a private insurance, when subsidized by a former employer, can seriously reduce a couple’s income – as in an almost $6,000 a year reduction. Without the employer subsidy, it can run as high as $10,000 a year. If it weren’t so difficult to get a G.P. who accepts Medicaid, I would say the 3 million people who would qualify for this glitch would be dancing in the street. One of the reasons Medicare costs so much is the manner in which people do not get adequate health care until they have Medicare.

Obviously, there will be every effort expended to correct this “error” before 2014. That’s a pity, really. It would be a perfect opportunity to test out the public option on a small, controlled scale.

We are back to what Vermont does well, now that we’ve mentioned what it occasionally does badly. For those working adults who do not have employer-provided health insurance, the state has a subsidized program. Premiums are based on income. Not having employer-provided health insurance means practically everyone who works for a retail chain and most small businesses who keep their employees below the hour-per-week threshold at which the state mandates benefits.

The fight in Washington is over the cost of Medicare and Medicaid. That’s the wrong end of the argument. We should be fighting over why our health care costs twice as much as the next highest country. We should be fighting over the impact that profit has on health care costs. We should be fighting over the cost of malpractice insurance premiums. Medicare and Medicaid cost as much as they do because our health care system’s costs are out of control and totally unjustifiable. It is the cost of insurance and multiple layers of profit that make a $700 test in Finland cost $1400 in America. Until we can discuss the real cause of our health care crisis, we are just going around in circles.

Related articles

• Health care quirk grants middle-class Medicaid (cbsnews.com)
• Liberty and Health Care (aleksandreia.wordpress.com)
• Oops! Obamacare provides Medicaid for the middle class (capitolhillblue.com)

Sitting here listening to the analysis of the President’s speech on deficit reduction, I finally realized something. No one ever talks about WHY Medicare costs so much. The answer is remarkably simple: The rest of our health care delivery system sucks big time.

I’m 62. This is not an analysis from some think tank kid who only shaves once a week. This is the view from the trenches. I can’t wait for my husband to turn 65 and go on Medicare. He will finally be able to afford to get the preventative testing our doctor wants him to have that we can’t afford because of the co-pays and deductibles on our $450 a month Federal employees’ health insurance. Without his insurance, I will be able to go on Vermont’s low income health insurance system, Catamount, get the same benefits we get now and only pay $80 a month for it. That $370 a month savings – just one month’s worth – will pay the amount our insurance will not pay for one instance of blood work to check my overall responses to the medications I take to control my heart.

The vast majority of Americans are in the same sinking boat my husband and I are in. We are barely making our ends wave at each other. Any extra expense throws us to the wolves. Two years ago, I was one of the people who were victimized by a generic medication manufacturer who shorted the pills.. Out of pocket cost me 10 weeks of take home pay. In order to keep a roof over our heads, I had to push those bills out over the course of eighteen months. Think I got anything out of the manufacturer? Dream on. There weren’t enough of us who had this problem to get the attention of one of those law firms that advertise for class action suits on medications. Suing on my own would have cost me more than what I had spent.

Want to know how to hit a brick wall with a health insurance company? You just need to be one of those people who for some reason cannot take a generic medication. They really hate paying for name brands.

We are the lucky ones. We have insurance through my husband’s former employer – the Federal government. It costs us $5,400 a year, a $600 a year deductible and co-pays that can range between 20% and 40% depending on what the insurance company decides is the “customary and reasonable” fee for services. It is infinitely better than the insurance we used to have, which had four different deductibles of $600 each – doctor’s visits, hospitalizations, testings and prescriptions – and determined “customary and reasonable” by averaging charges across a geographic area that included at least two major cities where health costs were lower than in the survey region’s small cities and towns.

If – big IF – someone is lucky enough to have health insurance, there is a tendency to avoid elective procedures, including testing, because of the deductibles and co-pays which can devastate a tight budget. Without insurance, or with only major medical or inadequate insurance, all testing and most treatment gets put off until that magical day when Medicare kicks in. We saw months of this when Keith Olbermann was reporting on the free clinics he helped raise money for across the country. The primary benefit from these clinics was in the number of people who were finally diagnosed as having totally controllable, treatable conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes. Because they had no insurance, they had never been diagnosed. Because they had no insurance, they hadn’t seen a doctor for years, except in emergencies. Because they had no insurance, they put off getting treatment until they were in a crisis. Even with insurance, because of deductibles and co-pays, far too many people make the same choice. They don’t get tested, they don’t see doctors, they don’t seek treatment until they need crisis intervention.

We have relatives in Canada. Lise complains that the worst thing about the Canadian health care system is the number of people who go to the doctor when they have a cold they could have treated at home with over-the-counter medications. There is a delivery problem in countries with nationalized health – people go to the doctor, they get diagnostic tests, they get preventative care. Sometimes, the system backs up. Take your pick. Which would you rather have – waiting a couple of weeks to see the doctor for a routine exam or not being able to afford the blood work and other tests the doctor would order for a routine exam? Though recent surveys indicate that the American life expectancy is longer than it was a few years ago, it is not gaining as quickly as the rest of the industrialized world. We don’t live as long or enjoy as good health in our senior years as the people in first-world countries with nationalized health. Those as the facts.

Our Medicare system is overwhelmed because we reach the age of 65 in desperate need of the medical care we have denied ourselves through our forties and fifties because we can’t afford to seek care.

No one ever wants to talk about the impact of a profit motive on health costs. We have the highest health care costs in the world and don’t crack the top ten for health care delivery. Finland, which ranks as the healthiest country, spends $2104 per person on health care, 7% of their GDP. We spend $5711 per person and 16% of our GDP and have the shortest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rate of the leading developed nations in the world. The difference is not our allegedly “best health care in the world” it is our profit motive. And at the base of that profit motive are insurance companies. Doctors pay crippling premiums for malpractice insurance, driving up the fees they have to charge. And medical practices, testing facilities and hospitals add to the bills of the insured to cover the unpaid bills of the uninsured.

Why do prescriptions cost less in Canada? Because the system doesn’t allow the same profit margin that is accepted in America. Same drugs, same manufacturers, less profit margin, lower costs to patients. It’s first grade arithmetic, not rocket science. Add in the costs of the insurance that is subsidizing your prescription purchases, and the costs go up further. That takes it up to fifth grade math.

The simplest way to control the cost of Medicare, to control our health care costs overall and make us a healthier nation is to make it possible for Americans to get the health care they need when they are 45 and they won’t spend as much on health care when they are 65. It’s a total no-brainer.

So, when the hell are Democrats going to talk plain English and explain this to Americans? Maybe when they finally learn to get on Fox News and yell louder than the scripted Republicans who are dominating the non-debate.

Related articles

• Medicare isn’t the problem — it’s the solution (salon.com)
• Fixing Medicare: Obama Vs. Ryan (npr.org)
• How Would You Fix the Health-Care System? (fool.com)
• Robert Reich: Mr. President: Why Medicare Isn’t the Problem, It’s the Solution (huffingtonpost.com)

Two pieces of information about the Wisconsin governor’s stand-off with state workers came out last night on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.

According to State Senator Glen Grothman, the reason the collective bargaining provision was put in the bill to make state, county and municipal employees pay more into their health insurance and pension funds was to allow managers the ability to reassign employees. Grothman, who has somehow gotten the thankless task of being Governor Walker’s mouthpiece, insists the denying government workers the right of collective bargaining is the only way to make government more efficient. This explanation has not been offered before last night.

It was also disclosed last night that the police and firefighters unions are exempt from the collective bargaining clause in the bill. These are the two unions that endorsed Walker’s campaign for governor. The unions that are being told they have to give up collective bargaining did not endorse him.

Republicans are starting to give up any pretense that they are not engaging in personal vendettas.

Meanwhile, 14 Democratic Senators remain in hiding in neighboring states where the Wisconsin State Police cannot detain them and force them to return to the Senate. The unions that are having their collective bargaining rights threatened have agreed to the fiscal portions of the bill, and said that they were willing to negotiate the managers’ flexibility issue that they only heard about yesterday. Walker claims that the bill is solely for the purpose of balancing Wisconsin’s budget crisis, but rejected the unions’ offer to meet his fiscal demands. He has consistently refused to engage in any talks with the unions on any issue.

Related articles

• Watch: Rachel Maddow Interviews Defiant Democratic Wisconsin Senator on the Union Protests (towleroad.com)
• Intense Protests in Wisconsin as Governor Sends State Troopers After Dem Senators in Hiding (lezgetreal.com)
• Wisconsin Protests Continue Over Collective Bargaining Rights (legallyeasy.rocketlawyer.com)
• Battle of Wisconsin: Protesters Storm Capitol Over Anti-Union Move (theroot.com)
• Wisconsin governor pushes bill to end bargaining rights of public workers (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

The administration had argued that the individual states do not have standing to challenge the law.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said that the administration will appeal the ruling and went on to state “There is a clear and well-established legal precedent that Congress acted within its constitutional authority in passing this law and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail on appeal”

Somehow, the states that are arguing against the law on the grounds of the purchase requirement haven’t considered the collateral damage. If the Federal government cannot mandate the purchase of insurance because it’s unconstitutional to make people buy something, states cannot mandate the purchase of auto insurance. People fight state laws on the grounds of constitutionality all the time. Why not auto insurance requirements? I need the $60 a month to cover the increase in my health insurance premiums.

The health insurance law is now two to two in the courts. Two judges have declared it constitutional while two have ruled against it. It will undoubtedly go to the Supreme Court next year.

The ruling was made in response to a lawsuit brought by anti-LGBT Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli who seems to worry about people’s privacy and government staying out of people’s lives only when it applies to healthcare insurance and not with regards to people’s sexuality.

City Attorney Charlie McNabb has pointed out that the approved ordinance will mean that some two-hundred people will lose their benefits on 1 January, including quite a number of retirees. This is, of course, because Pastor Brown and company wanted to make sure that there was no room to call them homophobes without ever actually thinking about the collateral damage.

The city may put a charter amendment on the May ballot on whether or not to end the benefit for only unmarried partners of city workers, and, of course, Texas is one of those states that makes sure that lesbians and gays are considered second class citizens.

Source

Image via Wikipedia

Melanie Nathan -March 25, 2010 ;   Human Rights Campaign reports that “Among the many federal rights and benefits denied to same-sex couples by the combination of marriage inequality and the federal Defense of Marriage Act is access to continued health care coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA).  COBRA ensures that an employee and his or her spouse and dependent children can keep their employer-provided health insurance for a limited period after a qualifying event – usually the employee leaving or, particularly these days, losing his or her job.  The employee and his family usually pay for those benefits out of pocket, including additional administrative costs to the former employer, but that health insurance is still often cheaper than a plan in the individual market.  During the economic downturn, Congress has created subsidies to help families defray those costs.” Brian Moulton in Human Rights Campaign Post.

Unfortunately, same-sex couples and their families have neither the guarantee of continued coverage nor access to those subsidies.  Even if an employer offers domestic partner health benefits, as more and more companies do every day, they do not have to provide continued coverage of those benefits under COBRA.  And even if a fair-minded employer does so, a former employee’s domestic partner cannot be eligible for the COBRA subsidy.  So, yet again, despite being equally affected by economic hardships, same-sex couples are not equally protected by safety net programs like COBRA.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)  to the rescue – introducing a bill, the’ Equal Access to COBRA Act of 2010,’  that would help address this inequality and ensure that domestic partners currently covered by employer health plans have access to COBRA benefits.   This is one example of why any one incumbent who is up for reelection and who is LGBT legislation proactive MUST receive the support  the  entire LGBT community Across the Country.   This is another example of why DOMA must be repealed as soon as possible.

DO you think Carli Fiorina Would introduce this kind of Legislation or even support it in Congress.   I am going to call her  to ask the question and will get back here with the BIG update – Warning: Please Do Not Hold Your Breath

We at LGR applaud Senator Boxer for keeping her eye on the ball for us.  It would seem that HRC has been at the helm of this introduction.  While we are grateful for that,  this is yet another example of more time on more piecemeal legislation.   I would rather see an OMNIBUS Bill for all equality legislation or more simply put, THE HOT pursuit of  Rep. Jerold Nadler’s Respect for Marriage Act which will repeal DOMA.

By the way- the New health Care Bill does not help Domestic Partners who are discriminated under the Tax Code;  that means same-sex DP’s must pay tax on the health care benefit received through a partner’s work, as if it is income.    Again DOMA must Go!!!

STILL In solidarity:

by Melanie Nathan, EMAIL

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gays May Still Pay More for Health Coverage (bucks.blogs.nytimes.com)

Vermont has already started negotiations on setting up a single payer system in the coming years. Doing so would likely reduce the amount of money that Vermont has to pay for health insurance for its residents. It may even attract businesses who would be happier to pay taxes to the state rather than hand over more and more money to the health insurance companies. It may entice people to move to the state in order to get health insurance. The debate has yet to begin and the public records on the pros and cons of the single payer system are scarce and hard to say with any accuracy. More Vermonters support single payer than do any other system.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders introduced an amendment which would have created a single payer Medicare For All system in the United States. Rather than let it come up for a vote, Senator Tom Coburn forced a read of the whole amendment in an attempt to slow the debate down to a crawl. Senator Sanders was, ultimately, forced to withdraw the amendment. Of course, Senator Coburn was not there when Senator Sanders went on to deliver a sternly worded and heated denouncement of the Republican’s decision to throw a fit over the way in which democracy works. The Republicans have done everything they can to undermine democracy by stalling legislation, demanding full readings, and refusing to negotiate no matter what.

Jane Hamshir at Fire Dog Lake has posted a compilation of why it is time to kill the Senate Health Care Reform Bill.

1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not.
2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.
3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can’t afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.
4. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.
5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.
6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins.
7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.
8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.
9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.
10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year — meaning in 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

Senator Nelson was joined by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch in crafting this bill and one Democrat- Senator Robert Casey of PA, and seven Republicans in sponsoring the bill.

Opposing the bill appears to be a strong coalition of Senators including Kirsten Gilibrand of New York, who has vowed to kill this amendment, and it appears that she has the support to do that.

The Nelson-Hatch Amendment would result in the restriction of all federal funds to either obtain an abortion, or use of those funds via a subsidy in order to obtain a policy which provides abortion coverage. While there is the obligatory language in there in order to protect a woman’s life in the case of medical emergency, rape or incest, the amendment does not go into what constitutes those areas that would be covered, and unfortunately, many Federal employee health insurance providers simply ignore those provisions and ultimately refuse to pay for the abortion unless forced to do so. The current structure of the restriction on abortion funding would not risk the probability of health insurance providers pulling out of these procedures even if there was medical risk involved.

Senators Nelson and Lieberman are both risking being stripped of their committee assignments by the Progressive caucus if they follow through with their threats not to vote for cloture and allow a floor vote to go through. Nelson has stated his opposition to the final bill if it does not include this amendment within it, but not voting for cloture to allow the final vote would result in severe political blow back especially in light of recent polling showing that the majority of those opposed to health care reform are not opposed because it goes too far, but rather that it does not go far enough.

What follows is the actual language of the amendment via Politico:

Beginning on page 116, strike line 15 and all that follows through line 15 on page 123, and insert the following:

(a) Special Rules Relating to Coverage of Abortion Services.—

(1) In general.—Subject to paragraph (2), nothing in this Act (or any amendment made by this Act) shall be construed to require any health plan to provide coverage of abortion services or to allow the Secretary or any other person or entity implementing this Act (or amendment) to require coverage of such services.

(2) Community health insurance option.—The Secretary may not provide coverage of abortion services in the community health insurance option established under section 1323, except in the case where use of funds authorized or appropriated by this Act is permitted for such services under subsection (b)(1).

(3) No discrimination on the basis of provision of abortion.—No Exchange participating health benefits plan may discriminate against any individual health care provider or health care facility because of its unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.

(b) Limitation on Abortion Funding.—

(1) In general.—No funds authorized or appropriated by this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, or unless the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.

(2) Option to purchase separate supplemental coverage or plan.—Nothing in this subsection shall be construed as prohibiting any non-Federal entity (including an individual or a State or local government) from purchasing separate supplemental coverage for abortions for which funding is prohibited under this subsection, or a plan that includes such abortions, so long as—

(A) such coverage or plan is paid for entirely using only funds not authorized or appropriated by this Act; and

(B) such coverage or plan is not purchased using—

(i) individual premium payments required for a qualified health plan offered through the Exchange towards which a credit is applied under section 36B of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986; or

(ii) other non-Federal funds required to receive a Federal payment, including a State’s or locality’s contribution of Medicaid matching funds.

(3) Option to offer supplemental coverage or plan.—Nothing in this subsection shall restrict any non-Federal health insurance issuer offering a qualified health plan from offering separate supplemental coverage for abortions for which funding is prohibited under this subsection, or a plan that includes such abortions, so long as—

(A) premiums for such separate supplemental coverage or plan are paid for entirely with funds not authorized or appropriated by this Act;

(B) administrative costs and all services offered through such supplemental coverage or plan are paid for using only premiums collected for such coverage or plan; and

(C) any such non-Federal health insurance issuer that offers a qualified health plan through the Exchange that includes coverage for abortions for which funding is prohibited under this subsection also offers a qualified health plan through the Exchange that is identical in every respect except that it does not cover abortions for which funding is prohibited under this subsection.

Senator Leahy and Melanie Nathan 6/3/09

By Melanie Nathan:- When I met Senator Leahy, I was touched by his compassion, his sensitivity and his veracity. Most of all he is a champion for equality and as a supporter of UAFA, and has done much for our LGBT binational immigration.   I would like to support Senator Leahy in his endeavors, first and foremost because he has my trust and faith.

On Tuesday Senator Leahy took to the Senate floor and formally filed an amendment to repeal the antitrust exemption for health insurance companies and it has already 18 co-sponsors signed on.

In the senator’s words, “I look forward to debating this critical measure during our deliberations on the broader health care reform bill. After all, to bring insurance costs down, we’ve got to introduce more competition in the marketplace — and my amendment will do just that.”

More Senators ought to join to get this critical amendment passed. 

Click here to forward an email to your Senators now — and urge them to support our amendment to repeal the antitrust exemption for health insurance companies!

I have not read the amendment but the Senator assures that amendment will introduce antitrust oversight to the health insurance industry, ruling out of bounds egregious anti-competitive conduct like the currently activated and detrimental price fixing loophole which  raises our health costs.  

There will be no real Health Care reform until, inter alia, the health insurance industry is forced to compete on a level playing field just like every other business in America, large and small. In all fairness, consumers must know that the price they’re being quoted is a concomitant of a free and fair marketplace.

The senator in a letter to his on-line community implored our support “That’s why this amendment repealing the health insurance industry’s antitrust exemption is so important — but I need your help, right now, to get it passed.” Call your representatives and Senators to ensure they support the Bill and this critical principle.

DPBO moves to the House floor for consideration, and it’s up to us to make sure that it passes and protects the thousands of devoted, hard-working LGBT government employees.  Equal work demands equal compensation. We must speak up and remind Congress about this basic principle of fairness, to ensure that the domestic partners of government employees are able to receive their partners’ benefits, including health insurance and access to pensions.

President Obama is ready to sign DPBO into law but we need to make sure that it passes in Congress. Call your representative today and ask them to vote for equality and fairness. Ask them to pass the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act.

Please take a minute and call your representative at (202) 224-3121. We must make sure that a House vote on DPBO will happen soon and that our representatives support DPBO. We need to stand together as a community and urge our representatives to fight for the rights of the domestic partners of federal employees.”

Notes from Melanie: -Thank you NCLR for keeping us informed and active.  

It is time now for LGBT groups and organizations to get married….(imagine!)  To work on the BIG ONE – Repeal of DOMA – it will solve many problems.  DOMA is a gift – because now it provides the opportunity for overt recognition- through its repeal, that might not otherwise have been there.  The recognition of our relationships, the cornerstone of who we are, may never otherwise have had this opportunity.

I know easier said than done, but imagine if we can pool our brains and set aside mutual resources as we pursue a “PINK-PRINT” ( as in blue print…) A comprehensive plan- to unify our movement. This can happen with a BIG conference of leaders and  defined and shared purpose… Full equality  is our civil right goal and must happen more urgently than fragmented piecemeal legislation will allow. Congressman Nadler has provided the tool, now lets all work it.    

Melanie Nathan.
www.visualcv.com/melnathan  nathan@privatecourts.com   www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com   www.privatecurts.com

The Stupak Amendment is discriminatory, extreme, and just plain wrong. At Lez Get Real we have been reporting and commenting on the Stupak Amendment, and we are not letting up – why? Because it will take away health insurance coverage that women already have. This would be a huge step back for women’s health. Now this together with the suggestion by Government Task Force regarding Breast Cancer screening at age 50 as the new recommendation is simply unacceptable and worthy of a revolution for our health!!! The mere fact that they can think this up is disturbing to me….

We support Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) launch of a petition because women must not be denied access to safe and legal medical procedures. If you want to join : click here -Senator Boxer wrote her supporters and saying: “For decades, a very difficult and delicate compromise has held firm: Women can use their own private funds for legal reproductive health care procedures, but federal funds cannot be used for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother. But in a stunning turn of events, anti-choice House members passed the Stupak Amendment as part of the health care reform bill and shattered that compromise. The House amendment would tell women who participate in the new health insurance exchange that they can’t even use their own funds to buy a policy that includes abortion coverage. We need to be sure that all our voices are heard clearly on this issue.”
Boxer asks: “How can we tell women that they will lose coverage that they already have? How can we tell women that they can’t buy insurance coverage for a legal health care procedure, even if it’s paid for with their own money?”

 SIGN THE PETITION and then visit our site in the next few days for my personal story on how Breast Cancer Screening in my forties saved my life…   

Blogged by: Melanie Nathan, nathan@privatecourts.com : Picture – Credit to Artist Benny Ovid, Tel Aviv, Israel – Thanks to  Dorit Israel, from her Personal Art Collection.

There has been a great deal of blow back over this particular amendment. Many writers have gone back and forth on the necessity of this, but make it clear that it could end up hurting people all around and on both sides.

A recent article in the Daily Beast by Dr. Willie J. Parker explained his decision to begin to provide abortions. Initially, he refused to due to his religious convictions, but he watched as the lack of availability or the cost of an abortion compounded the pain and suffering already hurting many women, he changed his mind. “In my 15 years as an OB-GYN, I have seen what happens when women can’t afford the abortions they need…But my patients, their families, and their pain don’t matter to the architects of the Stupak amendment,” he stated in that article. He went further, however. “I have spent years learning how to take care of women’s health. But because of my religious beliefs, I didn’t provide abortions right away. It took me a while to realize that by refusing to end a woman’s pregnancy when she decides abortion is the best course for her, I was compounding her suffering, the very opposite of my goal as a physician,” he states towards the end of his article. He explains about two of his patients, women who needed abortions for different reasons, and the likely aftermath of the inability for them to get an abortion.

This video is of the press conference that was held yesterday. For our audience, what will follow the video is text of Senator Gilibrand’s speech.

This week the US Senate is set to begin debate on historic health care legislation to provide affordable, quality care to all Americans. As we begin this historic debate, we must commit ourselves to real health care reform that delivers equal health care for every single American.

Over a week ago, the House of Representatives passed a health care reform bill that delivers affordable, quality care, including a public plan that will bring competition to the market and drive down costs. However, there is one aspect of the House bill that is greatly concerning and moves us farther away from real health care reform: The Stupak-Pitts Amendment.

I am proud to stand here today with this broad coalition of important women leaders – doctors, businesswomen, teachers, public health experts, city, state, and federal elected officials and pro-choice leaders from Gloria Steinem, to Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Council Speaker Quinn to NARAL, Planned Parenthood and so many others to speak out against this discriminatory and dangerous anti-choice provision and ensure that we defeat any similar measures in the Senate this week.

By banning reproductive coverage in all subsidized plans, the Stupak measure would likely prevent women from purchasing insurance with reproductive care even with their own money. This would put the health of millions of women and young girls at grave risk.

While proponents of the measure say this is a continuation of current federal law, this amendment will, in fact, bring about significant change and dramatically limit reproductive health care in this country. This is government invading the personal lives of many Americans, establishing for the first time restrictions on people who pay for their own private health insurance.

We all agree that it’s important to reduce abortions in this country, and I will continue to work on many ways to reduce unintended pregnancies and to promote adoption. However, the Stupak amendment effectively bans reproductive coverage in all health insurance plans in the new system, whether they be public or private.

Proposing that women purchase a separate abortion rider is not only discriminatory, but ridiculous. It would require women to essentially plan for an event that occurs in the most unplanned and sometimes emergency situations.

There are currently five states that require a separate rider for abortion coverage, and in these five states it’s nearly impossible to find such a private insurance policy. In one state, North Dakota, one insurance company holds 91 percent of the state’s health insurance market and refuse toss even offer such a rider.

This anti-choice measure poses greater restriction on low-income women and those who are more likely to receive some kind of subsidy and less likely to be able to afford a supplemental insurance policy. Denying low-income women reproductive coverage in this way is discriminatory and dangerous.

Without proper coverage, women will be forced to postpone care, while attempting to find the money they need to pay for it. A delay that can lead to increased costs and graver health risks, particularly for younger girls. Or these women will be forced to return to dangerous, back alley providers.

In fact, this amendment represents the only place in the entire health care bill where the opponents are actually correct. It limits access to medical care by giving the government, not the patient or the doctor, the power to make medical decisions. The Senate bill already ensures that no federal tax dollars may be used to pay for reproductive services in any public or private insurance plan beyond cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment. The House language goes far further and should be removed from the final bill.

Women and girls deserve better.

I will work with my colleagues in Congress and everyone here today to oppose any similar amendment in the Senate and fight to end disparities among race and gender in our health care system. Thank you.

 “A lot of folks use Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family. For Sarah Palin, it’s a great way to spread lies about health insurance reform.  A few months back, Palin took to Facebook to declare that health reform would create “death panels,” and drive private insurers out of business — and nonpartisan fact-check sites and the independent Congressional Budget Office debunked those lies.

But that hasn’t stopped Sarah Palin. She’s back with a new Facebook note claiming that reform will raise costs on families and drive up deficits. Unfortunately for her, even the conservative “Tax Foundation” says those claims are false. “

So we’re calling out Sarah Palin, and taking to Facebook to debunk her lies on the very same pages she’s using to spread them.  Call Sarah Palin at 202-747-1812″

No more lies – it is not going to work anymore….

Refs: http://www.democrats.org/page/content/callemoutpalin

 Melanie Nathan -Quoting from Democratic Party Webpage and e-mail. Spread the word good lezgetrealpeeps- especially on your facebook sites!

Representative Baldwin sits upon the House Energy and Commerce Committee which is helping to craft a bill regarding healthcare reform. She introduced wording into the bill which directly impacts the LGBT community. These provisions are:
• Helping people with AIDS gain access to drugs under Medicare Part D;
• Ensuring data collection on the health of LGBT populations; and
• Strong non-discrimination provisions to guarantee access to health care for all communities.

What follows is the video that Rep. Baldwin created:

To begin with, President Obama called for the reform of the insurance companies so that they would not be able to drop people from coverage or reduce benefits should someone get sick or deny them coverage for pre-existing conditions. By closing the loopholes, President Obama hopes to avoid the major problems faced by people who are often dropped from coverage when they need it the most. The President largely pinned the blame for the problems with the insurance industry upon the Wall Street driven need for high profits at any costs. This mentality, though President Obama only alluded to it, ends up squeezing the wages of workers simply because their employers are also trying to maximize profits and often either cancel health coverage or pass along rate hikes to their employees.

President Obama also acknowledged that the ideas on the far ends of both sides- the single payer system and the total free market system devoid of employer interaction. He did state that both ideas had merit, but that they would mean completely tearing down what was already there and that would be far more destabilizing.

President Obama made clear that those who have their own health insurance would get to keep it. This is, of course, true, though it might result in employers cutting off their health insurance coverage in order to cut their own costs. The second big part of his plan is that he would have the government set up in four years a health insurance exchange which would allow for companies to directly compete for people’s health insurance dollars directly. Included in this would be the famed Public Option as one of the competitors. This exchange would include tax credits for those who need coverage but cannot afford it. Until this system goes into effect, there would be a short term catastrophic healthcare net for those who do not have insurance.

The President pledged that this would be a deficit neutral program through a combination of Medicare restructuring and savings as well as getting rid of subsidies to the insurance companies. Another factor in terms of paying for the public option was the payment of dues to the system. Basically, members who are part of the system would be helping to pay for the cost of the reforms.

The Congressional Budget Office is unsure if that is true citing numbers that says that it may, in fact, still raise the deficit. However, the rate at which the medical costs are adding to the deficit would slow down a lot under Obama’s plan rather than keep rocketing up as people are forced off onto public assistance.

Contempt for the President was shown by the Republicans in several ways. Television coverage of the speech showed the Republicans often drifting off, checking their blackberries and not paying attention. They also came out afterwards whining about how the President did not include their idea of scrapping reform all together and letting them dictate how it should happen, which is not at all. The GOP has been unwilling to engage in any kind of debate or exchange in public even though in private their ideas are being weighed and some used. The idea of a catastrophic healthcare net to help people without coverage is an idea that was floated by Senator John McCain, who President Obama singled out specifically.

The highlight of the night came when Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina yelled out in the middle of the speech that President Obama was lying when he stated that this system would not cover illegal immigrants. While there are some criticisms from the Republicans that there are not enough ways to ensure that someone who is illegal will not get on the public option, the bill specifically excludes people who are not American citizens from getting health insurance. The Vermont Health Access Program does a lot of checking including a certified copy of a person’s birth certificate in order to make sure that someone who is applying to VHAP is a citizen of the country.

Representative Wilson showed his contempt for the President by disrupting his speech. What is worse, Rep. Wilson looked angry and even furious over this issue despite the fact that it was he and not the President who was distorting the truth on this particular point. Wilson comes from the party which bemoaned the perception that President Bill Clinton had disrespected the office of the President by having an affair, but this is beyond the pale. While Rep. Barney Frank did point out on the Rachel Maddow Show that the British Parliament does have a tradition of heckling, no one would dream of doing that during an official speech by the Queen or by the Prime Minister, and to flat out call someone a liar would be grounds for censure since that is considered crass and vulgar.

President Obama calmly and unflappably waited for Wilson’s outburst to subside and presented the calm demeanor of a person waiting for a child to stop having a tantrum.

For the LGBT Community, healthcare reform is one of those essentials. Most gay and lesbian families cannot afford coverage of any kind because their relationships are not considered to be valid in much of the country and insurance companies often automatically exclude them from coverage over that fact. For transpeople, the lack of insurance coverage regarding their condition is often a problem given the expense of the transition process and the perception among many insurance companies that it is entirely cosmetic.

It’s time for President Obama to finally and aggressively target the Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans who stand in the way of the majority of Americans on especially to issues that the public option for healthcare reform and the policy known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The overwhelming majority of Americans support a public option for health care insurance which is run by the government and an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Support for both the public option and the Military Readiness Enhancement Act or MREA cuts across many of the political divides in this country. It is time that President Obama, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Reid stop kowtowing to the minority within the political establishment who are more willing to protect the profit margins of the insurance industry and religious views of a handful of evangelical chaplains within the military. It is time for the leadership of the Democratic Party to metaphorically grow a pair. Inform the Blue Dog Democrats that if they do not get aboard on getting the public option and the MREA then they will spend the rest of their careers which will likely be short on the Post Office subcommittee in charge of listening to complaints. If the preliminary polling more than six months out from the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary is any indication many of the more moderate Democrats are in trouble from within their own party. It appears that Senator Arlen Spector is beginning to lose ground against Representative Joe Sestak.

Too many Americans are focused in upon a handful of entertainers masquerading as journalists without any standards or any ethics concerning what they say, or to failed politicians who are more invested in preventing President Barack Obama from advancing the agenda that he was elected by the American people to advance they are in the good of the nation, or the will of the People. The rancorous and disruptive nature of many of these town hall meetings is drowning out the voices of the average American who supports a public healthcare option, or an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It is also time for the American people who voted for President Obama to remind him that he was not elected to play nice and allow the minority within the Congress to dictate policy. He was the lead to lead this nation not to allow special interests to have full reign on the political process. It is time for us Americans to write to our Congresspeople, and to the White House to make it clear to them that this is what the fold my majority of Americans believe is right, and that while it is all right to take into account the concerns of the minority opinion within the political spectrum allowing the minority party to run roughshod over the majority of American, including many of the minority party supporters, is unacceptable.

For those who are going to now complain about the tone of this editorial and attempt to twist these words even attempt to state that it is equally wrong for the LGBT Community to demand equality is running roughshod over the majority, it should be noted that minority population are different from minority political opinion, and that the political machine is set up for the good of all no matter their race, creed, religion, sex, gender, or cultural heritage. Attempts to deny minority populations the same civil rights as all others goes against the political history of the United States, and the theory it was built upon many centuries ago at a time when the dominant culture was British and the dominant religion was Anglicanism.

Pictures from Saturday’s Town Hall Meeting In Rutland, Vermont provided by Lee L.

Blogged by MELANIE NATHAN, CEO of Private Courts, Inc. Consulting, mediation & private advocacy ; motivated by injustice, I blog about family law/mediation, politics, news and LGBT equality and anything that ‘tickles my fancy.’ Otherwise blogging as O-blog-dee-o-blog-da. Websites and blogs include: http://www.privatecourts.com; http://www.divorcemediators.us; www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com.