Health Care Reform

[kelly38]

In early October the Senate Finance Committee became the last of the five Congressional committees with jurisdiction over health care reform legislation to report out the legislation. The Senate Finance Committee's vote marked a milestone as the legislation gained the first Republican supporter, Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine. Under the auspices of Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV), Senator Baucus (D-MT), the chairman of the Finance Committee, will sit down with Senator Dodd from the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee to negotiate a merger of the bills passed out of their respective committees. Once the merger is complete, the legislation will move to the Senate floor for debate and a vote. On the House side, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is continuing her work to merge legislation approved by three House committees. The merging of the bills in both the Senate and House is an extremely important part of health care reform.

Please take action and contact your Members of Congress to deliver a very important message!

We need to ensure passage of affordable and high-quality healthcare for all Americans. This means that we must urge Members of Congress to include rapid implementation of the following insurance market reforms in the merged bills:


• Elimination of preexisting condition exclusions and waiting periods;
• Elimination of annual and lifetime limits on coverage;
• Caps on out-of-pocket spending.
*Support a public option


It is estimated that 122 people in the U.S. die every day, just because they do not have health insurance.

You can help by contacting your two U.S. Senators and your U.S. Representative to share this message with them.

http://www.house.gov/Welcome.shtml

or

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/index.html

The above link can find your representatives by inserting your zip code

Below is another good link to get contact information for your state Senators.

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

[kelly38]

They will be doing a head count this week to see if they have the votes to pass.

If you have a Democratic Congressmen or Senator that has not come out to support health care reform, including a public option, please write to them and ask for their support. Reminding them that will be the determining factor for your vote during re-election time couldn't hurt.

I have given up on the Republican leaders to support any true Health care reform. The insurance industry has total control of them...and it has been spreading to some of our Democratic leaders as well.

[kelly38]

Hr3962

http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/1...lth-care.shtml

10 page bill summary

http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/1...ARY-102909.pdf


If you do want to support this bill I would send letters via e-mail, as the vote should be tomorrow.

[kelly38]

Sample letter below. And this is the contact information to fins your local representatives. http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml#ca


November 6, 2009

[recipient address inserted here]


Dear [recipient name inserted here],


As your constituent and as a strong supporter of health care reform, I am writing to urge you to vote yes on HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

The Affordable Health Care for America Act (HR 3962) will protect patients and expand access to care by completely eliminating preexisting condition exclusions, capping out-of-pocket spending for all patients, and eliminating annual and lifetime limits on coverage.

This legislation will help millions of Americans gain and/or maintain their health insurance coverage and protect individuals from medical bankruptcy. In addition, the bill satisfies the President's commitment that health care reform must be fully paid for.

I strongly urge you to support this historic legislation that places the needs of patients first!


Sincerely,

[kelly38]

Update...

The bill was passed in the house and is now returned to the Senate.

If you want to continue to support this reform, I recommend writing your states Senators.

[disappearingboy]

My problem with this is that the last I heard, the insurance industry STILL has way too much say-so in how/when/why health care is doled out. If that's true for *general* coverage, you can bet the WC system isn't going to be any better off.