PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

If you have health insurance under the ACA or the Affordable Care Act, which is the same thing, you are covered by Obamacare. If Republicans succeed in repealing Obamacare, you will lose your coverage under the ACA.

A LOOK AT THE REAL WORLD OF OBAMACARE AND MEDICAID EXPANSION IN LOUISIANA

From an excellent letter to the Advocate newspaper by David Hood, former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, Baton Rouge.

Several Louisiana health insurance companies have announced that they want to raise premium rates for some policies next year. Opponents of the Affordable Care Act are using this to again attack the law and its impacts on health insurance. But consumers — and voters — should keep a clear head and ask some basic questions.
....

The ACA requires companies to publicly justify rate increases of over 10 percent, and requires 80 percent of premium dollars be spent on health care, not administrative “overhead.” Consumers are better off because of those provisions, though some states like Louisiana have not allowed the law’s full benefits to be implemented.

Given that Louisiana has the third-highest rate of uninsured people in the nation, and that we rate 49th in poor health outcomes, we should support “Obamacare,” not fight it.

David Hood replaced Bobby Jindal as head of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals during the administration of Gov. Mike Foster, when Jindal was drafted by the Clinton administration as a bipartisan showpiece to serve as Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.  Hood serves as Senior Healthcare Analyst for the Public Affairs Research Council and knows whereof he speaks.

Here's the link to a video of David Hood speaking great good sense about Jindal's refusal to accept federal funds for Medicaid expansion, which would provide health insurance for up to 400,000 uninsured citizens of Louisiana.  "What are we waiting for?" The funds that Jindal refuses go to other states.

Photo from Louisiana Public Square.

MAJOR SETBACKS FOR BOBBY JINDAL AND CREW

Tom Aswell, who writes at Louisiana Voice, has done excellent investigative reporting on the Jindal administration time and again, all the while putting big media in Louisiana to shame.

Former Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) Secretary Bruce Greenstein has been indicted by the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office on nine counts of perjury stemming from a lengthy investigation of his involvement in the awarding of a $183 million contract to a company for which he once worked.

Greenstein is accused in four counts of lying under oath to the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee during his confirmation hearings of June 8 and June 17, 2011 and five counts of lying to an East Baton Rouge Parish Grand Jury on June 3 of this year.

With all the shenanigans of the Jindal administration, it’s hard for me to believe that nothing illegal took place, and the governor was completely out of the loop. He’s certainly run roughshod over Louisiana law and had to pull back several times when his policies were declared unconstitutional.

Of course, there must be proof of illegal activity (innocent until proven guilty), and justice must take its sometimes slow course, but, if I were Kristy Nichols, Commissioner of Administration, or anyone in Jindal’s inner circle, I’d be a bit worried. If I were Kathy Kliebert, Secretary of The Department of Health and Hospitals, I’d be worried. Since Jindal doesn’t brook disagreement, would he even pay attention to legal advice that was not to his liking?

As legal setbacks begin to mount for Gov. Bobby Jindal with the indictment of a former Jindal cabinet member coupled with an attorney general’s opinion that recently announced changes to state employee group health plans are most probably illegal, one political observer intimated to LouisianaVoice that Jindal’s political career “may be coming unraveled” even as he remains fixated on the White House.

The attorney general’s office on Tuesday (Sept. 23) released a legal opinion that could signal a devastating blow to the administration’s plans to overhaul health benefit plans offered through the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) to some 230,000 state employees, retirees and dependents.

Two stories in the same day, one of alleged criminality by a former member of Jindal's administration and another of possible gross mismanagement of changes to the Office of Group Benefits health plan, which will affect 230,000 state workers and retirees. It's about time the Jindal maladministration was brought up short!  Jindal and his inner circle must be reeling.  Then again, perhaps Jindal is too busy chasing his dream to become president to notice and will leave the troubles to be addressed by his staff.

Voters who prefer Republican governance, might want to have a look at the destruction wreaked by the Jindal maladministration and his enablers in the Louisiana State Legislature to see untrammeled, extremist conservative  governance in practice.  Would you want Jindal to be your president?

BOBBY JINDAL TWEETS

Only until the weak are born. If parents in Louisiana need help for the child after birth, well good luck with that. Gov. Jindal will not implement Medicaid Expansion, though it would not cost the state one cent for 9 years, and thereafter only 10% of the expenses of the programs.

The group that awarded Louisiana the "prize",  Americans United for Life, apparently does not follow up on the care given to the "weakest and most vulnerable among us" after they're born, or they would remind Gov. Jindal that babies, indeed all vulnerable human beings among us, need care throughout their lives after they're brought into the world.

At least one Louisiana state senator is trying to provide health insurance for low income people in Louisiana. 

State Sen. Ben Nevers said Tuesday that he would propose two constitutional amendments aimed at guaranteeing that low income Louisiana adults get basic health care coverage.

Nevers, D-Bogalusa, said he wants Louisiana voters to either authorize expansion of the state Medicaid program called for in the federal health care revamp or to provide health care coverage for residents whose income falls below the federal poverty level.
....

The Kaiser Commission estimates 242,000 Louisiana residents, who make too much for Medicaid but too little to purchase adequate insurance, would qualify for Medicaid coverage through the expansion. For an individual, 100 percent of the federal poverty level is $11,490. For a family of four, it’s $23,550. At 138 percent for an individual it’s $15,856 and family of four $32,499.

Nevers said people are ending up in hospital emergency rooms with serious illnesses because of lack of health care and that “cost all of us millions.”

There's no such thing as free emergency room care; someone pays.  I hope other legislators take note and support Sen. Nevers in his efforts to provide health insurance for those who cannot afford the premiums, since the governor refuses to address the problem.

And further, if you click the link, you will read about two success stories from people who were able to buy affordable health insurance through - Gasp! - the Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare.

'Tierney Brinkman, a New Orleans server and bartender, said she went without insurance for 10 years. “It’s not that I didn’t want it. I had a pre-existing condition,” said Brinkman, explaining she had lumps in her breast and breast cancer in her family. She said either no company would insure her or the monthly premiums were “well beyond my means.” That 10 years without coverage was “terrifying,” she said.

Because of the Affordable Care Act, Brinkman said she now has a quality plan with a low deductible: $108 a month.

Despite the horror stories, the ACA is working as it should to provide health insurance for those who previously could not obtain coverage or who paid very high premiums because of preexisting conditions.  Insurance, any insurance, is about spreading the risk throughout a large number of people.  For the young and healthy who say they don't need health insurance, I remind them that even among their age group, even if only a small number, some will be diagnosed with a medical condition that requires expensive treatment.  Further, no one is able to predict an accidental injury that would require long-term medical treatment.  

ON THE HOME FRONT IN LOUISIANA

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration quietly released a new financial analysis that estimates the state could save as much as $368 million over 10 years by expanding Louisiana’s Medicaid program under the federal health care law.

The analysis was posted on the state Department of Health and Hospitals’ website this week with no fanfare. The department hasn’t touted the findings, and they were mentioned only briefly — and with little detail — during a budget hearing in which lawmakers pushed for more information about the expansion and Jindal’s refusal to participate in it.
....

The new DHH estimates say Louisiana could save anywhere from $197 million to $368 million over 10 years while covering more than 577,000 additional people through Medicaid. The savings can be attributed to lessening existing state costs for providing health care to the uninsured, largely through the public hospital system.

Oops!  Note the quiet correction.  Let's not blow up this teensy-weensy mistake way out of proportion.  Now the only barrier to implementing the Medicaid expansion is the governor's ideology.

Jindal opposes the expansion as inappropriate growth of what he says is an inefficient government entitlement program.

And I'm sure the people in Louisiana who are denied health insurance coverage will understand perfectly that Jindal cannot violate his principles.  He and his family are comfortably covered, but the rest of the citizens in Louisiana, especially the families struggling on low wages, are not entitled to health insurance coverage from "an inefficient government entitlement program".   Damn those entitlements!

And about the governor's proposed tax plan to eliminate income taxes for individuals and businesses and replace the revenue with a sales tax, which will give Louisiana the highest sales taxes in the country:

The state’s largest business lobbying group warned Gov. Bobby Jindal on Wednesday that his tax proposal is unacceptable to the business community.

Dan Juneau, president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, blamed problems with the plan on the Jindal administration drawing up the proposal in a very short period of time, resulting in a simple shift in tax burden.

“There’s got to be winners and there’s got to be losers,” Juneau said. “The business community has become the designated loser.”

Oops again!  I welcome any and all allies to stop the stinking pile of compost aka known as Jindal's tax plan or anything like it from making its way into law.  Those who have the means and live within a reasonable distance of a bordering state will leave Louisiana to shop for goods and services.  Those who do not have transportation will suffer.  Of course, the governor says the poor will be exempt from sales taxes, but, as the demand for exemptions pile up, the math will not work, if it ever did.  (See above on the costs of the Medicaid expansion.)  The Jindal administration is not known for superior math skills.  

READ THIS HEALTH CARE STORY AND WEEP

'Down the Insurance Rabbit Hole'

 From Angela Louise Campbell at the New York Times:

ON the second day of oral arguments over the Affordable Care Act, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., trying to explain what sets health care apart, told the Supreme Court, “This is a market in which you may be healthy one day and you may be a very unhealthy participant in that market the next day.” Justice Antonin Scalia subsequently expressed skepticism about forcing the young to buy insurance: “When they think they have a substantial risk of incurring high medical bills, they’ll buy insurance, like the rest of us.”

May the justices please meet my sister-in-law. On Feb. 8, she was a healthy 32-year-old, who was seven and a half months pregnant with her first baby. On Feb. 9, she was a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the chest down by a car accident that damaged her spine. Miraculously, the baby, born by emergency C-section, is healthy.

 Read it all.  I wish there was a way to mandate that the conservative justices on the Supreme Court read the story, especially Antonin (Broccoli) Scalia, the clown on the bench.  

H/T to Charles Pierce at The Politics Blog.

MY TWO SENATORS - COMPARE AND CONTRAST

 Who ya gonna believe?  I know whom I believe.  When you're ill or injured, the principle of oversized government is NOT your greatest concern.

  

David Vitter (R)


Dear Friend,

Some things in life get better as time goes by. But today, on the two-year anniversary of Obamacare, we can safely say that President Obama’s health care law is not one of those things.

In fact, the ugly truth is that Obamacare has gotten worse and worse with each passing week. You may recall that when the president and his liberal allies in Congress were forcing the bill through over the objections of the American people, they made the odd claim that creating a massive new entitlement would actually save us money.

Well, I and many others at the time said that was ludicrous, and we were right. Once you add in all the implementation costs, which seem to be growing every day, the law will spend $2.6 trillion over the first decade alone – something we certainly can’t afford with a national debt that’s already at $15 trillion and counting.

And it hits families in Louisiana and across the country just as hard. Even though President Obama promised to lower premiums by $2,500 per family, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that premiums will actually increase by $2,100. Since the President took office, premiums for employer-sponsored coverage have already risen by over $2,200 per family.

I’ve had several town halls and telephone town halls across Louisiana over the last two years, and I’ve yet to hear from a Louisianian whose health insurance has gotten less expensive since Obamacare was signed into law. They tell me exactly the opposite – they’re paying much more.

To make things worse, a recent study found that up to 35 million Americans could lose their employer-sponsored health care under Obamacare, and Louisiana seniors are projected to be the hardest hit Medicare beneficiaries in the country because of the bill’s Medicare Advantage cuts. Our state also stands to be on the hook for an additional $7 billion thanks to the bill’s unfunded Medicaid mandate.

Beyond all the practical reasons that Obamacare is a disaster, there’s a matter of principle. The law further expands an already oversized government, creating over 159 new boards, offices, and panels to concentrate even more control over health care decision-making into Washington bureaucracy. The Obama administration has already cranked out over 12,000 pages of new regulations related to Obamacare. And the individual mandate, which would require every American to purchase health insurance or else pay a fine to the government, is plainly unconstitutional.

That’s why I introduced a bill at the beginning of this Congressional session to fully repeal Obamacare, and it’s why I’m hopeful that as the Supreme Court takes up Obamacare, they will decide once and for all that it violates the Constitution.

Rest assured that this fight is not over, because with each passing day, it’s more and more obvious that Obamacare must be repealed. And rest assured that I’ll continue leading that fight.

Sincerely,

David Vitter
United States Senator

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Mary Landrieu (D)


Dear friend,

As we mark the second anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, Louisianians of all ages are benefitting from this historic law. Two years ago, the private insurance market was broken and unsustainable, and middle class families were losing coverage at an alarming rate. Something had to be done, and Congress acted.

In the state of Massachusetts, where the framework of this law has been in place for six years, more than 98 percent of the state’s residents are now insured, and the child insurance rate leads the nation at 99.8 percent coverage. From 2006 to 2009, premiums in the individual health insurance market rose by 14 percent nationally, but they fell by 40 percent in Massachusetts over the same period.

Despite the clear and convincing benefits of health reform, there is still a great deal of misinformation and political rhetoric surrounding the issue. However, as time goes on, the benefits of this law will become clearer and clearer, and the dangers of repeal will become even more apparent. Continue reading below for more statistics on how this law is benefitting Louisianians.

All the best,


How the Affordable Care Act is helping Louisiana
Seniors:

• 52,932 Louisiana seniors on Medicare received a 50 percent discount on their prescription drugs when they fell into the donut hole last year.
• Louisiana seniors saved an average of $571 per person, for a total savings of more than $30 million across the state. By 2020, the law will close the donut hole.

Women:

• Insurance companies can no longer charge women higher premiums based on only their gender.
• More than 275,000 Louisiana women can now also receive free mammograms, bone density scans and cervical cancer screenings without a co-pay.

Young adults:

• 45,000 Louisiana young adults have gained health coverage now that children may remain on their parents’ coverage until they turn 26.
• No child in Louisiana today can be denied coverage due to arbitrary lifetime dollar limits. To date, 385,000 Louisiana children have benefitted from this provision.

Small businesses:

• 60,000 small businesses in Louisiana are eligible for tax credits to make employee coverage more affordable.

ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS DON'T LIKE THE PRESIDENT'S TWEAK

The Vatican

From the New York Times:

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops have rejected a compromise on birth control coverage that President Obama offered on Friday and said they would continue to fight the president’s plan to find a way for employees of Catholic hospitals, universities and service agencies to receive free contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans, without direct involvement or financing from the institutions.

The Roman Catholic Church will take matters to the courts, and they will call upon Congress for relief from their oppression.

Already three lawsuits have been filed against the birth control mandate, two by religious colleges and one by a Catholic media outlet.

The bishops will also renew their call for lawmakers to pass the “Respect for Rights of Conscience Act,” which would exempt both insurance providers and purchasers — and not just those who are religiously affiliated — from any mandate to cover items of services that is contrary to either’s “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

Whoa! Internal divisions are developing.

However, the bishops are now facing a potential rift with some of their allies who welcomed the compromise yesterday — including Catholic Charities, the Catholic Health Association, which represents Catholic hospitals across the country and individual Catholic Democrats and liberals who had helped persuade the administration to make the change.

James Salt, executive director of Catholics United, a liberal advocacy group that is organizing support for the Obama administration, said, “The bishops’ blanket opposition appears to serve the interests of a political agenda, not the needs of the American people.”

It's about time!

Is it possible that President Obama will offer further concessions to bullying, celibate, old men, who experience nothing of the costs and difficulties of family life?

A SHOUT-OUT TO ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS

From the comments to an earlier post at Wounded Bird:

Tobias Stanislas Haller said...

I keep trying to remind these folks of their beloved Double Effect doctrine, but they clearly don't want that as a way out. The actual use of contraception in the cases in point are so far removed from their actual agency or action that it should not pose any moral qualm at all -- except for the reality that they don't want it no how, no way, by none!

church sponsors, supervises, etc. school > school provides health insurance > health insurer covers contraception > insured takes advantage of coverage and has contraceptive prescription > person fills prescription and > uses contraception. Only the last step is (under their concept) morally objectionable.

Sounds good to me. How about you, bishops?

Tobias Haller blogs at In a Godward Direction.

TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS: STOP CRYING PERSECUTION!

The Vatican

I've spoken of the heavy-handed tactics of the Roman Catholic Church in which the leaders and their true-believer followers, including Rick Santorum and the converted Newt Gingrich, accuse the Obama administration of waging war on Roman Catholics. I've written about their practice of deception by omission in never mentioning that they already provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives in 28 states that mandate coverage. Whatever reasoning the bishops use to square the coverage with their consciences, I'd suggest that they apply that same reasoning to the remaining 22 states and stop crying, 'Persecution!' Enough already!

However, should the bishops continue to prefer deceptive, political power plays to telling the truth, I recommend that the prelates and their true-believer followers visit their fellow Christians in countries in the Middle East and Africa, where real persecution of Christians is happening. Perhaps then they'd stop their pathetic braying. The group generates more heat and noise than their true numbers warrant. What they do is shameful.

Remember that RC bishops stand in obedience to the pope, a foreign head of state. Why should a foreign head of state have such great influence in the processes of government in the US?

For more light on the subject, I refer you to IT's post at The Friends of Jake and Rmj's post at Adventus.

Picture from Wikipedia.

JUST STOP IT!

From NPR:

Despite a furious lobbying effort by the Catholic Church, the Obama administration today said it won't weaken new rules that will require most health insurance plans to offer women prescription contraceptives at no additional out-of-pocket cost.

The final version of the rules will give religious-based hospitals, universities, charities, and other organizations whose primary purpose is not religious, an additional year to come into compliance with the contraceptive requirement. Churches are exempt.

But even a face-to-face meeting in the Oval Office last November between President Obama and the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops failed to change the administration's position to allow a broader exemption.

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan's response:

The Catholic bishops of the United States called “literally unconscionable” a decision by the Obama Administration to continue to demand that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans. Today's announcement means that this mandate and its very narrow exemption will not change at all; instead there will only be a delay in enforcement against some employers.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The cardinal-designate continued, “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable.It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty."

Cardinal-designate Dolan, if you want fewer abortions, in the name of heaven, stop complaining about persecution, follow the law, and allow employees of the Roman Catholic Church to have access to birth control in health insurance plans and RC hospitals.

Besides, from another article at NPR:

But while some insist that the rules, which spring from last year's health law, break new ground, many states as well as federal civil rights law already require most religious employers to cover prescription contraceptives if they provide coverage of other prescription drugs.


While some religious employers take advantage of loopholes or religious exemptions, the fact remains that dozens of Catholic hospitals and universities currently offer contraceptive coverage as part of their health insurance packages.

"We've always had contraceptive birth control included in our health care benefits," said Michelle Michaud, a labor and delivery nurse at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, Calif. "It's something that we've come to expect for ourselves and our family."

Cardinal-designate Dolan conveniently fails to acknowledge that access to contraceptives is already available in Roman Catholic health plans and hospitals. As to the descriptive 'unconscionable', it depends upon whose conscience is being violated. The decision by the Obama administration has nothing to do with religious liberty, but rather concerns women's equal treatment in health care. Roman Catholics and anyone else are completely at liberty to avoid the use of contraceptives. The issue is that the US will now insist on non-discriminatory rules for health care coverage. What Cardinal Dolan and the RC College of Bishops attempt is to impose their religious views on people who do not share their beliefs, and they need to stop or be stopped.

TO THE BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

From the US Conference of Catholic Bishops:

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sharply criticized a new HHS “preventive services” mandate requiring private health plans to cover female surgical sterilization and all drugs and devices approved by the FDA as contraceptives, including drugs which can attack a developing unborn child before and after implantation in the mother’s womb.

“Although this new rule gives the agency the discretion to authorize a ‘religious’ exemption, it is so narrow as to exclude most Catholic social service agencies and healthcare providers,” said Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston and chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

Didn't we know this was coming? And swiftly, because the statement was probably written even before the formal announcement of the federal mandate for health insurance programs to offer no co-pay coverage for birth control.

Dear Bishops:

I sharply criticize you for not minding your own business and tending to your own flock. Is it because your flock, for the most part, don't follow your out-of-touch rules on birth control that you seek to control the lives of those of us outside the fold? Well, stop it! We're sick and tired of your interference in our lives. MYOB!

Thanks to whiteycat for the link.

GOOD NEWS AMIDST THE BAD

From TPM:

The Obama administration announced on Monday that health insurance plans must cover birth control with no copays, among other reproductive health care services, as preventative care for women. The requirement will apply to health care plans beginning on or after August 1, 2012. The announcement comes just a month after Health and Human Services released a recommendation that sought to expand preventative services for women under Obama's health care law.

In addition to birth control, the expansion will cover breast pumps for nursing mothers, an annual "well-woman" physical, including screening for the virus that causes cervical cancer, HIV, and gestational diabetes, as well as counseling for domestic violence.

Too bad women have to wait a year for the coverage, but better late than never. These policies should not have had to be mandated by the federal government. If not to provide better health care for women, the insurance companies should have seen these policies as in their own self-interests to reduce overall costs in the long haul. Ah, but few business take the long view these days.