Health Care Reform
Roxboro Courier-Times January 30, 2010
To the Editor:
I am encouraged by the credible people and organizations who support the direction of Congress' health reform legislation and who are engaged in the process. Consumers Union/Consumers Reports says about its own policy background: "...the policy ideas are not new. They reflect two decades of policy analysis, evaluations of incremental reforms, and experience state level approaches."
CU says the reform underway will not only benefit the underinsured, the uninsured, someone with a pre-existing condition, small-business owners, and Medicare recipients, but a middle-income working person has "the most to lose without reform....One estimate found that the cost of a typical employer-sponsored family health plan is likely to triple in ten years, from about $12,500 today to about $30,000. The result: Your wages will stagnate while more health costs will be paid out-of-pocket -- by you. And you'll be at higher risk of ending up with job-based insurance that's either inadequate or, worse yet, nonexistent."
The Mayo Clinic supports a "pay for value" approach in health care, the direction both House and Senate bills move.
About the funding of Medicare Advantage -- I am a Senior on original Medicare, because after I read how the government has been paying private companies more to insure us seniors -- which would mean that other seniors would be paying higher premiums to finance my "Advantage" -- I thought that is unfair, and did not see how the country could continue that policy. AARP reports that no basic Medicare benefits are cut in the Senate bill, and some of the extra "Advantage" benefits are to be grandfathered in. Beyond that, AARP says, both the Senate & House bills "add new benefits to Medicare, test ways to improve how care is delivered—including avoiding nursing homes by getting care at home.... provide most preventive health care for free and improve access to health care providers in rural areas" -- as well as reduce costs in the "doughnut hole" of prescription drug benefits.
We have a historic opportunity to help one another! May each one of us play a constructive part.
Roxboro Courier-Times January 30, 2010
To the Editor:
I am encouraged by the credible people and organizations who support the direction of Congress' health reform legislation and who are engaged in the process. Consumers Union/Consumers Reports says about its own policy background: "...the policy ideas are not new. They reflect two decades of policy analysis, evaluations of incremental reforms, and experience state level approaches."
CU says the reform underway will not only benefit the underinsured, the uninsured, someone with a pre-existing condition, small-business owners, and Medicare recipients, but a middle-income working person has "the most to lose without reform....One estimate found that the cost of a typical employer-sponsored family health plan is likely to triple in ten years, from about $12,500 today to about $30,000. The result: Your wages will stagnate while more health costs will be paid out-of-pocket -- by you. And you'll be at higher risk of ending up with job-based insurance that's either inadequate or, worse yet, nonexistent."
The Mayo Clinic supports a "pay for value" approach in health care, the direction both House and Senate bills move.
About the funding of Medicare Advantage -- I am a Senior on original Medicare, because after I read how the government has been paying private companies more to insure us seniors -- which would mean that other seniors would be paying higher premiums to finance my "Advantage" -- I thought that is unfair, and did not see how the country could continue that policy. AARP reports that no basic Medicare benefits are cut in the Senate bill, and some of the extra "Advantage" benefits are to be grandfathered in. Beyond that, AARP says, both the Senate & House bills "add new benefits to Medicare, test ways to improve how care is delivered—including avoiding nursing homes by getting care at home.... provide most preventive health care for free and improve access to health care providers in rural areas" -- as well as reduce costs in the "doughnut hole" of prescription drug benefits.
We have a historic opportunity to help one another! May each one of us play a constructive part.
posted by Elizabeth. | 11:05 PM
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