Health Care Wedge
The passing of health care bill was heartening indeed. As many are saying, we who wanted insurance reform change have got our foot in the door now.
I think this thing will progress much faster towards public option than many have thought. Especially the pre-existing conditions provisions look to me like a wedge that will pretty quickly throw the whole thing open.
Like the deal with medical marijuana. Legal marijuana for medical use is a very leaky dike. Very soon, the universal legalization dam will burst, and the decriminalization that so many have wished for will be here, and accepted as part of everyday life.
In the new health care bill, it will be interesting to see how the regulations will be built for the high-risk pool program that will be started this year for those who are refused insurance due to pre-existing conditions. Insurance is mandated to be offered at similar rates to what is available to healthy people.
Who doesn't have pre-existing conditions, really? People might be able to point to all kinds of things wrong with them. I, for example, am a very healthy person, but I have had small benign basal cell skin cancers removed from my face, and I am prone to asthma when exercising. A large part of our illnesses that develop over our lifetimes appeared over many years past. I imagine that any cancer I get later could possibly denied by insurance companies due to the skin cancers I've had removed in the past. And I suppose many types of lung disorders that may come along might be related to the occasional asthma of my past. Heart disease builds up with the help of a lifetime of cholesterol buildup. I'm not a doctor and don't have a catalog of how diseases start, but I think there are lots of them that grow over years.
Insurance companies have been itching to add more and more pre-existing condition exclusions, I'm sure. Now's their chance to go all-out. People who are denied will have the government alternative option so their complaints will be less noisy. Insurance companies must spend less percentage of premium dollars on overhead, another provision of the bill, and they now will have ever healthier pools of people, so premiums should come down. Since the high-risk government insurance pools for people denied coverage is pegged to premium rates (the regulations will determine how fast this moves), premums for all should become more manageable.
In this way, the insurance companies may well be seen before very long to have obsoleted themselves, from the top-heavy weight of their impatient pursuit of too many profits too fast.
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A Foot in the Door
Submitted on March 27th, 2010 by Lorie CavinThanks, Ann, for another from the heart post.
I hope you have noticed that very few of the co-publishers ever have a comment on their posts. I read all posts. Sometimes, I feel unqualified to comment because I am, in most caes, learning by first exposure to the content. I have written comments on various posts in the past, only to hit "post" and loose it because I was not on the right comment spot. It is still hit or miss for me. I now copy my comment, just in case.
Like you, I am one of the people who learned how to hang on to the surf board while riding the 3+ year Obama Wave. Finding The Field, early in the primaries, helped me see Barack Obama in the light of Community Organizer. Al's double edged approach to US politics as journalist/organizer, keeps me involved with OFA, in my local community, my state, and my nation. I give my volunteer time to OFA because in serving, I receive so much. OFA/MO gave me the opportunity to meet the President, have a photo taken as my Community Organizer-in Chief, put his arm around my shoulder and tells me not to worry, we'll get health care done. 13 days later, we got it done. (I'm waiting for the photo. I'm curious: what kind of expression is on my face)
In his speech in Iowa, President Obama, made the following statement:
So, yes, this is a common-sense bill. It doesn’t do everything that everybody wants, but it moves us in the direction of universal health care coverage in this country and that's why everybody here fought so hard for it.
I watched the speech, but that statement was the organizing statement for the future of health care coverage and other huge issues, like immigration, challenging all of us to continue change with courage. He looks directly into the camera and speaks to people like me.
Thanks again, Ann.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/president-obama-speaks-...
Thanks Lorie
Submitted on March 29th, 2010 by Ann CantelowI look forward to seeing where OFA goes in coming years. And I was heartened by Al's statement that after this victory more victories will follow. I think the Dems may have tasted blood in the water, sorry to use a such a gory metaphor.
I think I'll be glad when the Republicans tire of the current fraidy-cat antics and start to have serious discourse someday. If nothing else, it will be a sign that our US society has returned to being more predictable and livable, so people don't feel so on edge anymore.
Though I do hope the Dems will get a good running start on getting things done for my personal ideology, which has the needle pointing full tilt left!
Hope you get that picture soon!
I am sorry, but I disagree
Submitted on March 28th, 2010 by Don Henry Ford Jr.I think you will discover as time goes on that you've been the victim of a bait and switch scam.
Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin.
Ok
Submitted on March 29th, 2010 by Ann CantelowI'm sure there are many ways that many or all Republicans and Democrats are two sides of same coins. Did you mean this in context of health pre-existing conditions?
I see very little change
Submitted on March 30th, 2010 by Don Henry Ford Jr.but instead more business as usual. While I am not well versed on this health care initiative, I am concerned that we are being forced to buy health insurance from private profit-seeking insurance companies. Obama's plan during his campaign did not include this provision (Ms. Clinton's did).
I find it hard to concentrate my attention on one small aspect of the "new" policy since Obama came into power. In my view, the health care debate is a distraction.
You mention marijuana legalization. While the federal government says it will not interfere with states that have approved marijuana for medicinal purposes, the DEA is in fact raiding and busting suppliers of medicinal marijuana. Obama all but laughed as he dismissed the possibility of legalizing marijuana.
Our drug laws continue to impose draconian sentences. We continue to send billions of dollars to governments that are slaughtering their own citizens while at the same time mass-producing (or at the very least turning a blind eye to the mass production of) heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana.
The people that used lies to get us into at least two new wars, that tortured and illegally surveilled US citizens, that support predatory monopolisitic multinational corporations, not only walk free, but continue to assist the current administration in the implementation of those plans.
The left has assumed a supine position since Obama took office. And those that oppose him do so for all the wrong reasons.
We are well and truly fucked.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2010/0312/Marijuana-legalization-A-White-House-rebuttal-finally
Yeah, change is tough
Submitted on April 16th, 2010 by Ann CantelowWell, far be it from me to argue whether we are well and truly fucked, heh. Problems are large and change is far from revolutionary, not saying that's necessarily a good thing. I'm hoping it's ultimately somewhat workable, though.
On any questions of the drug war, I'm only building on words I read of others, and am nowhere near to the front of the battles. I defer to your experience on that!
When I was comparing the health law to legalization, I had this article of Al Giordano's on my mind - Medical Cannabis Victory Textbook Case Organizing and Resistance. In the article, Al talks about how the incremental step of legalizing marijuana for just medical use has proved a good technique that moves us inexorably towards full legalization. We are hearing that California is putting full legalizion on the ballot.
Here in my home US state of Colorado, I feel I can see legalization looming as well, speaking of the power from the grassroots level, not really looking at what Washington is saying. I'm not even talking about activists here, but just the strivings of people in daily life. Our pop. 100,000 town of Boulder has over 80 medical marijuana dispensaries and has seen an explosion of applications for medical marijuana license cards. There's some story about all this in our little newspaper about every day. The city council, low on cash in this economy with meager sales tax returns, is eyeing this industry to see if cash can start rolling in a bit from regulation and license fees.
I hear from friends of friends of dealers that the dealers of the illegal stuff are worried that their profits from the premiums they rightly add on to account for the hazards of being illegal, will evaporate in the deluge.
Just from seeing all this activity, I have claimed to my friends, though so far no one agrees, that I expect mj to be fully legal in 3 years.
It doesn't solve the problems of other drugs being illegal. That doesn't look anywhere close. We still will see pain, death and destruction from cocaine trade and trade of other drugs, I guess.
Thanks.
Just read the article
Submitted on March 30th, 2010 by Ann CantelowI just read the article you pointed to, thanks. Yep, no help from Washington! We'll see with time how much power the momentum from below can bring, I guess.
Bait and Switch
Submitted on March 30th, 2010 by Lorie CavinOne of the reasons I work with OfA is because of Al's positive view of the grass root aspects. I figure Al's knowledge of organizing can keep me challenged and equiped with boots as we all walk through the bull shit of the bloggosphere and the grind of life. I wouldn't be here if I knew everything. I don't feel like a chump or mark, I feel like a part of change.
Pissing in the wind happens. Good thing I squat.