Ok, for those of you who didn’t see it, you missed a hell of a speech. I suggest that you go to either YouTube, or you can download it onto your computer from MSNBC.com if you have RealPlayer SP on your system.
For those of you who did see it and are still convinced that Health Care reform is nothing but a secret plot to kill old people, make sex change operations manditory, and have abortions paid for by tax-payers – there is no sense including you in the debate since your minds are already made up.
For those of you who saw the speech and are hopeful, for the first time in a long time about the prospects of our health care system actually improving instead of getting worse, welcome to my world.
This is the man that I, Wifey, and about 60 million of you voted for last November. Tonight we saw the very definition of a President of the United States. Tonight President Obama showed us the kind of President he is capable of being. He took his case for health care reform to the nation and he hit a home run – after what has gone on for the past month in town halls all across the country, he had to.
There was a lot that I liked about the speech, particularly parts that effect you and me – the underutilized worker. The part of the President’s speech where he said that Health Insurance would be made mandatory was actually an “uh oh” moment for me. The other day Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a moderate who heads the Finance Committee, put together a plan that would not only make it mandatory for people to buy health insurance, but would actually fine people who do not purchase health insurance. Sen. Baucus’ plan would have required HMO’s to take all applicants, regardless of age or health. But smokers could be charged higher premiums, and 60-year-olds could be charged five times as much for a policy as 20-year-olds according to MSNBC.com. MSNBC.com also went on to report that:
Just as auto coverage is now mandatory in nearly all states, Baucus would require that all Americans get health insurance once the system is overhauled. Penalties for failing to do so would start at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level — about $66,000 for a family of four — would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950.
For Sen. Baucus’ sake I hope that he is not serious about this, because if he is he can kiss his political career goodbye. This proposal is nothing more than a tax on the unemployed and the working poor, not to mention discriminatory against all the underutilized workers who do not have the means to pay the fine, let alone buy the health insurance. Now granted, Sen. Baucus won re-election by a 73-27 margin in 2006, but if he’s serious about fining the unemployed, underemployed and underutilized workers among us, then I think he might have an uphill battle in a state that currently has an unemployment rate of 6.1%. If you consider the rate of underutilization doubles that, then that makes the true number of people out of work in Montana at 12.2%. Hows that re-election campaign looking at the moment Senator?
But back to the speech, I was actually gratified that there was no mention of Sen. Baucus’ fines in the President’s speech tonight since he was against the levying of such fines during the campaign. But what came next was not only surprising – but it was good news to all of us who currently are out of work and might not have the means to buy manditory health insurance. Part of the President’s proposal was to make it possible for those who still can’t afford to buy their own insurance to get a “hardship waiver.” I take that to mean that if you are unemployed, underutilized, or if you are underemployed and your boss won’t give you enough hours to get benefits, then you can apply for the “hardship waiver.”
That is the best news that this underutilized worker has heard in a long time. For so long I, and many of you, have had to hear from critics that we are lazy, irresponsible, that we are deadbeats, that we don’t want to work, that we are not worthy of employment, that we are “losers.” Finally, tonight I heard someone in The District who is on our side. Finally there is a glimmer of hope (there’s that word again) that things will indeed get better for us. This is a provision of health care reform that will be of benefit to all of us who have been written off as worthless by corporate America and declared to be “unpersons” by not being counted as unemployed. This will help all of us who do not have an income and do not have the means to afford COBRA or any other insurance.
Ah but wait, there was more…
The President also proposed that Health Care reform would be able to:
- Allow Americans to keep their current coverage if they wish.
- Create an “insurance exchange” that would allow individuals and small businesses to bargain for insurance collectively.
- Bar insurance companies from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition.
- Prohibit annual and lifetime caps on the coverage recipients can receive.
- Impose limits on out-of-pocket expenses.
- Require free coverage for routine checkups and preventive care.
Now the proposals regarding pre-existing conditions are important in my household. As many of you know I have previously written about Wifey’s health problems:
Wifey is, shall we say overweight and asthmatic, she has two bad knees because of a slip-and-fall accident she had in a restaurant at age 20. The restaurant covered their tracks extremely well and she was unable to sue them for compensation. She has a nerve condition in her face called Trigeminal Nuralga that if left unmedicated can cause her blinding, debilitating pain on the right side of her face that is 100 times worse than a Migraine, and according to women who have the condition – about 50 times worse than the pain of childbirth. She has a Pituitary Tumor that thankfully is benign, but if left unmedicated could grow to a size that would press on her optic nerves and could blind her for life. As it is the tumor causes severe dizzy spells which means she cannot operate a motor vehicle since they come on without warning. To top that off she has been fighting an external yeast infection for the past couple of months because the medications she is on compromise her immune system, and this yeast infection has now turned into Shingles.
The fact that Wifey has Asthma alone has disqualified her from getting Health Insurance – even when I was working!!! For this to actually happen would be a red-letter day in the history of this nation. This is what we actually need – Health Care reform in the form of regulating the HMO’s!!! This is what we are talking about people!!! We are not talking about tearing down the health care system and starting over with a Canadian-style health care for all no matter what kind of system. We are talking about regulating the Health Care industry in the same way that other industries have been regulated so that they did not either price themselves out of business, or they just ran rampant over everyone and everything that got in their way. This time we have a President, and the public will, to push back and say “that’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!”
Right before we eat our spinach and kick some ass…
For too long the HMO’s have had it their way in this debacle, now is the time for the rest of us to take back some of that power and use it to help each other. For too long the HMO’s have been deciding who lives and who dies based on weather or not they could pay their bill or not. It is time for them to do right by their customers if only for their own survival. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif) was on The Rachel Maddow Showafter the president’s speech tonight. She said that if things keep going the way they are going that health insurance premiums in California will go up so high that 41% of household income will go simply to paying the bill every month. That’s not good for the customer or the insurance companies, because if the prices get too high then people will start cancelling their policies themselves and the HMO’s will have trouble attracting new customers to replace them. In other words, they would price themselves out of business.
President Obama said that the state of Health Care is our defecit in this country, but it is far more than that. Health Care needs to be reformed in order to save lives, to save jobs, to possibly create new jobs in a leaner, meaner health care system that works for all, and it needs to be reformed because to do nothing would be a moral failure on our part.
So for all of you out there reading this who want to see health care reform go through, for all of my underutilized brothers and sisters who would benefit by reform, for all of you who are unemployed or underemployed, or who have a job yet still can’t get benefits – I ask you to join me in this fight. I ask you to join with our President to bring about comprehensive, common sense health care reform to boister our economy and our national well-being. I am asking you to write your Congressmen and Senators and tell them your stories. Tell them why the proposals that President Obama put forth tonight will help you or a family member. Tell them how it could have helped someone you knew who was lost due to the current system. Tell them how future generations will be helped by this and that they would be grateful for it.
And then tell them that you are a registered voter…and that you have a long memory, and when it comes time to pull the lever, punch the card, or touch the screen that you will remember who looked out for you and your children.
And tell them that you will remember those that did not…..
Lets git er done!!!!!!
