Senior Citizens In the Dark on Benefits of Health-Care Reform
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be limited to senior citizens. Over the past couple of months, the Chamber of Commerce has taken great pains to misinform small businesses about what the Affordable Care Act does for them, too. But out of nearly 700 seniors quizzed about what health-care reform meant for them, not one was able to get all of the answers right.
A recent National Council on Aging poll conducted between July 9 - July 12, 2010 yielded some pretty startling statistics.
- 21% of respondents said they were "very familiar" with the law, and an additional 64% said they were "somewhat familiar" with it. Of those, 60% said they were satisfied that the information they received was accurate and reliable.
- Yet, when asked if the new law would result in future cuts to their basic medicare benefits, 55% of the "very familiar" group answered "Yes", as did 47% of the "somewhat familiar" group.
- 62% of the "very familiar" group said they believed the new law would increase the federal budget deficit over the next 10 years, with 57% of the "somewhat familiar" group concurring.
- Half of those "very familiar" with the law believes it does not improve the quality of care for beneficiaries with chronic illnesses, and 46% believe Medicare payments to doctors will be cut.
- Remarkably, only 52% of the seniors "very familiar" with the law agreed that uninsured Americans will be covered and younger people would have extra protections.
I would love to know how many of those claiming to be "very familiar" with the law watch Fox News. I would put money on it being more than half. Reading these results made me want to go out and scream from a tall building "This is why we can't have nice things!!!!".
Fortunately, NCOA is a little more measured than me. They've created materials to help seniors understand the law and what their benefits are under the law. Now we need to get out there and help them understand it, because seniors' health is as important a feature of the new law as coverage of the uninsured.
Oh, and maybe we should get them to turn off Fox News for awhile, too.
of the old ussr, my sister fell of a train platform and broke her arm; after having it set by one of those evil old commies, she asked "what do i owe you?",getting ready to write a check, the person across the desk did not understand, and asked "what do you mean?". there was a language difficulty, but once that was overcome, the lady laughed and said, "you americans, we do not put a price on this, you owe nothing, now please leave, i have other work to do."
circa 1990 .. one of the American girls in our group was having severe dental problems.
our host said "I'll take you to my dentist tomorrow."
she said, "I have no insurance."
he said, "You don't need insurance. I take you to my dentist tomorrow."
she said, "I have no money."
he said, "You don't understand. My dentist is paid by the government to fix teeth. It is his job. You pay him nothing."
she said, "I am not Dutch."
he said, "He is paid to fix teeth. I take you tomorrow."
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
"Can't you sell some of your stocks or something?"
"Don't you have any chickens to bring him?"
Fox News should be ashamed of themselves, but they're not. Talk about your death panels. As much fear as they spew, they're likely to give Grandma and Grandpa a heart attack!
The "someone" would have been a politician and/or media pundit who's touts his/her "Real 'Merican" credentials.
either!
Tax breaks- the deficit, and the truth:
Please read this article..great graphs and stats...this blows the republican screed out of the water!!
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=966
Please pass this on! There are several articles to refute the republican lies!
The sad thing is that here, that would be seen as a sign of "weakness" and "nazi socialism".
Wow, the idea that we're alarmed as a people by the basic notion of a society taking care of its own -- that's probably a sign that we're a lot more fucked up than we're willing to let on.
"Now we need to get out there and help them understand it, because seniors' health is as important a feature of the new law as coverage of the uninsured."
And with a little luck we'll all be senior someday.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Hey, it beats the alternative.
Of course, the administration could have educated some people, if it had really given a shit about its own program.
But the pamphlet would have been copied by the GOP and rewritten to scare people over death panels and the whole world going broke and demons climbing into our mouths when we sneeze.
If there had been ONE SIMPLE NATIONAL PLAN from the outset, without all the backroom deals that changed "the plan" weekly, without leaving implementation to the individual states, then it would have been simple to explain.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
If the "compromise" hadn't been a comprise of a compromise, etc., like a Russian matryoshka doll, democrats would have guaranteed themselves a 30 year reign.
he would've caught the rabbit", as my dear Grandma used to say.
And now we have Harry Reid sweating the mid-term elections...worried that the spurned "Progressive base" will stay home in November.
So he's promising that "The Public Option will definitely be brought up again."
Sorry Harry. You are the one who put the Poison Pill in the bill saying that only a Super Majority in the Senate would be able to amend the legislation. You can play us all for a fool once, maybe twice. But that's it.
Besides, we all did our homework and realize that The Public Option is anything but "public" and is most certainly no "option".
Go B.S. somebody else.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
You are continuing with the disinformation campaign.
The law doesn't actually cut benefits but that is entirely beside the point. It does restrict future projected Medicare cost increases, and thus will squeeze providers by some $500 billion.
It could be a very bad thing when providers decide to no longer accept Medicare at all.
Medicaid is expanded to 1.5 times the Federal poverty level. If you have any assets and you become ill you can kiss them goodbye.
Medicaid is already accepted by only certain providers.
The insurance and pharmaceutical industries are quite pleased.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Next to the bailout, this has to be one of the most blatant giveaways to big business ever.
You do a disservice to the financial reform bill with that statement.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
That's funny. But at the same time sad and true.
It'll have to stand in line behind that stupid Bush medicare bull (which basically gave pharma a license to print money) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which ended up fucking us in the name of "upward motion of wealth". TARP as at least pretty honest that it was a reacharound for bankers ...
What do baucus boys think is going to happen when they reduce payments to providers, whether it be hospitals, doctors, or nursing homes? U.S. health care 101: THE PROVIDERS CHARGE THE PATIENT MORE, OR REFUSE TO TAKE MEDICARE PATIENTS, OR GO OUT OF BUSINESS. And the idea of going to a nursing home, terrifying as it is now, will be a total nightmare from Hell when providers are being squeezed for payments.
As for the bill's new drug "benefit": they could have allowed the government to negotiate lower prices.
Sorry for shouting, but I'm furious that a democratic administration would do this to Seniors.
The single reason my CongressPerson voted against this Health Care Reform was because of the projected reduced payments.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Wow. I would have gone with the forced enrollment in private "fuck you" plans over the sensibility of a national healthcare system.
Or maybe the complete and utter lack of pharma price controls, which Bush helped dismantle in the medicare part D bill.
Reduced payments is pretty far in line behind those.
about 2 weeks ago for a conference on Single Payer/Improved Medicare for All" and I asked her this question:
"Since there are many doctors now who refuse Medicaid patients and a growing number who are refusing Medicare patients, what is going to happen when suddenly in 2014 the country is going to have about 20 million new patients signed into Medicaid?"
She said, "It's going to be a giant trainwreck".
Factor in what the economy will look like then with high unemployment, more and more Americans facing homelessness etc. and that will dump probably more into Medicaid than the CBO accounted for.
What is being done to train all the new primary care physicians who will be needed to care for these people? What is the big plan? To ship them in from China or the Philippines?
As it is now, Dr. Flowers said fewer and fewer physicians are opting for primary medicine, instead going into the lucrative specialty fields.
Sadly, our government feels that it is more important to spend our valuable resources on killing people in foreign lands, destroying their infrastructures and dominating them than in spending our hard-earned tax dollars on re-building our own infrastructures, training much needed primary care physicians and building new hospitals.
This is the country we are living in.
Where death and destruction are a higher priority than life and caring.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
39 year old male, no health insurance at all. My job does not provide a plan yet and I'm in the 30K bracket more or less. Anyone able to provide some recent links for me which would clarify what is available to me? I've tried and I can't get any info out of what I've found. Much appreciated folks!
the bottom line is your-we're going to have to fork out for a Corporate Health Care Insurance policy. Or pay fines. Regardless if one can afford it or not.
The potential for abuse of power with this "health care reform" is spectacular.
Basically you can look to the Mass Plan to understand how the federal plan will work.
Here's an interesting website out of Massachusetts that will give you a good overview of what folks there are experiencing with "Romney-Kennedycare": www.masshealthlawtruth.org
There will be websites set up for each state with "exchanges". You will go there and tell them how much money you made the prior year and how many members of your family will need coverage.
Then they will tell you which plans you "qualify" for.
The catch is going to be that the plans you can afford will have high deductibles and the coverage will be shoddy. My understanding is that the plans will cover as little as possible for the most money they can wring from us. The bill has set up "minimal standards of care" that the insurance companies must approve in order for them to be allowed in the system.
This "sticker shock" and the combination of fines/penalties for non-compliance along with the estate recovery scheme attached to Medicaid that Alice mentioned up top, will cause MAJOR upheavals in our society.
I would not want to be any political "representative" who had any hand in passing this "Health Care Bill" when it is fully implemented.
Tars and feathers come to mind.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
You should be able to find individual coverage. Try healthcare.gov as a start. There's a finding aid on there to assist with finding individual insurance policies on a state-by-state basis. Your state insurance commissioner's website is another resource.
Regardless of what the other commenters say, there are options. They're not as great as single payer or other possibilities, but they're out there.
I know you're hungry, and we had the ability to have real food, but here's a big pile of shit with flies on it. It'll keep you alive.
I hate that reasoning. We had the general consensus for single payer, but because we have a roll-over party and a stupid retardo-conservative party, we the people got to eat shit.
Going to get on it...thanks for the links!
Big, glossy mailer from the Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) asking folks who might be inclined to vote for Prop C to get their facts straight.
But by law, Missouri's hospitals must provide medical care in their emergency departments to anyone who is uninsured - even if they can afford health insurance. Hospitals must cover the cost of that care by charging more to patients who do have insurance.
So the question is: Should Missourians who already pay for health insurance also have to pay for those who choose not to pay?
If you think it's acceptable that some who can afford insurance get a free ride, vote yes on Proposition C. If you think that's unfair, you should vote no.
. . . . . . . . .
From Netroots Nation (0.00 / 0)
I think I was the only one from Missouri there.
I went to the health care forum. Everyone seemed to want to ignore the vote here in Missouri next week.
At the big picture forum, someone asked about referendum and I mentioned Prop C next week and NO ONE, Markos, two people from the swing state project, knew anything about it.
By leaving implementation to the states (instead of a single national plan) the crafters of this bogus health care bill have ensured that confusion will reign.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Could go both ways.
Remember, Canada moved to a single payer system after a single "state" moved to it. When your neighbors aren't getting fucked and you are, you generally want what the neighbors have ...
plus the for-profit insurance corporations made sure that NO states would be able to even TRY for Single Payer until after 2017 just because they did not want states like California and Pennsylvania and Vermont to be able to successfully launch Single Payer and "show" the rest of the country how great it would be to cover EVERYONE without involving any insurance corporations.
Reid placed the Poison Pill in the bill expressly so the date of 2017 could not be changed without a Super Majority vote.
IF California elects Jerry Brown for governor in November we will be able to bring in a Single Payer system for this state (although he is not completely on board with it....yet).
But even if all the stars are aligned for California (both the state Senate and Assembly have already passed Single Payer twice only to be vetoed by Schwarzenegger), we would then have to FIGHT THE FEDS in order to acquire our portion of Medicaid/Medicare funding.
The Democrats really f'd things up for Single Payer in this country. And believe me, it was no accident.
Big business won't be shut out.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Our system evolved from humble beginnings. As yours must painfully do. We didn't have wealthy entrenched interests to fight as you do. There were no HMOs and very little in the way of insurance. In consequence you have a bigger war to win. Which is why every step forward towards universal coverage is a win. In the long term private interests cannot win in health insurance. Health coverage is not like fire insurance. Almost everybody needs health care at some point. Some need enormous amounts. In order to maintain profitability insurance companies will have to find a way to shed costs, medical and otherwise. It is the insurance companies who will ultimately force a public system into existence and that system, once it exists will eat them alive. They will not be able to compete with it.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
...and it was intended to survive a Constitutional challenge. Had national insurance been the plan, it could have impacted many other programs if the SCOTUS ruled it to infringe on states' rights. This court wouldn't hesitate; in fact, I'm guessing they'd jump at the chance.
The right wing smear merchants lied about the healthcare reform bill throughout its 18-month gestation period. And the media eagerly bent over backwards to amplify the misinformation.
at the same time that "the official plan" seemed to change weekly.
anyone surprised people are confused?
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
You forgot to mention that the democrats have created a vacuum with their silence about the advantages of the bill - whatever they are, and they have allowed the gopers to fill the vacuum with a mixture of driveling scare tactics and half truths. Democratic leaders are just plain stoopid and profoundly politically deaf.
the democrats didn't create the vacuum, the MSM and Fox did.
... which indicate that single payer would have been popular by an ample majority:
http://www.wpasinglepayer.org/PollResults.html
And yet we chose the reacharound for the insurance companies. Good ol' "two party" system, works every time.
I, for one, am not giving MoveOn or anyone else any more money to support candidates who just don't give a shit. Seriously, if I was supposed to be all gung-ho about this half-baked half-assed insurance company wet-dream, they can all go rot.
.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Let me tell you I see more young people who are totally clueless about whats about to hit them in the pocketbook in 2014 then Seniors and other age brackets.
single payer was the answer, up or down, make a choice; are we to take care of our citizens?
now we have the constant drizzle, and a cold drizzle at that. far better to put the issue on the table, then if you are defeated you have at least posed the real question to the citizenry, you have changed the dialectic.
what we have done is made the terms of the debate fuzzy, confusing, and open to endless attack. good job!!!
one simple plan the whole nation can follow.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
If "our" government had passed a Very Simple Plan (Medicare for All, for instance) then it would have been Very Simple to understand.
BUT .. "our" government passed a twisted up pretzel of a plan that ensured the profitablity of the insurance companies instead of insuring the health of the nation.
And someone's surprised that We The People don't understand the Plan?
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
executive in charge will help everyone get affordable medical treatments!
I'm not sure whom you mean by "our" government. I hope you're including the Republican party in Congress. The party that makes "if" both relevant and generally impossible to achieve.
and multiplying with interest for not having Insurance. You think the IRS is going to say . . "oh hey don't worry about it whenever you can get to paying for it no problem we're in no hurry."
Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the other wonderful Democrats (including Mr. Kucinich) made sure that the IRS would have the legal right to garnish our wages and seize our bank accounts to "recoup" any money we owe.
So you decide not to get insurance and then you're fined but you don't pay. You think you're getting a "tax refund"? Oops. The feds took it. You think you have money in your bank account and checks start bouncing? Oops. The feds took your money.
Welcome to the good ol' U.S. of A.
Cool, huh?
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Wow, so that was somehow preferable to just expanding the medicare deduction on our paychecks to pay for a single payer system?
We, the people, aren't very bright. Especially the ones pimping this compromise between corrupt and retarded, when we had a perfectly good option -- to move to a single payer system.
What the Hell does anyone expect when you have Fux Noise constantly lying to the elderly that watch their garbage.
I think it's a much simpler problem than that.
Just accept that at least half of everyone is dumber than our already pathetic national average. Then think of a bumper sticker slogan that will appropriately encapsulate the point you're trying to make...
I'm on Medicare and a couple of months ago received a 4 page glossy mailer that specifically detailed the "benefits' I would get as a Senior
under the new Law.
I can only assume the polled Seniors either didn't get theirs, or, more likely, read it and forgot it. Then tuned on Fox News.......
I just add in closing that way back last year, during the workup on the Bill, I wrote to both of my Senators and stressed the absolute need, once a final product emerged, to have an information blitz to the general public about the contents of the Bill. Not just the upfront items that generated the most noise and coverage, but the very
good programs within it for improving the efficiency and cost of the
whole system. In short, a complete comprehensive listing of the Bill's content and intent, preferably via an HHS mass mailing to all households.
I'm not sure the HHS did this.
it isn't a universal single payer system and therefore was not worth doing.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
I concur w/ your statement...but w/ no snark!
Cue the Kabuki....
Agreed. If President Milquetoast couldn't rustle up the support for a single payer system which would be supported by a majority of Americans, and instead chose to pass a painted turd in its stead, it didn't really deserve to pass.
What is our preoccupation in America with passing half-assed legislation?
Single Payer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE
Of course that was before The Council On Foreign Relations, The Business Roundtable and The Bilderbergers pigeon-holed him and told him the way things would REALLY be.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
was being discussed, i brought up the collection provision and was told to go back to red state, well i do live in a "red" state, just not the "red" state this person thought.
Obama just held a press conference to announce a new web site with FAQ'S about the legislation. All of us, young and old, should keep in mind that "what the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away." Substitute fed for Lord and you can't say you haven't been warned. I was against anything short of single payer (good argument for that in "Harper's" magazine a while back), but when I heard that lifetime benefit caps/cancellations were toast, I signed on. I have leukemia and what with MRI'S, CT-scans, frequent blood tests, two (so far) chemo treatments, bone marrow aspirations and tests on same (a spectographic analysis of my DNA alone was ten grand), I could not afford to stay alive if it were not for Medicare and my HMO supplemental. (I do have treatment co-pay of up to 20%.) I was nervous about getting a letter from my carrier saying, "Dear Sir, as you have reached the lifetime cap on benefits, &c." I am told that this is now a thing of the past. My last lingering selfish question: Did this "no cap" thing go into effect on passage of the bill or do I still have some months or years to sweat it out?
"Respect for the rights of others is peace." --Benito Juarez
I understand this law very well. Congress & the Senate, people who get free insurance from my taxes, are forcing me to buy mandatory health insurance or pay a fine.
Do you think any of the mandatory policies will pay for of the high end medical treatments advertised on TV? Basically the insurance industry trumped up it's client base while the politicians who get free insurance thanks to my tax dollar get what they want.
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