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By almost any measure, the 2006 universal care law Governor Mitt Romney championed in Massachusetts has been a clear success. A bipartisan bill which Ted Kennedy worked closely with Romney to pass, the law has reduced the ranks of the uninsured from 10 percent to a national low of two percent. Massachusetts residents overwhelmingly favor the popular health care law there by a 3 to 1 margin.

But in his desperate quest to win over conservative Republican primary voters, Mitt Romney has turned his back on his signature achievement which he once boasted was a health care model for the nation. And to do it, Romney has been lying for months by telling voters "Obamacare is about taking over 100 percent of the people's insurance in this country."

A year ago, Politifact declared the Republican description of President Obama's Affordable Care Act as a "government takeover of health care" its 2010 Lie of the Year. Nevertheless, Mitt Romney has put a variant of this long ago debunked "Pants on Fire" lie at the center of his claim that "Romneycare" and "Obamacare" are entirely different. His latest attempt at misdirection came during Saturday night's Republican presidential forum hosted by Mike Huckabee. As Mitt tried to explain to a clearly skeptical Ken Cuccinelli, Attorney General of Virginia:

"Am I proud of what we did for our state? Yes. But what the president has done is way beyond what we envisioned. We were trying to take of the 8 percent of the population that didn't have insurance. The President is not just worried about the people without insurance. Obamacare is about taking over 100 percent of the people's insurance in this country."

In a September 15, 2011 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Romney made the same charge:

"The Massachusetts plan was crafted for Massachusetts, for the needs of 8 percent of our population that didn't have insurance, not for the 92 percent that did. Obamacare is a plan that takes over 100 percent of the people in the country and their health care, and that's one of the reasons why people don't want it."

Sadly for Mitt Romney, repetition of a lie doesn't make it any more true.

The Affordable Care Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in the spring of 2010 targets the 17 percent of people (over 50 million people) who are uninsured. As Politifact explained in deeming Romney's fraud another "Pants on Fire" lie:

According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans without health insurance nationally was slightly under 17 percent in 2009, the year Obama began pushing for the bill. According to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, the number was about the same in 2010, when the measure was signed into law. Other estimates have pegged the national number at about 15 percent.

As Henry Aaron, a senior fellow with the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution right noted, comparing 8 percent to 17 percent "would have been apples to apples" when it comes to the impact of the individual mandate at the center of both the Massachusetts and national plans.

But Romney's chicanery (which Politifact branded "a felony case of comparing apples and oranges") hardly ends there:

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Credit: McClatchy

As the debate over health care reform heated up in the fall of 2009, Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander called Medicaid "a medical ghetto" that "none of us, or any of our families, would ever want to be a part of for our health care." As it turns out, Alexander and his GOP colleagues were as wrong as they were cynical. A breakthrough study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reveals that Medicaid recipients have far greater access to doctors, live healthier lives and enjoy more financial stability than those who must go without. Nevertheless, 98% of Congressional Republicans voted to gut Medicaid spending by over $1 trillion in the next decade and with it, add up to 44 million people to the ranks of the uninsured.

Currently, the $300 billion Medicaid program serves roughly 60 million Americans. On average, the federal government picks up 57% of the tab, with poorer states like Mississippi and Alabama getting 75% of the funding from Washington. Medicaid not only pays for a third of nursing home care in the United States; it covers a third of all childbirths. (In Texas, the figure is one-half.) As with Medicare, Medicaid provides insurance for substantially less than private insurers (27% less for children, 20% for adults.) Still, the likes of Senator Alexander and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) suggested that it is better to be uninsured than on Medicaid.

Not according to the NBER. The same nonpartisan group that determines the official beginning and end of recessions, NBER found, as Harvard researcher and former member of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers Katherine Baicker put it, "Medicaid matters."

The NBER study avoided the pitfalls of past studies by examining the case of Oregon. After Oregon in 2008 established a lottery to add 10,000 people to it limited Medicaid rolls, the NBER team interview 6,000 of the lucky ones and 6,000 of the 90,000 who lost out. The results were striking:

We find that in this first year, the treatment group had substantively and statistically significantly higher health care utilization (including primary and preventive care as well as hospitalizations), lower out-of-pocket medical expenditures and medical debt (including fewer bills sent to collection), and better self-reported physical and mental health than the control group.

The New York Times provided some of the details of the Medicaid success story:

Those with Medicaid were 35 percent more likely to go to a clinic or see a doctor, 15 percent more likely to use prescription drugs and 30 percent more likely to be admitted to a hospital. Researchers were unable to detect a change in emergency room use.

Women with insurance were 60 percent more likely to have mammograms, and those with insurance were 20 percent more likely to have their cholesterol checked. They were 70 percent more likely to have a particular clinic or office for medical care and 55 percent more likely to have a doctor whom they usually saw.

The insured also felt better: the likelihood that they said their health was good or excellent increased by 25 percent, and they were 40 percent less likely to say that their health had worsened in the past year than those without insurance.

As Ezra Klein of the Washington Post summed up the findings, "knowing that Medicaid matters is good, but we already sort of knew that." But back in Washington, in response to that self-evident truth, Democrats and Republicans have drawn contradictory lessons and offered diametrically opposed plans for the future.

By extending Medicaid coverage to families earning up to 133% of the poverty level, starting in 2014 the Affordable Care Act passed by Democrats in Congress will bring insurance to millions more Americans. A March study by the Commonwealth Fund revealed that revealed that when fully implemented, the ACA will bring relief to "nearly all of the 52 million working-age adults who were without health insurance for a time in 2010."

Not if the Republicans get their way.

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Credit: Commonwealth Fund

Just in the time for this week's one year anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, a new study by the Commonwealth Fund revealed that the new health care reform law's full implementation can't come soon enough. Since the start of the recession, almost 60% of Americans who lost a job and their health insurance- 9 million people - could not afford to regain coverage. Medical costs pushed four million more into bankruptcy. Mercifully, as the analysis also showed, "When fully implemented in 2014, the Affordable Care Act will bring relief: nearly all of the 52 million working-age adults who were without health insurance for a time in 2010 will be covered."

The Commonwealth Fund report ("Help on the Horizon: How the Recession Has Left Millions of Workers Without Health Insurance, and How Health Reform Will Bring Relief") sums up the bleak present and hopeful future of the American health care system.

Its 2010 Biennial Health Insurance Survey of over 3,000 adults ages 19-64 highlighted the devastating toll of the Bush recession which started in December 2007.

The survey finds that both insured adults--who are facing higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs--and uninsured adults cannot afford adequate health care. Seventy-five million adults did not get needed health care in 2010, skipping doctor visits, prescriptions, specialist care, and recommended tests and treatments because of costs. This represents a 60 percent increase from 2001, when 47 million people reported skipping needed care because of costs. Uninsured adults were the most likely to forgo care because of costs, with 66 percent reporting they did so. However, many insured adults were also less insulated from high health care costs--31 percent of adults who were insured all year went without the health care they needed because of costs, up from 21 percent in 2001.

Likewise, 73 million people reported problems paying their medical bills or were paying off medical debt, up from 58 million in 2005. The survey finds that because of medical bills, an estimated 29 million people spent all of their savings, 17 million incurred credit card debt, 22 million were unable to pay for basic necessities like food, heat, and rent, and 4 million declared bankruptcy.

All told, "Nearly three of 10 (28%) working-age adults, an estimated 52 million people, were uninsured for at least some time during 2010, up from 38 million or 24 percent in 2001." Those with incomes below the Federal Poverty Line (FPL) fared much worse, with 54% going without coverage at some point last year, compared to 13% among families living at twice the poverty level.

But as the Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis explained last week, the new consumer protections, insurance requirements and government subsidies contained in the health care reform law signed by President Obama last March will help ensure that nearly everyone, including the jobless, has access to comprehensive coverage by 2014:

"The silver lining is that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has already begun to bring relief to families," she said. "Once the new law is fully implemented, we can be confident that no future recession will have the power to strip so many Americans of their health security."

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Kerry's Kids First Act Needs Your Support

via Yellow Dog Blog

John Kerry isn't a man who forgets about the issues he said were important while running for president.

The Senator is the author of the Kids First Act (S.114/H.R. 1668), which will ensure that the 11 million uninsured children in America have health coverage and a healthy childhood – and he needs our help.

Check out the television ad that Kerry's organization is running in key Republican states and districts. While no Republican ever got kicked out of their party for being heartless, it is Senator Kerry's hope that running a public relations campaign targeted at the constituents of Bill Frist and Tom DeLay will put pressure on them to at least feign compassion for children. (Though it is interesting to note that, of the legislation's eight cosponsors, none has an 'R' next to their name.)

Please take a look at the ad, give whatever money you can to help run it and sign Senator Kerry's web site to be a cosponsor of the act yourself.

As a parent fortunate enough to be able to provide care for my son, I can't imagine the heartbreak of having to watch a young child be sick and be unable to get them help.

This is important legislation. Please support it. It'll make you feel good.

When it comes to the health care reform bill, perfect is the enemy of good. But Republicans are the enemy of everything. And on Sunday, every member of the House GOP will likely vote against the final health care reform bill that will bring coverage to 32 million more Americans, end insurance company abuses involving rescission, pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps on payments, all while slashing the federal budget deficit by $1.3 trillion over the next two decades.

But in saying no in that simple up-or-down vote scheduled for Sunday, Congressional Republicans are choosing to perpetuate the worsening symptoms of an American health care system already in critical condition.

Here, then, are the 10 Republican No's on health care:

1. No Hope for the 50 Million Uninsured
2. No Improvement for 25 Million More Underinsured
3. No Halt to the Rapid Deterioration of Employer-Based Coverage
4. No Help for the 1 in 5 Americans Already Postponing Their Medical Care
5. No Drop in the 62% of Bankruptcies Due to Medical Bills
6. No End to Double-Digit Increases in Business Insurance Premiums
7. No Barrier to Family Premiums Doubling in 10 Years
8. No Reduction of the Near-Monopoly Status in 94% of Insurance Markets
9. No Reversing the Dramatic Decline in Emergency Room Capacity
10. No Rescue for the 45,000 Uninsured Americans Needlessly Dying Each Year
11. No Chance for Failing Red State Health Care

The data and details behind each follows after the break.

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Among the most pernicious and blatantly false Republican talking points designed to obstruct health care reform is the fear-mongering claim that Democratic proposals will lead to "rationing." Of course, with almost 50 million uninsured and another 25 million underinsured, Mitch McConnell's dystopian future of a system which "denies, delays, or rations health care" is already today's nightmare for millions of Americans. But as it turns out, recent studies show that the market failure that is the crumbling U.S. health care system is producing a another, often hidden crisis: self-rationing.

As McClatchy reported last week, a new Consumers Union survey revealed that due to skyrocketing costs and reductions in coverage, Americans are forced to deny themselves needed medical treatment. Among the findings of CU's poll of a 1,002 respondents:

In the new poll 59 percent said that the cost of their health care had increased more than their other expenses over the past two years. Fifty-one percent said they had faced difficult health care choices in the past year. The most common responses were putting off a doctor visit because of cost (28 percent), not being unable to afford medical bills or medication (25 percent), and putting off a medical procedure because of cost (22 percent).

Twenty-eight percent said they had lost or experienced cutbacks in their health care coverage in the past year. The greatest concerns about health care expressed by respondents were a major financial loss or setback from medical cost due to an illness or accident (73 percent), not being able to afford health care in the future (73 percent), necessary care being denied or rationed by health insurance companies (73 percent), and the prospect of rising costs forcing them to choose between health care and other necessities (64 percent).

Those dismal results echoed the shocking revelations from an April 2009 Thomson Reuters survey.

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When I ran this picture the other day, a lot of you wanted to know where you could get one of these wristbands. Well, we live to serve here at C&L, so here's the story behind them.

This is a project started in 2007 by Daric Cheshire, 36, an artist/business owner in Portland, Oregon, as a response to the ongoing health care crisis.

If you'll remember, there were a lot of causes using wristbands (such as the yellow "live strong" bands, etc.) at the time, and he thought it was a perfect way to illustrate the problem of the uninsured.

At the time he started the project, his own family was uninsured. The original concept: if people who actually are uninsured were to wear these wristbands, the rest of us lucky enough to have insurance would be able to see in daily life what a real problem it is - that it affects normal, everyday people like your grocery checker or your next door neighbor and not just marginalized groups like the homeless, or undocumented immigrants.

The response was enthusiastic, and it's grown to where the bands have been embraced by people who just want to draw attention to the problem, whether they're insured or not. As he puts it, the message of the band is:

"I'm uninsured. You may not know why, but now you know my face. Maybe I look like you or someone you love. I'm uninsured and scared of being without health insurance in this country. Maybe my health is already suffering from lack of health care. Today it's me, tomorrow it could be you."

What a great idea. As Michael Moore showed us in "Sicko," none of us really have health insurance - we have the illusion of health insurance.

If you want to get one of the bands, you can click here. If you can't afford it, he'll send you one, anyway.

UPDATE: Got this letter today:

Susan,

Thank you so much. I was up till 1:30 addressing envelopes, woke up and realized the site had exceeded its bandwidth. The response has been overwhelming. I really appreciate your support. We are back up and running now. I hope I can keep up with the demand. Thanks again.

Best Regards,

Daric

(Photo of a great looking cuppa coffee via YTaP.)

The Sunday Talking Heads are up and ready for the reading here. It's quite the eclectic mix this morning, and it includes both Dick Cheney and Richard Perle, so be forewarned that it is an excuse-riddled neocon extravaganza in some parts.

Let's see. Dick Cheney is likely to say that if you don't agree with him, "then you are a terrorist supporting commie." Oh, and anything wrong that Dick has ever done or said is somehow Nancy Pelosi's fault. Is that about right? Jon Kyl? "The Bush Administration would never, ever try to skirt the law and…darn it, where did I put that cue card that Karl prepared for me?" Ditto for Lindsey Graham. Richard Perle? "Iran….scary." Does that about cover the neocon and apologia contingent?

What looks interesting? Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund, who will likely be talking about their Elect Susie campaign regarding the 9 million (and counting) uninsured children in America. It's a wonderful campaign, well worth some effort and discussion, and I'm very glad that Marian is getting some air time for it this morning on CNN.

What is catching your eye in the news or on the blogs this morning?

LA Times : (h/t NonnyMouse)

Scott Svonkin joined the Los Angeles County Commission on Insurance 10 years ago because he was concerned about an emerging problem: people losing health coverage. Since then, the ranks of uninsured Americans have swelled to more than 46 million.

Svonkin almost became one of them.

It happened after he left a comfortable government job as a legislative chief of staff to start his own marketing and public affairs consulting business. Late last year he started shopping around for health insurance for himself, his expectant wife and his young daughter.

He knew he'd pay more without an employer picking up most of the tab. And he knew he'd have to fill out a medical questionnaire because, unlike job-based coverage, individual insurance in California is contingent on an applicant's health. But that didn't concern him because, he said, "I'm healthy as a horse, never smoked and have had no major surgery."

As it turned out, Svonkin was rejected by not just one but three of California's biggest health insurers, which cited his history of asthma, among other things.

"I couldn't buy it at any price," said Svonkin, 40, who lives in Sherman Oaks. "I remember thinking, 'This can't be happening to me.' "

Svonkin is part of what experts say is a largely hidden aspect of the nation's health insurance crisis: the uninsurables, people whom insurance companies won't touch, even though they can afford to pay high premiums. Some, such as Svonkin, pay steep rates for lean coverage from the state's high-risk insurance pool. Others simply go without. Read on...

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