The President’s Weekly focuses on Medicare and closing up the doughnut hole on the purchase of prescription drugs by seniors. Beginning next year, preventive care – including annual physicals, wellness exams, and tests like mammograms – will be free for seniors as well. That will make it easier for folks to stay healthy. But it [...]
The President gives his progress report on a few of benefits in motion from the health insurance reform law. Still more to come he reminds us. I’ve said before that implementing health insurance reform won’t happen overnight, and it will require some tweaks and changes along the way. Ultimately, we’ll have a system that provides [...]
Transcript. Gee waking up this morning felt like Christmas. I ran to my computer to see what Santa left me under the tree. Maybe not exactly what I wanted, but a gift nevertheless. An historic heath care reform bill passed last night with 219 votes (only 216 were needed). And I said I wouldn’t sit [...]
The final vote on health care reform will take place tonight. All the procedural voting is done and it appears that the House Democrats have their minimum votes to pass the bill with the sounding of the gavel perhaps the same one held by Representative John Dingell (D-MI) when Medicare passed in 1965. This health [...]
Last night Bill Moyers hosted two compelling perspectives on the health care reform bill now in play in the Congress on his weekly PBS program. One perspective was a thumbs up (Wendell Potter); the other thumbs down (Dr. Marcia Angell). I’m more of “If not now, when?” The only way I see prices coming down [...]
The President appears to be doing a victory lap of sorts from the Health Care Summit. Kicking off his weekly message with a congratulatory message to the Winter Olympians, Obama raises their accomplishments as examples for the Congress: …if we want to compete on the world stage as well as we’ve competed in the world’s [...]
As someone who pays for their own health care, I have every right to be dubious of any and all health care plans on the table. Unlike the California customers of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, my BCBS provider is holding their fire on their annual 30% hike on my plan at least for now. [...]
Yesterday, a devastating earthquake of 7.0, the likes of which have not been seen in the Caribbean in 200 years, has destroyed most of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince. Haiti is already one of the poorest nations in the world. Can it get worst? Yes. And they need help and they need it now! News agencies are [...]
Okay, the term is back to “health insurance reform.” “Health care reform” I would guess refers to treatment not payments. What I’m hearing from the outcome of the bill the President will sign is consumer protection reforms for health insurance purchases by employers, employees, and seniors purchasing medications. [I guess this is a "bye-bye" signal [...]
Yeah, I was pretty steamed when Senator Joe Lieberman decided to yank the rug from under the Senate health care reform bill over the medicare buy-in compromise for 55 – 64 year olds — a plan he was for before he was against. And yep, I wrote the White House with the “I’d rather wait [...]
