Why is Virginia Really Challenging the Health Care Law?

What is wrong with the state government in Virginia? Last week the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond threw out Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s challenge to the Affordable Care Act, but now he and Governor Bob McDonnell have vowed to appeal.

Why are the Republicans in Virginia against ensuring that everyone has access to health care? As I understand it, the law is being attacked as un-Constitutional because it compels everyone to purchase insurance, and the federal government does not have that power. What, then, is the solution? A national system in which the government is guarantor is fine by me, Medicare for all. However, that is not palatable to the right, for one reason or another. It’s costly, inefficient and unlikely to remain solvent, or so they say. My interactions with Medicare have generally been favorable, and wonder about these characterizations. Even if they are true, can’t these things be fixed? Wouldn’t expanding the pool of participants in medicare with healthy, younger people be a way to do that. But the Right is not particularly interested in solving these issues because their real concern is ideological, and they think Medicare is a form of socialism. (Click here to cue ominous music!)

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Consumers Union Seeks Support for Last Chance Effort on Health Care Reform

HospitalI got this today from Consumers Union Action Fund. It’s worth passing along.

Dear Michael,

In just days, the future of your health care could come down to only one vote.

We’re at a turning point with the Senate bill. The voice of real people must be heard to make sure the bill emerges with the protections that give you freedom and security rather than endless financial uncertainty.

The Senate bill will expand coverage and save lives–but it can and must be improved. The fact remains, if the Senate bill dies in the next week, we can’t fight on to make the final bill better as the process continues. A defeat in the Senate only serves the giant insurance companies, who will continue denying you coverage, denying you care when you need it, and making big profits doing so. Continue reading

Who’s Lobbying Against Health Care Reform?

In an effort to help American’s understand where the funding for the opposition to health care reform is coming from, the Campaign for America’s Future has devised a  handy graphic chart that can help.  Note the prominent, though rather masked, role of AHIP, a lobbying group representing America’s Health Insurance Plans. 

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via LobbyBlog.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics in the Health Care Debate

I strongly recommend that everyone who is interested in the current debate over health care, and let’s face it, all of us ought to be, regularly check out the site FactCheck.org. This project of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy checks claims of politicians, political campaigns, lobbying organizations, etc. against the facts.

And guess what, FactCheck.org has found that proponents of a government administered option for health care are lying to you. This time it is about the record breaking profits of the insurance industry. In four ads from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) targeting specific lawmakers

the narrator says that the targeted lawmaker has received many thousands of dollars in campaign contributions “from the insurance industry.” What do the insurance companies get, the narrator asks? “Record profits.”

We asked the DCCC for back-up on the “record profits” claim. A spokesman sent us citations of several articles, none of which prove the claim. One notes that UnitedHealth Group moved up in the Fortune 500 rankings of corporations, but even that article says the company reaped lower profits in 2008 than in 2007. It’s true that UnitedHealth’s numbers for the second quarter of 2009 beat analysts’ expectations, as we noted last week, but the company posted higher profits in, say, the first quarter of 2008.

via FactCheck.org, Broken Record on Record Profits

And guess what else, opponents of a publicly administered option are lying to, on a lot of things. They are lying about the “death panels.”
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In truth, that section of the bill would require Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling sessions helping seniors to plan for end-of-life medical care, including designating a health care proxy, choosing a hospice and making decisions about life-sustaining treatment. It would not require doctors to counsel that their patients refuse medical intervention.

There is a tv ad in which a senior citizen implies that Medicare coverage will be cut back under a government plan, but that abortion will be provided on demand. This, too, is not true.

In fact, none of the health care overhaul measures that have made it through the committee level in Congress say that abortion will be covered, and one of them explicitly says that no public funds will be used to finance the procedure. Furthermore, none of the bills call explicitly for cuts in Medicare coverage, much less rationing, under a public plan.

via FactCheck.org, Surgery for Seniors vs. Abortions?

There are articles analyzing the claims Obama made in his press conference, those frightening tv commercials from Conservatives for Patient Rights, etc. Check out the site.

This issue is too important for sides to be making false claims or stretching the truth, but sometimes they, themselves, have wrong information. So it is our responsibility to check the facts.

Obama wants to kill your grandma

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via Obama wants to kill your grandma | Salon News.

Go Obama!  LOL!  My fellow Americans, just make a choice: If you want government in your doctor’s office, vote Democrat.  If you want government in your bedroom, vote Republican.