STILL think "Obamacare" isn't good for you and me? Good for the people?

If you're still stuck on "defund Obamacare", read up:

Health care costs rise at slowest rate in 50 years

WASHINGTON — Personal health care costs rose in the 12 months ending in May at the slowest rate in the last 50 years, as spending on hospital and nursing home services declined, the White House announced Monday.

Personal consumption spending rose 1.1%, Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said. Hospital readmissions rates dropped from an average of 19% to 17.9% for Medicare patients since the passage of the 2010 health care law, Krueger said.

A series of recent government reports and industry analyses have shown a decrease in overall health care costs. In May, a Congressional Budget Office report showed a $618 billion drop in projected Medicare and Medicaid spending over the next decade. A recent study by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) showed that for Americans who receive health insurance through their employers, premiums rose 3% from 2011 to 2012, the lowest increase since 1996.

The law is not affecting job growth, Krueger said. Job growth in industries that have traditionally not provided health insurance for their employees, such as restaurants, was higher. Restaurant sales and employment have increased more than any other retail sales industry since the law was signed, at about 11% for employment and 17% in retail sales, and weekly hours also have grown about 3% since the law was signed.

"Data from across the economy — covering consumers, government and private employers — point to the same conclusion," Krueger said. "Health care cost growth has slowed."

It's working.  The Affordable Care Act--"Obamacare"--is working.

It's already working.

Is it enough?

Heck, no, but it's helping and it's helping us, the people who need it.

Get behind this thing or get left behind.

This whole thing is exactly like FDR, back in the 30's and the creation of and Democratic support for it while the Right Wing, the Republicans and some business people were against it.

Need more proof?  Here you go, another, separate article:

State health exchange rates vary, but lower than expected

Good move, Mr. President

It's great to see the President has called for an address to Congress next week, to clarify and push for health care reform.

That's great news.

As everyone has discussed, he didn't want to make the mistake of the Clintons by pushing through his own reform so he left it up to Congress.

Maybe a little too much so.

So now, with the reform somewhat floundering, he seems to be taking the proverbial "bull by the horns", thank goodness.

This should do two things that are badly needed for this reform, too.

First, it should help him clarify the statistics--the true, hard data--on health care in the US and how dismal it is.

It costs so much, it covers so little, our costs have gone up exponentially and continue to do so, etc. This message, next week, can and should be kept simple so the more of the American public "get it" and so it can't be overridden by the right wing and corporate rants.

Second, it should help him dispel the blatant, out-and-out mistruths, misrepresentations, lies and even hysteria that has been created and distributed by anyone against this reform.

On a side note, I think the President and his staff should stop saying we need government insurance so we can "keep the insurance companies honest." That just creates more problems, I think, and puts them on edge. Instead, he should just say we need this 2nd insurance option to "keep them competitive." He won't so automatically create enemies this way.

So this is terrific. We need to refocus this push and this is just the time and he is the only person, singularly, who can do this.

We have to all be behind him and get the information out, sure. We can help but there has to be a leader and it can only come from him. He has to push Congress.

And then we can bring them along.

Link to story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE58146N20090903
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/health/policy/03care.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

This is why we need a government insurance option--and badly

I received this email, this morning, from my sister. It's from a friend of hers.

This is the insane, financially and morally bankrupt "health care system" the American people are subject to and people defend.

It's insane.

It's irresponsible.

It's heartless.

It's health care for the corporation.

It's indefensible.

(Posted with no corrections).

"Hey everyone, if i could afford it i would post my insurance billing statement in the local newspapers. As most of you know, i've had two cancer surgeries in the last two months....both at the wonderful CTCA in Tulsa, Ok. Although their financial dept. has bent over backward to help us, i cannot say the same for our local "preferred" providers.
Julys surgery involved over twenty staples in my abdomen. So that i could return home a few days after the surgery they gave my daughter a staple remover so it could be done at home. Well....it turned out to be too painful. My first call was to my family doctor who said they would just give me a sedative because they didn't have numbing gel. i stated i didn't want a sedative. i then went to "urgent care" owned also by Heartland Health System in St. Joseph. At first they refused me care. When i reminded them that it was not legal to turn me away they let me see a doctor. He told me he could not remove the staples that a surgeon would have to do it. By the way, a surgeon, also from Heartland, that had done previous work on me refused to take the staples=2
0out because "he did not put them in". SO...finally i went to the E.R. at Heartland. A nice Nurse Practioner and a sweet young nurse put numbing gel on my staples and pulled them out after about fifteen minutes. i was there less than an hour. Here's the kicker. They charged my
insurance company THREE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!!! Our insurance paid TWO THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED!!! for something the CTCA thought our seventeen year old daughter could do at home! WHO says our medical system does not need reform?!?!?!?"


I couldn't have said it better myself.

Have a great weekend, y'all.

K-k-k-kill the C-C-C-Co-op Option

I mean really.

The whole talk of creating these co-ops, for health care, instead of giving us what we really need and what will really work—a government option for health insurance---is absurd.

There are so many reasons why co-ops aren’t the answer and won’t truly work.

For one, it would take millions, if not billions of dollars to create them all.

Where, exactly, is that going to come from? It won’t be private money.

Second, there is no way enough co-ops would or could be created to cover all Americans. Many millions of rural people would end up with the same lack of coverage the country is experiencing now. Even places like rural Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska would no doubt end up without coverage, let alone the more isolated parts of the country like Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Montana.

Forget it. It’s insane. It’s a total non-starter.

So let’s be done with this whole notion.

I think there is a high likelihood that the conversation of health insurance co-ops may have been started by insurance companies so they could maintain their control of the market.

Unless the federal government steps in and gives a true nationwide option of health care insurance for all Americans, the insurance corporations will maintain their stranglehold on health insurance in the US—and on the sharp increases they’ve been foisting on us for decades.

Link to story:
http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/prairie-health-care-companion/index.html?th&emc=th