Health Care

My wife has pre existing conditions. Before the blessing that is Obamacare came along, because of those life altering pre existing  conditions, we were only able to afford a health insurance policy that had a $10,000 deductible at a very high monthly premium. She couldn't afford to see doctors regularly and her health deteriorated.  I remember counting the days to Obamacare and spending most of the night, and many frustrating days following, struggling to sign up, and once we did, the smile on my wife's face, the sigh of relief that she too can see a doctor, and there was hope. I remember tears of relief and hope. We celebrated the peace of mind this brought us with a hug, a smile and a good nights sleep.  Today, there are tears again, fear instead of hope, anxiety instead of peace of mind, worries and sleepless nights (it is 3:42 am as I write this).  I hear politicians exclaiming, speaking indignantly, waving their fists and wagging their tounges all preaching about what will happen when 25,000,000 get cut and have no insurance, the outcry there will be.....well, we are those 25,000,000, we are each a human being , not a number. You know us, we are your family member, your neighbor, your Uber driver, your friend, your classmate from years ago, your acquaintance of today.... STOP using our plights for political fodder and for so much fist waving and speechifying!  STOP being resigned to the fact that there are not enough Democrats in the  Senate to stop this lunacy and reach out to Republican Senators who are thinking individuals and STOP the insanity! Senators McConnel and Schumer, do the hard work that is your job and that you know how  to do so well and make it known that this end of Obamacare tragedy and travesty will NOT happen. Don't let us suffer with anxiety and sleepless nights and worse ! For my wife, who is asleep as I write this while I am up worrying about her health and healthcare, for all of us , each one of us, real people - not numbers, DON'T wait to see and hear the outcry when 25,000,000 are left without insurance! Do the hard work of bringing sanity back now.  Our health, and our healthcare is not, and should not be a partisan issue! DON'T LEAVE 25,000,000 PEOPLE WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS. SAVE OBAMACARE/ The Affordable Care Act! PS:  If you say there will be insurance available for those with pre existing conditions, you know that premiums  for those with any pre existing condition will  go back to being astronomically expensive and unaffordable and high risk pools are either unavailable, most don't meet criteria eligibility, and those that do see high costs and even higher deductibles.   

All Americans deserve equal and fair access to affordable health insurance.  Today, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has enabled more Americans access to insurance than ever before.  In fact, the number of uninsured Americans has dropped more than 6 percent since 2013.  Yet, the House wants to completely replace the ACA with the American Health Care Act (AHCA) and the Senate is considering this.  What could that mean for you? If you: Have A Pre-Existing Condition: You may not qualify for insurance or would have to pay a much higher premium. Earn A Lower Income: You may lose Medicaid coverage.  Have A Lapse In Coverage: You may be penalized for the gap in coverage (longer than 2 months). Have Insurance Through Your Employer: Penalties for employer provided coverage may be dropped. They will no longer have to provide insurance. Your out of pocket costs will increase. Are A Senior: You may pay a higher price for insurance. Receive Medicaid or other Subsidies: Funding may be reduced significantly forcing you to pay for those services instead. Completely replacing the ACA is not necessary. We need to keep the good parts and address what needs fixing. When your car has a check engine light on, do you take it the junkyard or do you take it to a repair shop?  It's the same thing here: Take the ACA to the repair shop and not the junkyard. Any solution should simplify and seek to reduce costs while maintaining and increasing benefits. Addressing Health Care Costs: Health insurance costs are still a challenge for many Americans and help is still needed there. Healthcare expenditures were projected to reach $3.2 trillion in 2015 - or about $10,000 per person (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2015).  So instead of looking to cut benefits, we must find other ways to cut expenses such as introducing "legitimate pricing" (full cost disclosure), which would result in an annual savings of 33% or $1 trillion.  And that would be a win for everyone. There are many more in "A Health Insurance Roadmap" including terminating employer health insurance ($250 billion savings) and reducing fraud (ranging from $68 billion to $320 billion).  Please sign my petition to ask the Senate for Fair Health Insurance For All! A Health Insurance Roadmap must be followed to provide a baseline of easy to understand and cohesive health insurance for all Americans. Then the next step is simplifying and standardizing all of the different types of health insurance out there.  Details can all be found in A Health Insurance Roadmap. The Senate needs to address these issues: Expansion of Medicare to Everyone: At some point all Americans go on Medicare either through age or disability.  Currently 15% of Americans are on Medicare.  The concept is simple: Medicare Part A is free and in place for most Americans (this includes hospital and facility care).  Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1995, all hospitals are required to treat individuals in need of emergency care. Medicare Part B, Preventative Services could be adjusted to match the ACA's Essential Benefits. Part D covers prescription drugs. Part C, Medicare Advantage allows private insurers to offer Medicare Parts A, B & D and is currently at 37% of new enrollees in Medicare and growing. Insurance companies also offer Medicare Supplement Plans.  Medicare is not going to go bankrupt. This is a common fallacy. The 2016 report of Medicare’s trustees finds that Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund will remain solvent — that is, able to pay 100 percent of the costs of the hospital insurance coverage that Medicare provides — through 2028. Even in 2028, when the HI trust fund is projected for exhaustion, incoming payroll taxes and other revenue will still be sufficient to pay 87 percent of Medicare hospital insurance costs. The share of costs covered by dedicated revenues will decline slowly to 79 percent in 2040 and then rise gradually to 86 percent in 2090. The Medicare hospital insurance program will not run out of all financial resources and cease to operate after 2028, as the “bankruptcy” term may suggest. Medicare Part B & Part D cannot go bankrupt due the way they are funded through premiums and the Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust.   Medicaid Expansion Must Be Continued: Medicaid is the largest insurer with more than 70 million beneficiaries.  And more states are considering expansion (currently 31 states have already expanded Medicaid). A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2016, that looked at survey data for three states and found Medicaid expansion “was associated with significantly increased access to primary care,” as well as “fewer skipped medications due to cost,” among other factors. Pre-Existing Conditions: It is important that no one is left behind because of bad luck.  It is estimated that over 27% of Americans have pre-existing conditions and that 60% have a chronic medical condition.  Why should those with chronic illnesses that occur through no fault of their own be penalized?  My son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes last year at the age of 11. Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune virus, which happens randomly and for which there is no known clear cause. Type 1 Diabetes results in the Pancreas ceasing to work and create insulin. It is organ failure. Type 1 Diabetes is a 24/7 chronic illness that requires constant maintenance and expensive supplies. Even with the ACA, life is hard for many people with type 1 Diabetes as insurance companies make it difficult to get devices and supplies that allow them live.  Under the AHCA, anyone with Type 1 Diabetes or other chronic illness or cancer history or heart issues would most likely not ever be able to get health insurance except possibly through an employer.   Please sign your name if you agree that, now more than ever, we must move the senate to introduce a "Fair Health Insurance For All". The Bottom Line: What we are talking about here is beyond a luxury; it is necessity and a quality of life issue. This is neither a game nor a question of political party, this a matter of life and death for real people who are in our lives.  As a community, our collective voices can make a difference. Sign the petition to Senator Lamar Alexander (and other key senators) then share it. Thank you for taking the time to sign this petition to make sure that all Americans including you have Fair Health Care Insurance. We all deserve affordable health care. Check out A Health Insurance Roadmap for the full plan.

Please sign, share, and also call your U.S. Senator -  202 224-3121 - and urge them to oppose the health care bill passed by the House.   May, 2017 Dear U.S. Senator, We are mental health care therapists and addiction counselors who are deeply concerned about the decrease in access to mental health services under the American Health Care Act (AHCA) passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in early May.  We urge you to reject this bill, which would greatly diminish mental and behavioral health care at a time when treatment is urgently needed for those impacted by the opioid crisis, alcohol addiction, depression and other conditions.   One out of five Americans experiences a mental health condition, but only half get needed treatment. Nearly one third of the people covered by Medicaid expansion live with a mental health condition. The AHCA will push our clients into costly emergency rooms and jails instead of providing the coverage for mental health services which helps people stay in school, on the job and in recovery.  We are concerned about the following provisions in the bill: The AHCA allows states to opt out of requiring insurance companies to cover mental and behavioral health care, as well as to opt out of covering people with pre-existing conditions.  The AHCA would no longer require Medicaid expansion to cover mental health care, abandoning Congress’s previous commitment to mental health and addiction treatment.    The bill would reduce federal assistance to working families who buy health insurance, leaving millions of people, many of whom have mental illness, unable to afford mental health care.  Families would be denied the counseling they need to heal relationships and stay together.   People covered by Medicaid expansion before 2020 would be dropped from their plan if they are more than one month late paying their premium. This is a high price to pay for someone suffering from mental illness, who may be unable to pay a bill while in the hospital or experiencing severe symptoms. Investing in quality mental health care saves taxpayer dollars in the long term.  We see the positive impact of our work on the people we serve every day, allowing people to be productive members of society.   We ask you to vote against the AHCA and any other attempts to cut back mental and behavioral health coverage for our fellow citizens.    

TITLE OF BILL : An act to amend the public health law, in relation to deeming central venous lines as medically necessary Dream Shepherd is an 12-year-old girl who has courageously battled Sickle Cell Disease and who suffered a stroke in 2010 at the age of five. In December 2014, as part of a study, Dream received a stem cell transplant as part of her treatment plan and fight against Sickle Cell Disease. After the transplant she remained in the hospital for several months, while Doctors worked to stabilize her immune system, which was crucial to her discharge and transplant success. Additionally while in the hospital Dream had a Central Venous Line placed into her heart. The Central Venous Line has strict care requirements. In New York State Health Facilities only Registered Nurses are legally allowed to administer I.V. medications with use of a Central Venous Line; which have to be properly managed to ensure that Dream, and other's with a Central Line, do not acquire infections, especially if immuno-compromised. This central line goes directly into the right atrium of the heart, and requires immediate action should there be a disconnection for any reason as a patient with this type of line can exsanguinate should this go unmonitored or unnoticed. In addition to the high risk of infections, other complications of Central Venous Lines include Air Embolism, Pneumothorax, Pinch-off, Syndrome, Drug Precipitates, Thrombosis, Catheter Occlusion, Catheter Malposition, and Sepsis a severe blood infection caused by bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Sepsis is extremely serious and can be life-threatening.  Due to the high potential for dangerous infections, as part of discharge planning, Dream's mother, who is not a medical professional, made a request for a skilled private duty nurse to care for Dream's central venous line. This request was denied by the insurance company as it was "not deemed medically necessary." Due to this rejection by the insurance company, the hospital informed Dream's mother, that she was required to provide the necessary care to Dream's central venous line. Not ensuring that Dream would have the correct and proper skilled nurse to provide the care after discharge which could have caused irreparable harm, including the worst outcome. Attempting to force the mother to provide the care would have required her to lose her job and source of income, along with saddling her with the anxiety of overseeing the medical attention that if not done properly, could lead to the loss of her daughter's life. That is a position no family member or friend should ever be in.