Doug Ferrari at Throckmorton Theatre, Part 3
Landrieu is one of a handful of centrist Democrats reluctant to support the plan to revamp the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry, the top priority in President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda.
And she faces a tough choice: defy the wishes of her party on a legislative priority central to Obama’s promise of change, or defy the wishes of voters in her home state of Louisiana who are hostile to the proposals.
“Obama is very unpopular in the Deep South … and all of his legislation is unpopular,” said Bernie Pinsonat a pollster with Southern Media and Opinion Research, a survey company based in Louisiana’s state capital Baton Rouge.
“If she votes for this it will drag her down,” he said.
Raising the pressure on Landrieu is the delicate state of the bill itself. After a monumental battle, the House of Representatives narrowly passed its version of healthcare legislation this month. Louisiana’s Anh Cao, a first-term lawmaker whose heavily Democratic district includes poorer sections of New Orleans, was the sole Republican vote.
But unless the Senate bill attracts Republican support it will need all 60 votes that the Democrats control in the chamber to avoid a filibuster, or procedural block. One Republican, Olympia Snowe, voted for the bill in the Finance panel, but has not pledged her vote in the full Senate.
That puts Landrieu and fellow Democratic senators including Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska in a position of unusual influence.
It also offers a potential political advantage if she can persuade Louisiana voters of her reservations about a reform that would expand the federal government, analysts said.
“The controlling coalition of voters in Louisiana is opposed to health reform …. So she (Landrieu) has to talk small government solutions and low taxation,” said Robert Hogan, professor of political science at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
“She is trying to … demonstrate her small government convictions but she is conflicted because this is a huge priority for Democrats,” said Hogan.
The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, prepared on Wednesday to unveil the chamber’s bill, with the first test vote on the package expected by the end of the week.
MODERATE DEMOCRAT
Landrieu says she supports reform if it brings “stable, affordable health insurance” but she opposes a key element of the bill: a public option that would create a government-run plan to compete with private health insurers.
Reform is needed in part because of the crippling health bills faced by small businesses owners, Landrieu says.
“Small firms … pump almost a trillion dollars into the economy each year, create two-thirds of our nation’s new jobs annually, and account for more than half of America’s work force,” she said in an opinion piece published in October.
“Too much of their money is going toward high health premiums that are increasing faster than the prices of the products and services they provide,” said Landrieu, chair of the Senate’s committee on small business and entrepreneurship.
And on the face of it, health care reform that aims to provide universal coverage offers significant benefits to Louisiana, a state with high rates of poverty where more than 20 percent of the population lacks health insurance.
Instead of a government-run insurance option, Landrieu is seeking support for a plan to use federal seed money to fund an insurance plan that would eventually be run and operated by a private board.
“She’s a moderate Democrat. She understands that the public option is anathema in her home state,” said Elliott Stonecipher a pollster based in Shreveport, Louisiana.
POLITICAL PRESSURE
Landrieu does not face re-election until 2014 so would not face an immediate backlash from hostile voters, unlike Lincoln who is due for re-election in 2010.
Even so, for many Louisiana voters the reforms and the public option represent a further encroachment of Washington bureaucrats into the private sector.
“I am very concerned. If the government takes over the healthcare and it fails it will not go back to the private sector,” said Brenda O’Brock of Shreveport, Louisiana.
“With government in charge there will be no incentive to do better,” O’Brock said.
Such opinions are common given a state climate darkening for Democrats due to demographic changes, said Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast in 2005 it tipped the state’s electoral balance toward the Republican Party by displacing hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were blacks central to the Democratic Party in the Catholic south of the state.
As a result, trends favorable to Republicans right across the southeast — the country’s most conservative region — have been accelerated in Louisiana. The state voted overwhelmingly for Obama’s Republican challenger John McCain in the 2008 presidential race.
But Landrieu also faces pressure from within her party, not least from an African American minority that is key to her electoral base, particularly in the south of the state, and which supports health reform.
Watch the video related to Health Insurance
Steve Clemons and Tom Daschle discuss the current healthcare crisis and possible solutions. … Health Care Healthcare Insurance Bureaucracy Crisis Solutions
Help answer the question about Health Insurance
What health insurance company is best for a kid?I am looking for a good and reasonably priced health insurance provider for my 9 year old son. Insurance through my work is outrageous so I'm looking for an outside provider. His mother is suppose to have already put him on CHIP with the state of TX (by court order) but she refuses to do so for some reason. I hate the idea of him being without health insurance. Anyone had any good experiences with certain companies? Any suggestions or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
About Author
Quoting & Saving just got easier…Easy To Insure ME Health Insurance Quotes… Quote all carriers in seconds
Related Musician Instruments and Digital Camera Review Search
Warning: /home/health/public_html/wp-content/cache/fd9969caa8b40c996ea84dc070bbdd21.spc is not writeable in /home/health/public_html/wp-content/plugins/simplepie-core/simplepie.inc on line 1769
영어 단어 100000개,
Related Search
Warning: /home/health/public_html/wp-content/cache/9d644b12c90ed624c69b0702cc187117.spc is not writeable in /home/health/public_html/wp-content/plugins/simplepie-core/simplepie.inc on line 1769
drummers-olympus, Find People Names, Radio 3<> Listings for 04/04/2009 - 10/04/2009, November 8 update, Acoustic Americana Music Guide for Nov 2008, Green Room and the new year, Recent Search to this articles
healthplans.my-age.net – my family have this health insurance. It is affordable and has good coverage for dental issues.
1) Most employer provided health insurance is deducted "pre-tax" so there is no deduction on the tax return.
2) Your parents must be your dependents (or would have been your dependents except for the gross income test) for you to take a deduction anyway. So, unless you are supporting them: No.
most insurance will cover the costs you mention if the doctor thinks it is medically necessary.
You mean in writing policies? That's one of the reasons we need health care reform, the insurance companies exclude people with pre-existing conditions. Which kind of ruins the whole concept of insurance, which is based on pooled risk.
Well, if she's 40 and perfectly healthy, it's going to cost her about $500 a month to have a low/no deductible plan that covers checkups.
You BUY it on a month to month basis. If you want low monthly payments, you have to cut the coverage – like take a $10,000 deductible. Or higher. That would cut payments down to maybe $200 a month or less.
The older she is, the less healthy she is, the more it costs.
Your best bet, is to find a local, independent agent, who can help you balance cost with coverage.
You've asked a very broad question. There is no simple answer.
In truth, health insurance works a little differently in each state.
To answer your specific questions:
1) No, health insurance is not compulsory for everyone. If you're lucky, you are able to join a group policy at work. (If you're really lucky, it's a good policy and the employer pays at least half of it.) Some states have recently made it compulsory, but that's such a recent change that there's no clear cut answer yet for how that's going to work.
2) What happens if someone can't afford it is… they don't get it, usually. Except if your income puts you below the "poverty level", in which case you qualify for Medicaid. (In some states there are programs that typically provide assistance with insuring children, though they are few and far between for covering adults.)
3) Health insurance rarely covers all the bills when you have a procedure done. Most plans cover 50-80% after you meet your deductible. The deductible amounts vary widely (but the trend is that the deductibles are getting higher and higher to keep the premiums down.) If you're really, REALLY lucky, you don't have a deductible (which is only an option on group plans), and you may only have to pay 10% of covered charges. (These plans are few and far between. As in, you might have them if you're in Congress.)
4) Yes, the patient has some say over procedures. However, if the patient opts for an "experimental" procedure, or one that isn't deemed "medically necessary", then health insurance may refuse to cover any charges at all.
In the end, as with most things, the middle class takes the brunt of these costs. This has become such a problem that more than 50% of all bankruptcies are as a result of medical bills (and of those, more than 75% had health insurance.)
** Edited to add:
It's not ALL about the money when a procedure is involved. If it is, the state keeps track of complaints filed on behalf of consumers with "managed care" (ie. any type of network arrangement including Preferred Provider Organizations, Health Maintenance Organizations, and Point of Service organizations — also known as PPO, HMO, and POS) and may very well revoke a company's charter to do business in the state should the company be turning down too many legitimate claims.
However, insurance companies are sticklers for following the "standard" for medical care. This is what makes it difficult to answer your question. Because they should not deny anything that's considered standard for care in the given circumstances (should not and will not being two completely different things, of course.) And there may be several options that would be considered "standard." If the patient wants treatment that isn't yet considered "standard", they would balk. Period.
i htought the main reason of living in a society was to help each other out, am i wrong?
When you get health insurance, there is what is called a premium. This is the amount you pay on a scheduled basis. For instance, if you get insurance through your employer, you would pay your part of the premium each payday.
If you pay your premiums on time, you get to keep your insurance. Now, when you use your insurance, there is what is called a deductible. This is an amount of money you must spend before the insurance starts paying anything. A typical deductible might be $250/year for the policy holder and $500/year for the family. So, if your dad had the policy and went to get a prescription, if it was his first prescription of the year and it cost $100, he would pay $100. Every time he used stuff under the plan, he would pay everything until he hit the $250 deductible, then the insurance would kick in. (the same goes for the family coverage, until the $500 was met by everybody in total – not separately – you would pay 100%).
Now, once the deductible is met, the insurance starts picking up some of the costs…usually the costs are based on what doctor or provider you use. If you use someone who is called "in network" the insurance company pays more of the bill. They do this because they have negotiated lower costs with that provider. For example, let's say you need to have some tests done and your family has met all your deductibles. Let's also say the tests normally cost $200. If you go to an in network provider, the insurance would cover 80%. If you go out of network, the insurance might only cover 70%. Now the nice thing is, by going in network, you get the discounted price, let's say $160. So, if you go in network, you would pay $32 for the tests and the insurance would pay $128 (totaling $160). If you went out of network, you would pay the 30% of $200 or $60 and the insurance company would pay $140. So, by staying in-network, both you and your insurance company save money.
Also, there is something called an out-of-pocket maximum. This just means that if someone in your family gets real sick or injured, the most you can pay for that year is the out-of-pocket max…say $5,000. Once you hit that, everything after that is covered 100% by your insurance and you don't pay anything.
Last, there is a co-pay – what this means is that if you go to the doctor for a routine visit, it is usually covered without worrying about the deductible and you pay just the co-pay. usually this is $15 or $20 on say a $100 office visit and the insurance company pays the rest (based on a negotiated amount).
And that's the short version of how insurance works.
You can use this site.
http://top-usa-health-insurance-comparator.blogspot.com/
to compare various health insurance providers at your place.