Still tottering on unsteady feet, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) better known as Health Care Reform will reach its first milestone. The act, written to improve Medicare prescription drug coverage, extending the Medicare Trust fund and insuring coverage for those with pre-existing medical conditions, was signed by President Obama on March 23, 2010.
The ongoing oppositional politics between Republicans and Democrats will find the two parties celebrating this anniversary differently. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., Democratic Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Tex., at a ceremony marking the one year anniversary of the passage of the Health Care Act on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday, March 17, 2011. (Photo: Associated Press)
In Blue states, Democrats will celebrate the day complete with cake and press conferences. In Red states, Republicans are more likely to serve up mud pies and press conferences.Americans are just not eager to commemorate this first birthday. The polls show why: they just don’t get it.Full expansion of the law happens in 2014, and 60 percent of the people who have the most to gain, the uninsured and low-income Americans, say they are really confused. This past week the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly 53 percent of Americans say they are confused by the new law. They just don’t know if ACA is good for them and their families or not.
Whose fault is that? President Obama's and the Democratic party's. It is their bill and they did a terrible job selling it. Worse they made a mish-mash of it while trying to please the likes of Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, seen negotiating on one hand while commenting about "death panels” on the other.
Congress took too long to craft the ACA, and the public grew suspicious of Washington dragging out the process. The concoction looked like some very nasty medicine as Democrats where unable to frame their own message, delivering that spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down.ntil real reform of Health Care Reform comes along, ACA does accomplish some real goals. Some of what it is doing as of 2011 include:
* Children cannot be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.* Young people can stay on their parents’ health plan until they turn 26.* Insurers can no longer put a lifetime benefit limit on your coverage or cancel your plan if you get sick.* Congress will now have to face the same choices in the insurance market as the rest of us.* Small businesses get a 35% tax credit to help cover employees’ coverage.* Domestic violence and Caesarean sections can’t be counted as pre-existing conditions that exclude women from coverage.* All insurance plans must now be transparent and accountable, reporting how much of your premium is spent on actual health care and giving rebates if more than 15-20 percent goes to administrative expenses, profits, and executive bonuses.
These are just some of the reasons it is called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.In the last year people’s opinions on ACA have not changed very much: 46 percent still oppose it and 42 percent now approve of it, up just 2 percent. Worse yet, seniors, who would gain new benefits under the Medicare program, oppose ACA by 52 percent, even though the Medicare Part D drug prescription "donut-hole" will finally be eliminated, reducing the threshold of out-of-pocket prescription drug costs.
The same Kaiser poll carries with it some unhappy news for the Republicans determined to repeal the law. Only 39 percent of the public support repeal while 51 percent are opposed. In fact, in the last category 30 percent are in favor of expanding it further.Count me as one of those. While better than no reform of health care, ACA is far from ideal.
There is little doubt this bill needs serious tweaking. President Obama and the Democratic Congress could initiate a Single Payer system, then during negotiations, if needed, they could settle for the Public Option and not for what we got.Even as GOP governors scramble in the courts in an effort to scrap ACA, it is rather ironic that the Reddest of Red States are also the top ten unhealthiest in the country: Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Nevada, South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, Oklahoma, with Mississippi at #50.
Surprised?Don’t be. Those states also deliver the most dismal health care, according to the Commonwealth Fund 2009 Health Scorecard.So why aren’t citizens demanding more of their elected leaders? Why are they listening to Mississippi Governor, and presidential aspirant, Haley Barbour, instead of former Governor Howard Dean who made Vermont not only the healthiest state in the nation but also one with the best health care?
Do the Republicans have a death wish for their party? Or are they hoping that if they continue to hop up and down on one foot yelling, “Socialism, Communism,” people will believe them?Or does the song and dance of Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) resonate when he said: "If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that's in people's pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States -- the Great War of Yankee Aggression."
Broun, who is a doctor, is the same Congressman who wants to kill Medicare through privatization. Think what that would do to the health of Georgia’s seniors. What is even more insincere is that while GOP governors tie up their own states’ resources in lawsuits to stop Health Care Reform, they accept federal dollars to help them regulate insurance companies within their borders or set up exchanges for insurance consumers.
An exception is Alaska Governor Sean Parnell who turned down federal dollars. Send the money to states like Maryland, where Governor O’Malley is working with the stakeholders to set up a good exchange system. Or to Massachusetts, a state that led the way on health care, even as its author, Mitt Romney, now runs for the hills, ashamed he did something right, er, left. So Happy Birthday, Health Care Reform! Like any one-year-old, you will stumble a bit in these first years, but by 2014 when you are four, you should be up and running pell-mell.
And as people begin to benefit from better health care, they will appreciate you more.Until then, Democrats need to quit playing defense and step forward to explain why reform was needed and then begin to reform the reform.
We have to.In 2010, the number of unemployed soared to 52 million, more than half that number due to job loss.People’s lives are at stake. Americans’ patience is growing thin with the posturing of the GOP and the timidity of the Democrats.Enough of the dilly-dallying. Enough of whistling “Dixie.” America expects more.
Will it happen? I am not holding my breath. To contact Catherine Poe, see above. Her work appears in Ad Lib in the Communities at the Washington Times and at the Democratic Forum.
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