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Are you confused by the whole healthcare reform hoopla, and what it will mean to you as a person with a chronic illness? Most of the articles I’ve read about it have been written from the perspective of healthy people, and that wasn’t very helpful for me. In addition, political biases and slanting to encourage readers to support one view or another made it even harder for me to figure out whether the reform package was something that would help me or hurt me.
I’m still not really sure what I think of it, other than that I DON’T think it’s going to last long enough to really make any difference. If the republicans get control of Congress, they’ll gut it (or repeal it,) using the money for more bailouts of rich companies; and it’s looking more and more like they’ll be back in power after the next election.
The only thing I’m really sure of in this whole thing is that the system we have now DOES NOT WORK. For-profit healthcare leaves the poor out in the cold, but the government-controlled systems in other countries don’t work any better, with ridiculously long wait times for “elective” surgery and referrals to specialists.
I think what is needed is some sort of “hybrid” system. We need controls on the insurance companies so that they can no longer “play God” by refusing necessary treatment or setting premiums so high that those with “pre-existing conditions” aren’t priced out of the market. (The current law appears to address that issue, but until those provisions are implemented, we have no way of knowing if it will be effective.)
We ALSO need controls on the government’s ability to determine what treatments we have access to, and their ability to interfere between doctors and patients by determining what level of treatment is acceptable. (Some jackass in congress (or on a committee;) has no idea what my pain levels are, or how they interfere with me being able to live my life, so why should they be able to decide how much medication is “enough” to treat that pain?)
Personally, I’m totally confused by the whole mess, so I’m going to “wait and see” if it actually does me any good.
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As you point out, a change if political parties would = a change in health care policies, and again as you say, as it stands now, many of the reforms wouldn’t take affect til 2013-14! How much pain (physical, emotional, financial) will people suffer waiting for politicans to make up their minds? It’s time to put health care in the hands of the people who use the system.
YES. The ones most directly affected are the ones that need to be in control, NOT the healthy folks who never actually need their insurance; and not the fatcat politicians who have enough money to be able to see any doctor they want, whenever they want.
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Millions of people are benefiting from new consumer rights today! Here’s a great link to a blog carnival sponsored by MomsRising that brings together the personal experiences of families across the country who are being helped by health reform and the lowdown from experts on what these new protections mean for families.
Check out: http://www.momsrising.org/blog/healthcare-blog-carnival/#ixzz10BsstVbs