There is no going back. Health care reform is here to stay. So what changes can you expect to see in your home, and how soon are you going to them made?

President Obama addressed a crowd of college students in Portland Maine a week after he signed the health care bill into law. There, he assured Americans that this bill “…represents enormous progress. It enshrines the principal that every American should have the security of decent care, and that nobody should go bankrupt because they’ve got a kid that is sick with a preexisting condition, that small business shouldn’t be burdened because they want to do the right thing by their employee.”

Among the major changes that are going to take place are large tax cuts for the middle class. According to whitehouse.gov, “This is the largest health care tax cut in history for middle class families, helping to make insurance much more affordable for millions of families.”

For most of us, this means a significant decrease in monthly premiums on our current health insurance. It also means that if you are a small business owner, you will receive large tax credits for providing health care coverage for your employees, which could mean an increase in capital to spend on new labor, which means more jobs will be available across the country.

Here are some of the facts:

• It is the largest health care tax cut in history for middle class families.
• Americans buying the same coverage they have today in the individual market will see premiums fall by 14 to 20 percent compared to what they would pay without health insurance reform and by as much as 3% for those who get coverage through their employers.
• The Small Business Health Care Tax Credit can cover up to 35 percent of the premiums a small business pays to cover its workers. In 2014, the rate will increase to 50 percent
• Reduces out-of-pocket expenses so insurance doesn’t still leave families holding the bag
• Bans lifetime limits on coverage

As President Obama spoke about the new health care reform he said “We are going to have to make some adjustments along the way.” This means that we have to get the facts straight, and educate ourselves on how we can take advantage of all the incentives in place as a result of the new bill.

To get more information about the health care bill and to read more about the tax cuts for the middle class, visit www.whitehouse.gov.

Source:

Pfeiffer, Dan. “Health Reform and the Recovery Act: Unprecedented Tax Cuts for the Middle Class.” The White House. 13 Apr. 2010. Web. 21 Apr. 2010. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/04/13/health-reform-and-recovery-act-unprecedented-tax-cuts-middle-class>.

President Obama recently announced another overhaul to the health care proposal that incorporates previously rejected Republican ideas.  Does this mean that we could be one step closer to an approved health care reform?  Here are the GOP ideas, recently added to the proposal.

Fight fraud and abuse. Republicans have been pushing for background checks on billing agencies, insurance companies and individuals to help prevent fraud and abuse in the health care industry. Obama now proposes that random undercover investigations of health care providers take place on a regular basis.   It has been documented that fraud and abuse wastes billions of tax payer dollars each year.

Control malpractice lawsuits. Republicans wanted a push to end ‘junk lawsuits’.  Obama is now a supporter of this idea and will is appropriate $50 million to help states find alternate resolutions to costly medical malpractice disputes.  Part of the money would develop and manage a health court system.

Increase Medicaid.  Obama plans to increase Medicaid reimbursements to doctors, an idea originally supported by Republicans. Obama’s plan eliminates the controversial Nebraska proposal which exempts that state from paying increased Medicaid expenses. It also provides additional federal financing to all 50 states for the Medicaid expansion.

Close the donut hole.  Obama’s newest proposal closes the Medicare prescription drug ‘donut hole’.  Under current Medicare limits, seniors are covered until they reach the $2,830 limit.  At that time, they must pay all additional costs out of pocket until they reach $4,550, at which point Medicare coverage kicks back in.  Obama’s proposal provides a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who reach the $2,830 limit in 2010. The plan slowly closes the donut hole over the next 10 years.

Health care exchange plans.  Republicans were concerned about ensuring that Health Savings Accounts are included in the health care exchange program.  Obama is now considering including language that guarantees that high deductible health plans are offered in the health exchange. “The GOP plan creates new incentives to save for current and future health care needs by allowing qualified participants to use HSA funds to pay premiums for high deductible health insurance,” according to official GOP website, gop.gov.

SOURCE:  http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/03/health.care.gop.ideas/index.html

SOURCE: http://www.gop.gov/

The panic has subsided, the scary headlines are gone.  If you’ve wanted the flu vaccine you probably received it by now.  Even though the media coverage has disappeared, the swine flu is still out there, and it’s still killing Americans. 

Here are the facts:

The swine flu has already infected over 50 million Americans, killing over 10,000. 

H1N1 has infected over 15% of the total population of the United States since April.

250,000 Americans have been hospitalized from H1N1

7,500 adults ages 18 to 64 have died of H1N1

1,000 children under age 18 have died of H1N1

This latest assessment of the H1N1 epidemic gives the most accurate, up to date numbers as provided by the government.

Another surprising statistic:  in a typical year, 95% of overall deaths are in people 65 and older.  So far this year, 95% of deaths have been in people younger than age 95.

Although it appears as though the swine flu is waning (just 25 states report widespread activity down from 48 states one month ago) the virus remains highly infectious and could come back even stronger.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention is worried that since the media coverage has subsided, the general public will not make hygiene a priority.  The CDC wants to make it clear that the best way to prevent the spread of the flu virus is to wash your hands often, avoid touching your mouth, nose and eyes and get the flu vaccine as soon as possible. 

SOURCE:  USA Today 12.11.2009

We have seen a marked increase in calls relating to COBRA in the last two weeks. There is much confusion in the market and increasingly so as the first wave of COBRA subsidies expire.

The general trend is that people are not aware of their options, or the existence of viable alternatives. In our opinion COBRA has never been the universal fix that some make it out to be. It is expensive, especially when there is not subsidy attached, and it is not flexible enough to meet individuals’ needs and circumstances.

It is not only the consumers that are hit by COBRA’s inefficiencies: some Health Insurance providers are also feeling the effects. An example of this can be found in Anthem Blue Cross’s decision no longer to pay brokers commission on new state or federal COBRA enrollees, effective February 2010.  They cite the surging cost of care associated with Cobra enrollees.

Getting the right Health Insurance plan for you, your needs and your resources needs planning and an understanding of your options. HealthCompare.com is happy to guide you through the process.

Take a look at our COBRA alternatives online or contact one of our trained advisors on 1 888 320-1290 who can take you through your options and help you find the right plan for you.

Tori Rasmussen, Broker Services Representative from HealthCompare, is a contributing writer for iHealth360.

HealthCompare.com, a Word & Brown company is based in Orange, CA.  Through HealthCompare.com, individuals and families can receive free health insurance quotes as well as research, compare and purchase health insurance and ancillary products from the nation’s premier insurance carriers. HealthCompare works with 150 insurance carriers with 14,000 plans and currently offers health insurance quotes and services to 38 states and adding new states each month, throughout the country. You can find them on Twitter and Facebook.

Abortion has been a topic of controversy between religion and politics for decades.  With the recent passing of the new health care bill, we find that once again, the topic is making headlines. 

The issue that is bringing new drama to the White House is the language concerning abortion in the health care bill.  Under the House bill, people would be permitted to buy supplemental coverage for abortions with their own money.

Abortion rights supporters are furious.  Abortion groups have called the idea discriminatory and preposterous, arguing that women would never plan ahead for an abortion.  They are demanding that the legislation that was recently passed by the House of Representatives be changed.  They go further to point out that healthcare would be restricted regarding women’s reproductive health.  To show their support, 90 House Democrats opposed to the amended abortion language wrote a letter to President Obama last week.

Religious leaders have been split over the issue of medical abortion coverage. Members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, an organization comprised of representatives of progressive Catholic, Protestant and Jewish groups, will hold a news conference calling on the Senate to alter language in the House bill that places explicit restrictions on federal funding for abortion. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pushed successfully to amend the House bill to prohibit abortion coverage in a government-run health insurance plan, as well as in private plans that accept anyone using government subsidies to buy insurance coverage.

Over the next few weeks, the issues of abortion and healthcare will be debated in the Senate, regarding the House bill and taxpayer funding of abortion.  One will expect a fiery debate, bringing many ethical issues into the equation.  We can only wait and see if the language of the House bill is amended.

SOURCE:  http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/16/health.care.abortion/index.html

 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, announced his decision to create legislation including a public insurance option allowing states to opt out.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has insisted that the House of Representatives will pass a health care reform bill including a public option. Reid’s decision is a major victory for the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

This is a somewhat controversial decision, ruffling the feathers of many officials.  An administration official went so far as to call Reid’s move “dangerous” but quickly followed by saying Reid knows his caucus better than anyone and will therefore have the support of the White House.

President Obama is “pleased that the Senate has decided to include a public option for health coverage,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a written statement.

“He supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition,” Gibbs said.

Although Obama has indicated his preference for a public option, he has not indicated that he would a veto a bill without one.

“While the public option is not a silver bullet, I believe it’s an important way to ensure competition and to level the playing field for patients with the insurance industry,” Reid said on Capitol Hill.

Polls show that a wide majority of Americans support a public option, he said. Individual states would have until 2014 to decide whether they want to opt out, he added.

Reid’s health care bill also includes a condition allowing for the creation of nonprofit health care cooperatives that would negotiate collective insurance coverage for members.

Reid backs health care public option – CNN_com.mht

With ongoing media coverage of President Obama’s pursuit to reorganize our current health care system, many positive and negative issues seem to remain in the spotlight.  However, there is at least one positive side effect that has failed to be discussed; employee productivity.

Will employee productivity rise?  Will people pursue jobs that make them happier with either universal healthcare or self-purchased healthcare?

Under our current system, talented employees that may have the skills needed to pursue other careers that match their talent are hesitant to leave their stable positions in fear of what that change would do to their current health care benefits.  Employees not only have to consider themselves, but in many cases, the health benefits offered that protect their family including their children. These employees, who should be considered as human capital, remain in stagnant positions that hinder their productivity and thus have an overall effect on the American economy.

To match the economic productivity of our counterparts, namely Asia, Europe and Canada, we must go to the source – each individual employee.  Creating a work environment that takes health care out of the possible benefits, leaving decisions based solely on skill matching and employee contentment, the employee will feel free to seek employment at an organization providing a better fit.

If given the opportunity to explore careers without regard to health care benefits and plans, many will be motivated to find careers that fit their skills.  This can only have a positive effect on each individual, each family, each organization and overall, the productivity of the American economy.

President Obama sparked one of the Nations most controversial debates in history when he told the Nation that he would be pushing through a new health care plan within a year of his inauguration. Debates have turned into full fledged battles between conservative republicans and Left wing democrats, and everyone in between. February of this year, Obama said the following:

“I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.”

– President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

With those few words, town hall meetings across the country have turned into massive outlets for Americans to voice their opinions. Social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook , and Youtube, have also helped to fuel the fire by providing an easy way for democrats and republicans alike to make their opinion known to anyone who will listen. But, with all the talk, has any action taken place? Is congress any further to finding a solution to this problem? And have we created an even bigger mess than before the health care reform talk? According to representatives at the White House in Washington D.C. (www.whitehouse.gov), people are being heard and progress has been made.

Below, is the progression of health care reform outlined by White House on whitehouse.gov:

• The President signed the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act on February 4, 2009, which provides quality health care to 11 million kids – 4 million who were previously uninsured.
• The President’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act protects health coverage for 7 million Americans who lose their jobs through a 65 percent COBRA subsidy to make coverage affordable.
• The Recovery Act also invests $19 billion in computerized medical records that will help to reduce costs and improve quality while ensuring patients’ privacy.
• The Recovery Act also provides:
  • $1 billion for prevention and wellness to improve America’s health and help to reduce health care costs;
  • $1.1 billion for research to give doctors tools to make the best treatment decisions for their patients by providing objective information on the relative benefits of treatments; and
  • $500 million for health workforce to help train the next generation of doctors and nurses.

To me, it looks like a lot of talk. But, maybe it takes a lot of talk for any major action to take place. For now, I am going to keep listening and hope that these now infamous words; “health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year,” will turn into action.

Source: (http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/health_care/)

Article Summary by: Lauren Alt, iHealth360 advocate for health reform

Putting a price on human life is a much debated issue in the health care reform battle that is raging in Washington and across the country. The term is called “rationing” and it refers to how much the government is willing to spend to protect your life, or if you are dependant on a machine to keep you breathing, rationing is how much the government will pay to keep you alive.

Take this example from the New York Times article released last week:“You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?”

At this point, the government spends more then $200 billion on health care a year. Which means that 1 in every 6 dollars spent by the government goes to our health care system – quite a hefty chunk of change already being spent on health care. President Obama has said “that America’s health care system is broken” and he is pushing for a health care plan that will spend $1 trillion dollars in its first year.  Also keep in mind that $1 trillion is a million billion and to put this in perspective:

Trillion = 1,000,000,000,000.
The country has not existed for a trillion seconds.
Western civilization has not been around a trillion seconds.
One trillion seconds ago – 31,688 years – Neanderthals stalked the plains of Europe. (tysknews.com)

Now that we’ve put the price of proposed health care reform costs into perspective lets get back to the term “rationing.” Here is another example of how the government uses rationing found in the New York Times article:

“The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old… We can accommodate that difference by calculating the number of life-years saved, rather than simply the number of lives saved. If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving her life counts as a gain of 70 life-years, whereas if a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years, then saving the 85-year-old will count as a gain of only 5 life-years.”

Although it is unethical to put a price on human life, we do it every day. According to MSNBC.com, each American is now valued at $6.9 million by the EPA. The government knows how much they are wiling to spend to keep you alive. The New York Times says rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse.

If someone asked you if you were willing to pay $54,000 to extend your life for six more months, would you?

Source: (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 )

Advocate, Lauren Head shot

Article Summary by: Lauren Alt, iHealth360 advocate for health reform

People all over the country are getting down and dirty to voice their opinion on health care reform, spending big dollars in the process and stepping on toes to make sure their voice gets heard. Campaign Media Analysis Group released an estimate saying $52 million has been spent on health care reform-related TV ads so far in 2009. Because congress has their mind set to get a healthcare plan in place by the end of the year, opposition is fighting hard to get a bill passed that’s in their favor. Nancy Pelosi just released the chamber for summer recess with instructions to be ready to answer serious questions about the proposed health care plan.

Meanwhile, town hall meetings are being disrupted across the country by people vocally expressing their discontent with the idea of government run health care. In Northern California, opponents stacked into a town hall meeting and shouted things like “This is America!” and “What’s wrong with profit?” all to get their points across. Usually the same ol’ crowd makes its way to town hall meetings, 30 to 40 people at a time. But, when there is an issue that people are passionate about, like health care, the town hall brings in over 500 people.

Its clear that people want to be head. Writers at the San Francisco Chronicle said protesters are being organized by conservative think tanks who are instructing protestors on how to effectively protest. One of the opposition groups called FreedomWorks tells protestors to “Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

These grass roots activists aren’t slipping through the cracks. The media has picked up their story and congress is watching. Nancy Pelosi was even quoted saying that the protesters were “Astroturf” – Artificial grass roots activists who are going to the extreme.

Democracy is a beautiful thing, and when people get passionate things get done. Lets just see if congress can pull through with a reasonable plan that doesn’t do more harm than good. As of right now, Obama’s plan will cost a proposed 1 TRILLION dollars. Yes, that’s trillion with a T.

Source: (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/06/MNTG194BU2.DTL)

Advocate, Lauren Head shot

Article Summary by: Lauren Alt, iHealth360 advocate for health reform