I was very ill yesterday with a flare up of my auto-immune disorder and spent most of the day in bed. Then last night my wife was taken to the emergency room with chest pain and a fever where it was discovered that she has bronchitis. So I guess I missed all the hullabaloo about the HCR bill passing.
I would still have preferred a public option which would have likely been cheaper than my current crap insurance, but all things considered you take what you can get and hope that it will help people who have lost their health care insurance or may lose their health care insurance.
It’s funny because yesterday while in bed a I received a call from a friend in Canada about the difference in their system versus ours. We discussed a mutual friend in the US with the same severe medical condition from which she suffers (I am withholding info about the specific illness out of respect for their privacy).
Our mutual American friend is uninsured and cannot afford the latest medications for his condition. Instead he must either take decades old generic medications because they are cheaper and the only ones he can afford. These meds have severe and permanently debilitating side effects that are well known. However, without insurance that is all he has available to him. He can take them or choose to forego this grossly inadequate treatment for his condition. He has chosen the latter course and takes no medications rather than risk further damage to his body.
She on the other hand is prescribed the latest medications for the very same chronic illness which are much better and safer. Under the Canadian health care system she incurs no extra cost for receiving the best available medication for her illness.
So celebrate the HCR reform bill, but remember this: we have a very long way to go before we in this country are guaranteed the same level of health care for all that exists in other developed nations. Many of us are still subject to the whims of insurance companies who still often have the right under American law (i.e., ERISA) to deny necessary treatments which your doctor considers the best course of treatment for you so long as those insurance companies are deemed to not have acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying your claim. The “timely grievance and appeals mechanisms” for health care claim denials in the legislation are not necessarily going to change the review of claims denials in any significant manner because it does not repeal the provisions of ERISA law that allow insurance companies to deny claims based on an arbitrary and capricious standard of review.
We are still far from from obtaining the same health care benefits and rights (unless we can self insure ourselves because we are rich enough to do so, or have insurance plans not subject to ERISA) that other developed countries routinely provide to their citizens. This was a only a very small victory obtained after great effort. Whether it will lead to further victories and even better health care than this bill offers for all Americans is far from certain.
I hope you and your wife are feeling better soon.
Would Medicare be able to provide you with better service, versus the insurance with which you’re currently stuck?
Would be interesting to know if any of the HCR that just passed would preclude (or preferably still enable) HR 4789 from being enactable?
Steven D, I’m sorry for your troubles, and hope you and your wife both return to health quickly.
I agree with your larger point that there is more work to be done—on health care reform, and other issues as well.
I disagree with your assessment that “this was only a very small victory obtained after great effort”. Rather, this was a great victory obtained after great effort.
Why is it important to recognize this achievement as a great (though flawed, as all victories are) victory? Because for people to work for change they must have hope that change is possible. Hopeless, despairing people do not work for change; they merely (at best) endure their oppression.
Years ago, Michael Walzer wrote a terrific little book titled “Exodus and Revolution”. Wherever we are, says Walzer, it is probably Egypt. Despite what Pharoah says, there is for us a Promised Land. The only way we can get there is to start walking, together.
As we’re walking through the desert, we need to remind ourselves of our history, and of the great victories we have won that have brought us this far on our journey. (Pharoah would prefer we remember how wonderful life was back in Egypt.)
We may be painfully aware of how flawed this health care legislation is, but by recognizing it as the great victory it is, we help create the possibility of future, and greater victories.
I’m sorry but without a public option this is a small victory. It helps, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. And Democrats who refused to support a public option are likely to go down to defeat in November for passing this bill. A public option may still be in the cards someday, but it likely won’t have a chance of passing for years now.
Indeed, I’m still waiting to see what it really means. There is hope for my husband and me in the national high-risk pool for the uninsured with pre-existing conditions. This is supposed to be set up within 6 months of enactment. But… it is also expected to be expensive. I still don’t know if we will be able to afford it. We have to wait and see if it helps us or if it is a brass ring out of our reach.
There are few kinds of concern trolling more annoying than this kind.
Nobody is cocky. Nobody thinks we’re done. Everybody wishes we had a good public option or better, single payer. Everyone knows the fight continues.
Let people have a nice night – or (gasp!) even a day. Sheesh.
I couldn’t agree more sherifffruitfly. It hasn’t been 24 hours since the historic vote and we are being warned not to get cocky. What’s up with that? I have been hanging on by a thread with my stomach in knots for over six months. The agony was the worst during the August 2009 town hall meetings. It’s been a rough ride with a razor thin vote.
Last night was glorious and I am still beaming. I have been sobbing and crying like a baby over this. Being cocky is the futhest thing from my mind. I am grateful and I realize that this is our foot in the door and there is more work to be done.
One of my favorite lines from President Obama regarding healthcare reform is: If not now, WHEN? If not us, WHO?
Seriously, I have no use for people who can’t take a moment to celebrate the big steps forward this bill represents. I agree that obviously there is still plenty of work to be done, but this is a VICTORY for the people government is supposed to protect: the least fortunate among us.
I sincerely hope that Steven and those he knows regain their full health, and that the injustices they continue to suffer under the current system are remedied as soon as possible. But maybe he should think twice before pissing on the excitement of so many who can see the concrete ways in which this bill will help lots of people who really, really need it.
See this comment. I have no use for people who always look through rose colored glasses and then slam those of us who point out the flaws with what was passed. I don’t deny it took am lot of effort. I don’t deny a better bill was politically difficult. However, I also know that we were promised a public option and that promise was not met.
A public option would have cut more costs, added more competition and provided better care to more people.
So, I repeat, take your “I have no use for people” like me comments and shove it.
I ask you to take the anger down a notch and respond to the substance of the comments on your post. I can see this is an emotional issue for you, as it is for many Americans, myself included. That why I made sure to express my sincere sympathy/empathy for you and yours.
I think it’s just as incorrect to ignore the good that this bill does as it is to ignore the ill that it may cause and the issues it leaves unaddressed. I’m not sure I quite “slammed” you, I’m just disappointed that people who wanted more from HCR still can’t celebrate for a moment the accomplishments that the bill contains.
I think you’re a very smart person and I generally love your posts. But I was really dismayed at your lack of desire to savor, even for a moment, a bill that does so much good for so many people. I don’t disagree about it’s shortcomings! But before the important work of fixing the bill begins, can’t you savor the victory for a moment?
The fact that this bill is far from perfect and must be a work in progress emphatically does not erase the many many good things it does for millions of people effective immediately, and the many many good things it will do over the next couple of decades.
I look forward to joining you in demanding that the bill be improved, built upon, and that its protections be extended to all. I too support a Public Option, and will continue to work towards single payer. But I am, for the moment, thinking of all the people who will be helped. In the interest of not being miserable, it’s nice to focus on things like that sometimes.
Don’t call me a concern troll next time. I wrote a post here the other day urging the passage of this bill so I don’t deserve that sort of knee jerk reaction.
One can appreciate the good things without becoming blinded to the flaws in the legislation.
Here and here also.
Sorry, I just realized it wasn’t you who called me a concern troll. That term however should be reserved for Republicans and conservatives here, not fellow liberals and progressives, however. My apologies for confusing you with the first commenter.
No worries Steven, accidents happen! I disagree with throwing around the “concern troll” epithet as well.
I just hope you can see that I’m not blinded or wearing rose-colored glasses; I’m aware of all the problems with the bill and the urgent need to improve upon it, as you are. So we’ll continue to work towards a system truly worthy of the people of this nation!
Get better soon.
Well too fricking bad. Tell that to the people who need treatments which are being denied, treatments available in every other developed country as part of the health care system.
In fact, tell that to me who has been denied health care treatments that likely would greatly alleviate my condition.
Tell that to my wife who was treated with an older off patent older chemo drug that ruined her cognitive functioning because it was cheaper, a drug that researchers have shown causes brain damage.
Tell that to every person whose claims will continue to be denied under plans subject to ERISA. Like mine. Like many of my friends.
So go take your concern trolling label and shove it.
Everyone from Ezra Klein on down believes that one of the key ways to control costs is to prevent people from receiving all possible care. That is, expensive cutting edge treatments. The difference is that they want effectiveness but the mamogram stuff really brings to light what is going on. According to science, it does no good to have a mamogram before age 50 statistically. But there was a huge outcry when it was suggested and people refused because it is in inevitable that a few will develop cancer in their 40s that could have been prevented with a mamogram.
So basically denying the latest treatments is the only way to cost control. It’s different than the situation you describe (probably) but the point remains.
The “only way to cost control (sic)”? How can you say that with a straight face? I think some people need to do a little more thinking before they speak.
Why do you think all the wonks supported the excise tax? It was the best way to deter people from seeking the latest most expensive treatments to the exclusion of the rest.
I see what you’re saying, but I disagree with your analysis. Agree to disagree.
This is a PR victory for the democrats but the misery continues unabated for many people, including myself, and including victims of ERISA and the many other loopholes that the senate has created for their corporate masters.
Obama will benefit politically from this, but the bottom line is many of us are still COMPLETELY FUCKED until 2014 at the very earliest.
It’s not yes WE did, it’s yes HE did, leaving us behind in bait & switch hell.
Once again, a person whose life isn’t instantly fixed by this bill is completely dismissing the positive effects for millions of people.
I’m sympathetic to your situation, and I realize that there is much more work to be done. In the meantime, educate yourself on the immediate benefits:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/22/the-top-18-immediate-effe_n_508315.html
the fact that this law now changes the paradigm, shifts the overton window…however one chooses to express it…should not be lost.
l agree, it coulda, woulda, shoulda have been better and it needs to be built upon, and it still leaves a lot of people in precarious positions. which l am painfully aware of on a personal level. hence, l have a great deal of sympathy for steven’s perspective.
still, however, as a comment in robert reich’s essay at TPM pointed out, we need to be aware that single payer systems, like canada’s, didn’t happen overnight: It took over forty years to get all the pieces of the puzzle into place in Canada.
as this essay at slate points out:
let’s take a moment to celebrate having taken the first step on a long journey, shall we. then we can get on with the business of strengthening the benefits.
I agree completely. It’s like hiking, isn’t it? You make your way up the mountain, it’s strenuous. But you have to take a moment every now and again to appreciate the view!
Reconnecting with what’s RIGHT with things re-energizes us for the rest of the hard climb ahead. We take a few moments to savor things, and we get right back to the hard task of perfecting the Great Work.
Hi Steve – I too suffer from an auto immune disease, so even though I am lucky enough to live in California and qualify for their decent high risk pool under HIPAA, I’ve been watching and pushing for health care reform like a hawk for years. A lot of my friends haven’t, though, and are only now paying attention to what has been passed. I was thrown last night when a good friend, who, like my children is insured by Anthem Blue Cross and will be getting those 40% rate increases in two months, asked “So this means our premiums will stop going up?” Of course it means nothing of the sort. I’m afraid that when people discover that although some provisions of the bill will address the most egregious abuses of the industry quickly, the thing that affects the vast majority – how much insurance costs – will not change for years, if at all. So I had rain on my celebratory parade pretty quickly, and I am firmly in your camp – we all know, it is a start, but don’t do what so many did after Obama was elected and check out; much work remains. We still need to work for a public option.