Health Care Insurance

Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O'Fallon) says you're a bad person if you think the uninsured contribute to higher health care costs for individuals and families with insurance.  From her weekly newsletter, as posted by The Turner Report:

Blaming the uninsured for driving up the cost of healthcare is just as prejudiced as blaming any other group of people merely by social, economic affiliation skin color [sic] or hair styles. Those with no insurance who pay their bills in a timely manner are likely to pay their medical bills in a timelier manner than the insurance companies. Our enemy is not the uninsured. Our problems are created by artificially inflated prices, minimal disclosure and a lack of incentive to shop for the most affordable medical care.

Sen. Dan Clemens (R-Marshfield) and Sen. Jason Crowell (R-Cape Girardeau) aren't sure they can support legislation proposed by their colleague, Sen. Norma Champion (R-Springfield).  She wants to prohibit insurance companies from selling Medicare products by cold-calling seniors, and adopt guidelines established by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Are Clemens and Crowell concerned about the legislation because they think seniors can be better protected with another plan?  Or that seniors ought to hear more from telemarketers?  Nope. Are they concerned that the insurance companies don't like the proposal?  Nope -- insurance companies like the idea of consistent rules from the state and federal governments.

Clemens and Crowell concerned are just not sure they can support a bill that would create rules that happen to have been recommended by federal agencies.  As quoted in the News-Leader:

• Clemens: "It makes me nervous because I don't want to get aligned with the feds whatsoever."
• Crowell: "Just as a philosophy, I have a problem with basically incorporating what the federal government does."

A new story from KY3's Dave Catanese has an fascinating quote from Speaker Ron Richard's spokesperson on why House leaders refused to allow a vote on autism legislation last year.

"Ron just didn't have the votes [last year]," said Richard spokeswoman Kristen Blanchard. "Publicly legislators were telling people they'd vote for it, but behind closed doors they were saying they couldn't. The Speaker wants everyone to be able to have their input on the bill," she added.

So the Speaker's spokesperson is asking us to believe a significant portion of the GOP caucus was lying to the public about supporting the bill?  Nice! 

Catanese doesn't challenge the assertion from Richard's office in his article, except to weakly state that "some blamed the House for failing." 

Politico's Glenn Thrush:

Thomson Reuters has conducted a huge survey of Americans attitudes towards health care reform and found that an eye-popping 57 percent of independents favor a public option -- with 60 percent of all those polled saying they favored the controversial provision...

Broken down by party, 86% of Democrats support the public option versus 57% of Independents and 33% of Republicans.

Scrambling to convince the public that he's actually interested in substantive autism insurance legislation, Speaker Ron Richard tried to get a jump on the issue today:

Richard, a Republican, today touted a bill [HB 1311] filed by Rep. Dwight Scharnhorst, R-St. Louis, in a phone conference call that was hastily announced. Richard’s spokeswoman said the bill will get a quick committee hearing.

Richard's newfound interest in the subject is more than a little suspect, of course given his role in killing legislation supported by a broad bipartisan majority last session. Richard has been called out by members of both parties for his work on behalf of insurance companies instead of struggling families.

Here's a pretty incredible constitutional amendment, introduced yesterday by Sen. Luann Ridgeway (R-Clay County).  She wants to disqualify any political subdivision from receiving state funds if they choose to participate in a still-undefined-federal-public option.

SJR 23 - Prohibits a political subdivision from receiving state funding if it provides health insurance to its employees through a public health insurance option plan

A new article in The New England Journal of Medicine makes a powerful argument for real change in our health care system to dramatically reduce the number of uninsured. Sadly, the House Republicans' health care plan would actually increase the number uninsured (while doing nothing to stop discrimination because of pre-existing conditions), and both Senate and House Republicans are now united in their efforts to block any meaningful reform this year (or next).

The full article is definitely worth a read, but the following passage really stands out:

Coverage matters. On average, uninsured Americans get about half the preventive services and medical care that insured Americans receive. Studies have shown that uninsured people with cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, and other conditions are more likely to have poor health and to die prematurely than similar people with coverage. Existing safety-net services are insufficient to overcome the gap between those who have health insurance and those who do not.

The economic consequences of a lack of insurance are equally grim. If even one family member lacks coverage, the entire family is exposed to the financial burden of severe illness or injury. In 2009, 20% of uninsured adults used up all or most of their savings paying medical bills.

A short dispatch from The Star's Steve Kraske, posted here in full:

How false stories get spread

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, a Republican, tweeted today that President Obama told ABC that jail time is appropriate punishment for not buying health insurance.

Except that Obama didn't say that.

The Lieutenant Governor could do himself a favor by setting Twitter aside for a few days/months/years.

This tweet from the News-Leader's Chad Livengood about the House Democrats' health care bill got my heart racing yesterday:

Under House health care bill, failure to buy insurance will become a felony w/ 5-year jail time: http://tinyurl.com/ykhk3k3

This makes about as much sense as saying there are new criminal penalties in Missouri for yoga instructors, or that having a job is a crime in America because you have to pay income taxes.

It actually increases the number of uninsured. How cool is that? 

Americans United for Change has a last-minute ad up today slamming the GOP health bill, two days before the House is expected for vote on the Democratic proposal.  

The American Prospect's Tim Fenholz: 

[House] Republicans have finally released their alternative health-care bill, and it is a doozy that essentially does ... nothing. It doesn't even deal with the problem of "pre-existing conditions," which numerous Republicans believe is a necessary reform. Nor would it expand health insurance coverage to people who don't have it. It will, in fact, make existing insurance coverage [worse] by gutting regulation.

Despite commitments to the contrary, GOP Leader John Boehner told reporters yesterday the House Republicans' health care bill will not prevent insurance providers from barring clients based on pre-existing conditions.  

In June, Roy Blunt's #1 principle for Republicans' "commonsense reforms" was to make affordable coverage available to everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions. He wrote:

The House Republican Health Care Solutions Group has been working for months on a plan... This process has resulted in the broad outline of a health care reform plan that the solutions group hopes will receive bipartisan support. The health care reforms outlined are designed to:

1. Make quality health care coverage affordable and accessible for every American, regardless of pre-existing health conditions.

A batch of dated MOGOP press releases appeared in my RSS reader last night, so I'm a little slow on this -- but the headline in this press release from last week has me scratching my head: "On This Week, McCaskill promises unpopular public option."

What are they talking about?  While support for specific proposals in Congress is somewhat lower -- the idea of a public option to compete with private insurance companies is undeniably popular.  In fact, it's actually growing more popular with time. Here's a chart of data from Washington Post-ABC News polling over the last few months.