Health Care Reform

[pegkerr]

From the Our Bodies Ourselves blog here (via @judyOBOS), quite a few very useful links: Included among them: from the New York Times, a helpful interactive graphic answers the question, "What does it do for me?" And there's a terrific analysis from the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce that demonstrates the impact health care reform will have on each and every Congressional district. For example, in my district — MN.-5 (PDF) — the bill is predicted to, among other things:

• Improve coverage for 358,000 residents with health insurance.

• Give tax credits and other assistance to up to 159,000 families and 18,400 small businesses to help them afford coverage.

• Improve Medicare for 76,000 beneficiaries, including closing the donut hole.

• Extend coverage to 40,500 uninsured residents.

• Guarantee that 9,700 residents with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage.

• Protect 900 families from bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs.

•Allow 57,000 young adults to obtain coverage on their parents’ insurance plans.

• Provide millions of dollars in new funding for 28 community health centers.

• Reduce the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and other health care providers by $101 million annually.

Comments

[john]

You know, I really want to understand the anti-HCR position...but it just seems like the arguments are this perverse Gollumesque hunching-over, stroking one's own little pile of money, shrieking "mine! my own! my precious! we earnts it, yeeeeessssss, we earnts it and the nasty poor people isn't getting any of its, no, precious, we wants it all!". And I just...for what I know to be a kind, generous and welcoming people, it's so incongruous that I just don't understand it. Klingons, man, Klingons.

[pegkerr]

Frankly, I don't get it either.

There has certainly been some very ugly talk on Capitol Hill this past week.