Medical Costs and Politics

When the the supreme court heard the case about Obamacare, members of the Tea Party and people who support the bill faced off outside the Supreme Court in dueling protests. There was actually a point of agreement. I'm almost certain it was missed. Both sides think the cost of health care is too high. 


Today there were two stories that caught my attention. The first from NPR about the increasing cost of health insurance. Costs are going up while coverage is going down. The story focused on one family but, what they are experiencing is the same for many families. High deductibles and decreasing coverage. 

Health Insurance Cutbacks Squeeze The Insured


I recently got some quotes for health insurance. We need to get individual insurance . Being underemployed means we have no other option. Deductibles start at $5000 and run as high as $10,000. After that, the plans might cover 80% of the cost. There's a lot that is not covered like office visits.


In the case of the Cooper family in the NPR story, Amber Cooper needs medication for her liver transplant that cost $1000 a month. It is no longer covered. The Cooper's now pay the entire cost of the medication out of pocket.

The second story that caught my attention was in the Huffington Post by Khadeeja Safdar. Medical costs are pushing Americans into credit card debt. According to a survey by a policy center called Demos, 50% of those surveyed paid for out of pocket medical costs with credit cards.  There's more in the article:

• Health care costs rose 6% last year.
• Over 25 percent of Americans ages 16 to 64 went without health coverage for at least some part of last year.
• An ordinary family with a job based plan will pay $20,000 toward health care. That's about 40% of their income.

Right Infighting Over Health Care

Meanwhile, the gridlock in Washington will make the situation worse. According to an article in Politico Republican plans to retool the Obamacare plan as an alternative were shot down by conservatives. They want full repeal. Nothing less. Their stance? Any national health care plan is creeping socialism at its worst. According to Politico's Jake Sherman, the drive to completely repeal is led by groups like Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform to Heritage Action to Club for Growth. Any attempt at compromise is being blocked by people with very deep pockets.  

Can anything be done? Be informed. Speak up. Tell your representatives you want something positive to be done.

There are groups that can help. One is called Center Politics. It's a nonpartisan political action committee.

http://www.centerpolitics.org/

You can find out more about the deceptions and confusion in US politics by going to FactCheck.org. FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. It is nonpartisan.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76471.html#ixzz1vjVExyZE

Rush to Justice

The Huffington Post has an interesting story about wrongful convictions. Michael McLaughlin reports that
The National Registry of Exoneration released a report today that says over 2000 convicted felons have been released because of DNA evidence and major discrepancies in evidence since 1989. One of the creators of the database, University of Michigan Law School professor Samuel Gross, says this is likely only the tip of the iceberg.


Perjury and false accusations are among the most common causes of bogus convictions. The most common crime is murder followed by sexual assault. 101 of those exonerationed were on death row. Gross hopes their findings can help law enforcement cut down on wrongful convictions.

Did Texas Make A Mistake in Capital Case?

There's news today that another man was wrongfully put to death in Texas. Carlos de Luna was executed for the murder of convenience store clerk, Wanda Lopez, in 1989.

Questions About Another Texas Execution

In a blog from NPR's Mark McDermott is about the de Luna's case. The Columbia Law School's Columbia Human Rights Law Review has posted on-line a 400 page multi-media report that says it was a mistake to have put Carlos de Luna to death. The report concludes the case was based on one eyewitness report and de Luna was not give adequate defense.

The lead prosecutor in the case, Steve Schiwetz, has not read the review. He told the San Antonio Express-News today that he dismisses the authors' conclusions.

When I read about these cases and the reaction of prosecutors I'm always reminded of Pete Seeger performing "What did You Learn In School Today?"

Cutting Taxes in Kansas - Dire Consequences?

John Celock is reporting in the Huffington Post that house Republicans rushed through tax cuts before the issue could be debated by more moderate Republicans in the State Senate. The end result will be sharply reduced revenues and increasing deficits. The likely end game for Governor Brownback and his very conservative cohorts in the State House will be drastic cuts in state funded programs.

Moderates are accusing the House Republicans in Kansas of political thuggery.

At risk will be state funding for non-profits. 67% of income for non-profits is earned income. Earned income includes state funded grants which get cut when budgets are tight.

The tight budget in Kansas will get tighter if the $3.7 billion tax cut is enacted.  An article in the Chicago Tribune points out the cuts in revenue will create a deficit in Kansas in excess of $712 million. KUCR is reporting a shortfall of $2.7 billion. The shortfall is projected by the Legislature's research staff to be $2.7 billion by July, 2017.

One target of the conservative's is funding for women's health issues. The tax cut bill uses misinformation to justify itself. According to the Miami Herald, "The sweeping 70-page bill approved by the Kansas House goes well beyond taxes. It includes a provision that would require physicians to inform women that an abortion poses a risk of breast cancer. The websites of the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society say studies have found no such risk."

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/08/2789089/abortion-becomes-a-tax-issue-in.html#storylink=cpy

***Updated***
Conservatives Move to Squash Debate.
There still may be room for debate.

Build Your Homebase

Build your base during the Facebook/Google+ wars

I really like this posting by Christopher S Penn. In it he reminded me of what happened to MySpace. It's pretty much a ghost town. Lot's of marketing effort went into MySpace and the efforts paid off until Facebook took over. There are already rumblings that Facebook is past its peak. Has the downward decline begun. Is Facebook (social media) the hoolahoop, or better yet, the CB radio of the early 21st century?

As far as social media is concerned probably not. Blogging was considered passe for a while. Marketers point out that it's importance is still high. Twitter was considered to be leveling off early last year. That turned out to be premature according to the stuff I'm reading. Facebook may be suffering from speculation of failure because it is so successful. It's just not as cool as it used to be among the early adopters.

This stuff all comes and goes.  Penn reminds us to take care of our home base...our content. When the next big thing comes about, we'll still have something to share. We'll still have our network.

Autistic Children Bullied - Parents Bear Costs

Children With Autism Are Often Targeted By Bullies

The story aired on NPR is not s surprise to any parent of an autistic child. What you may not know is that the parents of autistic children are left the bear the costs.

In this article the bullying endured by Abby got so bad that her mother pulled her out of school and replaced that with home schooling. Patricia Mahoney says the home schooling went well but, she understood that Abby was not getting the social skills she needed. Mahoney says the school has helped a lot.

Home schooling Abby and then finding a school that actually helps autistic children learn is a key issue. There are extra costs associated. There was an article about the cost of autism and how mothers of autism found themselves at an economic disadvantage. 

Autism Caregiving Costs Hit Mothers’ Income More

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found "Mothers of children with autism earned 56 percent less money - almost $15,000 per year - than moms of children who didn't have a health problem, and 35 percent less money -nearly $7,200 - than moms of a child with a health issue other than autism."

A few people are blessed with the resources to stay at home and afford the costs associated with caring for an autistic child. Most of us are not. The drag on family resources is significant and it affects a significant segment of the population with one out of just over 80 children in this country diagnosed as being on the Autism Spectrum.

There are places you can go for help. I'm on the board of one of those places. I serve on the board for the FOCUS Center for Autism. Another is Autism Speaks.

SuperPACs and dirty politics

Chris Weigant's article in the Huffington Post gives us a quick historical guide to dirty politics. Dirty Politics is nothing new but, it is being taken to a whole new level by the money being spent by SuperPACs. Weigant says in his article, "The only real difference in 2012 may be the sheer amount of money being spent on the outside groups. Citizens United has opened the floodgates for such money to pour into these "unofficial" campaign organizations, and they will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars before we all head off to the polls in November."

I once had a discussion with the head of NPR news about the possibility of using interns to gather news. He pointed out that in Washington everything is spun. Without professional journalists there would not be a way to discern the truth. Since then journalism has fallen on hard times. Newspapers have become shells of their former selves as they lay-off staff and in many cases just close shop. Fewer journalists are watching and, there are many who prefer that.

Planet Money had a two part series on money and politics last week. Especially revealing was the second segment where a lobbyist was pulled into a congressman's private office. He was asked about a contribution to the congressman that was late. The money was buying access.

Bill Moyers recently wrote about his efforts to get media outlets to reveal who's paying for these ads. Right now you can go to the station and look at the public file. He wants easier access to make the process more transparent. "The FCC is scheduled to vote on their proposal on April 27, and on Monday its chairman, Julius Genachowski, walked into the lion's den -- the really nice one in Las Vegas -- and addressed the NAB's annual convention. He noted that, "Using rhetoric that one writer described as 'teeth-gnashing' and 'fire-breathing,' some in the broadcast industry have elected to position themselves against technology, against transparency, and against journalism."

The negative ads are effective and have a huge influence on opinions and how we vote. Most of these ads at best promote a point a view. At worst they are deliberately inaccurate.