As time has gone on, readers, I have come to realize the Boston Globe is a terrible newspaper. The omissions, obfuscations, lies, and distortions are so tremendous it is overwhelming.
Maybe I should downshift in costs and purchase a local instead.
"Toughest Test Coming up for Health Care Overhaul; Senate committee that's choke point on health care bill is next battle for divided Democrats" by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar Associated Press
.... The 23-member panel is a microcosm of the Senate, the narrow gate through which legislation to cover the uninsured and try to control medical costs has to pass. If the committee can't produce, then the ability of Obama and the Democrats to pass a bill this year will be seriously questioned....
Senators have readied more than 560 amendments. The Baucus plan would require all Americans to carry health insurance or pay a stiff fine....
The plan would be paid for with cuts in Medicare and Medicaid spending, as well as a heavy tax on high-cost health insurance plans. Baucus would not create a government plan to compete with private insurers. And workers at larger companies that offer coverage wouldn't see big changes.
Unless companies find it cheaper to dump 'em: Big Business Benefits From Mass. Health Plan
While business and health industry groups generally have said good things about the proposal, core Democratic constituencies are angry.
Unions see the insurance tax as a direct threat to hard-won benefits. Liberals are outraged by the absence of a government insurance plan. There's widespread concern that Baucus' subsidies are too meager and will stick hard-pressed households with thousands of dollars in new insurance bills....
Related: National Health Care: Liberals Left in the Waiting Room
That's why Democratic leaders and major interest groups backing a health care overhaul are urging the committee to pass a bill now — and try to work out problems later....
That's how MASSACHUSETTS got into trouble!!!
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And this issue is TOTALLY UNADDRESSED?
MIAMI -- The aging of baby boomers has heightened awareness of the long-term care issue.....
Gillian Lloyd's parents did everything right: They saved compulsively for their retirement and brought aides into their home when they needed help. Yet they still face impossible questions of how to continue paying for care in their final years.
"It's an absolute quagmire," said Lloyd, a 53-year-old school administrator who is managing her parents' care and fearful there isn't enough money to pay for it. "I feel like I'm in an untenable situation."
Even as the health care debate rages in Washington, scant attention has been given to providing long-term care for the elderly and disabled. While lawmakers struggle to come up with a plan, millions of stressed families are being driven into poverty, and state and federal budgets are being stretched to their limits.
Related: Mass. Budget Mess
Yup, BANKS, CORPORATIONS, and WAR-LOOTERS can have TRILLIONS, but when it comes to PEOPLE -- pfffffft!
Lloyd's parents have burned through nearly all the half-million dollars they have in savings paying aides $24 an hour, 19 hours a day. When the money is gone, she doesn't know what to do with her 84-year-old mother, who is mentally acute but physically plagued by Parkinson's disease, and her 85-year-old father, who is physically well but suffering from dementia.
"I was surprised at how financially strapped you had to be in order to get help," Lloyd said.
Yeah, and you NEVER KNOW THAT until you get there!
But, I LIKE MY INSURANCE says the person who HAS NEVER HAD TO USE IT!!!!
For all the warm words President Barack Obama has said about Ted Kennedy, he has remained largely silent on a long-term care plan - one of the pieces the late senator saw as key to an overhaul bill. Such a plan is included in the bill Kennedy's health committee wrote but is not regarded as a must-have component.
Yeah, the only must-have component is the tax.
Also see: A Healthy Democracy
A Healthy Insult For the American People
However, the provision could make the bill more palatable to seniors who have reservations about the overhaul.
Howard Gleckman, a researcher at the Urban Institute who is author of "Caring for Our Parents.": "The other Democrats in the Senate don't seem very enthusiastic about it. The Obama administration doesn't seem very enthusiastic about it, and it just seems to be one of those issues where everybody says, 'Yeah, we've got to deal with it, but we're not going to deal with it now.'"
That is for YOU to deal with, American -- as the system BREAKS YOU and TAKES ALL YOUR HARD-EARNED MONEY over ALL THOSE YEARS!! Too bad you are not a bank; then you would get a bailout.
Kennedy's bill included the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, known as the CLASS Act, which would allow Americans to buy long-term care insurance from the government for around $65 a month. Students and younger workers would pay far less, around $5 monthly. In return, they'd qualify for a cash benefit when such care is needed.
Nobody sees CLASS Act as solving the entire long-term care crisis. But it would address an issue that has vexed policymakers and caregivers for decades and mark the first time the government provided nursing homes, in-home aides and other care for the masses. Many wrongly believe Medicare covers long-term stays in nursing homes and other such services, but only the country's poorest qualify under Medicaid. Diabetics who endure amputations and can't live alone, Alzheimer's patients who need round-the-clock care, and those who suffer strokes and can no longer navigate their home alone are among those faced with tough care choices.
But we have TRILLIONS for WARS, BANKS, etc.
The numbers on the issue are telling: Nearly 70 percent of all 65-year-olds will need some long-term care before they die. An estimated $160 billion is spent on such services each year, not counting all the unpaid hours family members care for a loved one. Most paid long-term care currently comes through Medicaid, and with costs ballooning, officials say it's unsustainable.
Bobbie Winter, a 66-year-old social worker from Des Plaines, Ill., learned the hard truth of long-term care when she assumed care of her aunt, Helen Newman.
Newman had spent around $100,000 in assets paying for her care over the past several years. Medicare covered the first 90 days of a stay in a nursing home after she broke her hip earlier this year, but on the final day, the nursing home told Winter she needed to pay $8,700 to cover the next month. Nobody had the money but Newman still needed nursing home care.
She died the next day, practically penniless.
"The few assets she had left went toward the funeral and her gravestone and a few outstanding bills," said Winter. "She didn't even have jewelry to leave."
What is so odd about that is I have a funeral to attend today.
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And check this out: you have NO RIGHT to COMPARE COSTS!
Then HOW WE GOING TO "SHOP" for HEALTHCARE, huh?
"Health care marketplace thrives on secret prices"
CHICAGO (AP) - Until now, the push for price transparency hasn't played much of a role in the national debate over health care reform....
Elizabeth McGlynn, associate director of Rand Health, a nonpartisan research program, said it's also not clear that provisions in the Baucus bill would offer useful information for consumers:
"Health reform may offer an opportunity for that agenda to be pushed forward on a broader scale than it would be otherwise. One of the biggest challenges people face is getting access to information that makes them smart shoppers."
Why would that be such a problem when it comes to HEALTH?!
Is it a "national security" issue?
And we DON'T WANT to SHOP for INSURANCE, we JUST WANT HEALTH CARE to BE THERE!
Finding out how much a medical procedure costs is more difficult and mysterious than buying a new car. With a new car, there's a sticker price. With health care, there's no starting line for haggling. The dealmaking happens behind closed doors long before patients get involved. Insurance companies make agreements with hospitals and doctors about what they will pay for knee surgeries, tonsillectomies and hernia repairs.
Related:
Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
Massachusetts Health Care Takes a Seat on the S***ter
Going to need a hospital stay for that gouging, Bay-Stater!
For the uninsured, the hospital and doctors charge more -- sometimes much more -- than what they charge insurance companies. Medicare, the government plan for people 65 and older, sets its own rates, generally lower than what commercial insurance is able to negotiate.
"The pricing model is ridiculous," said Brad Myers, who helped found Pensacola, Fla.-based NewChoiceHealth Inc., an online tool for consumers who want to compare prices in health care. The site is based on estimates derived from Medicare data....
Translation: You are getting SO SCREWED by the health industry, America.
"The consumer might look at this and say, 'Wait a second! We're getting ripped off!'" said Al Prysunka, the Maine government director of the program....
Because THEY ARE!!!
Increasingly, consumers have an incentive to shop around because of high deductibles that require them to open their own wallets before insurance kicks in. A growing number of employers are shifting more costs to workers through these high deductible plans....
Yeah, thanks for the help, boss man.
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