Month: March 2010

For the first time in generations, the US Congress has passed a bill reforming our nations health care system.

Historical Attempts
This lofty goal has eluded reformers ever since Teddy Roosevelt attempted it during his 1912 run for president. A national health insurance program was proposed by FDR as part of Social Security, and the effort was continued by his successor Harry Truman in the 1940s, but stiff opposition by conservatives derailed the effort. Lyndon Johnson managed to get limited reforms enacted with the passage of Medicare in 1965, although this national health insurance program is only available to those over 65 years old (and a few others in certain circumstances). Despite nearly universal support today, conservatives vehemently opposed Medicare at the time, claiming it would be the start of government takeover of the health care system. In fact, Sarah Palin almost quoted verbatim the fear mongering speech by Ronald Reagan to the AMA in 1961 that opposed the creation of Medicare.

Rep. John B. Larson (D-CT), the Chairman of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives writes that the top 10 immediate benefits of the bill will be:

Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;
Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

The health care reform expert Karoli adds:

1.Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until age 26
2.Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
3.No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
4.Free preventative care for all
5.Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
6.Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
7.The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
8.Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
9.Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment)

Moonhowlings 2nd movie discussion.

The film deals with gossip and innuendo in the setting of a Catholic school and parrish church a year after President Kennedy was killed.  Those days were far more clearly defined in terms of absolute morals and the unleashed gossip scatters in the wind and can never be totally retrieved. 

The film stars Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis, and Amy Adams

Join us.  Hopefully, Rick Bentley will be the moderator of our film discussion. 

Movie Link

Much of what we know of history, or at least fairly recent history, comes from reading old personal letters.  We know a great deal of daily life from reading old letters that people wrote about their daily lives.  While historic letters will always be preserved, personal letters are what really tell us about life. 

What will the future generations do?  There will come a time when the personal letter goes the way of the dinosaur.  People simply do not write personal letters any more except perhaps to their grandmother, if they are lucky enough to have one.  When I was a kid, one could see letter writing tapering off and the weekly phone call being made.  I can remember my parents waiting until the magic time, I believe it was 5:00 when rates dropped, to make a call to relatives.  If the call came in earlier, they thought something was wrong or that someone had died. 

The phone call has now evolved into texting and email.  Human communication has become a series of OMGs and TTFNs.  We LOL over jokes and we questions people’s whereabouts by dumb questions like RU@wk.  What was once elegant expression has degenerated into a series of grunts and other caveman like utterances. 

How will future generations learn of their past?  Electronic communications is actually a series of 1’s and 0’s.  How will these 2 digits translate into human language?  How will we know what our grandparents did after dinner, or even what they had for dinner?  How about emotions and fears and courtships.  Does anyone write a love letter now?  I have a small collection of letters from my father to my mother during WWII.  I have gotten a glimpse into this couple as a man and woman who were in love and who were apart because of circumstances beyond their control.  It is a glimpse of a young couple that most children don’t get to see.  Our parents are/were our parents, not a young couple in love. 

In my desk I have letters from old boyfriends, friends  and from my grandparents, aunts, and parents.  My children won’t have these kinds of treasures from their parents.  Their parents didn’t do such things like letter writing.  Their parents made phone calls and emailed.  Their parents did not text.

What preservation of history will future generations have that show simple day to day life?  All the video footage in the world won’t provide a glimpse of ordinary people going about their business doing ordinary things.  Letters showed us that.

This week’s open thread.

Reminder:  The movie discussion for next Monday  will be Doubt.   I will put up the thread over the weekend when people have more time.  Meryl Streep is excellent in the film.