Background

Friday, March 19, 2010

IMPORTANT SUNDAY


This weekend, Congress will be voting on the most important legislation in history, since Medicare and/or Social Security was passed years ago, through the COURAGE of prior Presidents. Since the insurance companies are running things in this country, paying for whatever they want in Congress, lining the pockets of many Republicans, and giving million dollar bonus's to their employees for ripping off the average American, the new Bill will make the following improvements:

* It makes health insurance affordable for middle class and small businesses—including the largest middle class tax cuts for health care in history – reducing premiums and out-of-pocket costs.
* It gives millions of Americans the same types of private insurance choices that members of Congress will have—through a new competitive health insurance market that keeps costs down.
* It holds insurance companies accountable to keep premiums down and prevent denials of care and coverage, including for pre-existing conditions.
* It improves Medicare benefits with lower prescription drug costs for those in the ‘donut hole,’ better chronic care, free preventive care, and nearly a decade more of solvency for Medicare.
* It reduces the deficit by more than $130 billion over next ten years, and by more than one trillion dollars over the following decade; reining waste, fraud and abuse; over-payments to insurance companies and by paying for quality over quantity of care.

The Bill improves on the Senate version by:

* Providing the biggest middle class tax cut for health care in history and making health insurance even more affordable for middle class families.
* Strengthening consumer protections and reining in insurance company abuses.
* Further reducing the deficit in the first and second decades. With the new changes, this bill will become the largest deficit reduction effort in more than a decade.
* Closing the gap in prescription drug coverage for seniors covered by Medicare, known as the donut hole, and extending the solvency of Medicare.
* Expanding health insurance coverage to 32 million Americans, guaranteeing that 95% of Americans will be covered.

In his recent speech in Ohio, the President said we all need COURAGE to look to the future. Like the lion in the Wizard of Oz, courage comes from within. Reach out and give someone courage; courage to do the right thing.

1 comment:

Sue's News said...

I know how fortunate we are to have health care coverage and I know how quickly we could lose it!

I am so grateful to my Senator Sherrod Brown and I attack my Representative Mr. Austria on a daily basis but he will still vote against it.

Each day I thank Lyndon Johnson and the Congress of 1965 for passing Medicare!