“So how much does an x-ray cost?” my mom asked me when I called her from Urgency Care. Following an unfortunate mishaps with a dresser drawer that came loose and fell onto my foot, I decided to seek a little medical care. Waiting 24 hours to see if the swelling went down on its own, I was reluctant to go in. I have no idea how much an x-ray costs, which was why I waited to seek care.
Here’s the thing: I have medical insurance- but I have a high deductible to keep the premiums down. I’m nowhere near my max for the year so much of the cost of the quick trip to Urgency will be out of pocket. I have to be fairly hurt to invest in a doctor’s opinion, but in this case, my foot looked broken, and I didn’t want to injure it worse with carelessness. Read more
Will the real Mitt Romney please take a step forward? We know the latest Mitt Romney is much more conservative than the old one, you know; the one he left back in Massachusetts as governor.
Of course, the new, more conservative Mitt Romney was what was needed to win the Republican nomination for president. Now that Mitt has it in the bag, all he needs to do now is shake, shake, shake, that political position’s etch-a-sketch and come out smelling like a moderate. He has to do this to pull in those independents that might not like the sucking-up-to-the-Tea-Party-crowd, “severely conservative” Romney.
Romney should be warned; the American people are not idiots so they’re not going to go for this quick switch. The upcoming debates should be a perfect opportunity for the debate moderators to ask Mitt the tough questions, such as: Read more
After The United States Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, Facebook, Twitter and thousands of websites across the Internet were overwhelmed with comments. Many of those comments were about outrage and showed a great deal of anger from many Americans who think the bill is a government takeover of the health care system. They’re all wrong; it is anything but a government takeover. Read more
National Public Radio reported this morning Rep. Nancy Pelosi is wearing her lucky purple pumps today: the same ones she wore the day the Affordable Care Act was passed. In recognition of the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on the constitutionality of health care reform, her choice of footwear could be the perfect symbol for continuing expansion of health care coverage for all Americans.
As soon as I woke, I hurried to my TV and switched on MSNBC, to find out what the Supreme Court’s verdict on health care reform would be….and I was delighted. Judge Roberts broke with the conservatives on the bench to cast the fifth vote which upheld this legislative achievement. His better angels prevailed…and tens of millions of people will benefit from the basic human right of health care access. Read more
The U.S. is widely known to have the highest health care expenditures per capita in the world, and not just by a little, but by a lot. I'm not going to go into the reasons for this so much, other than to point out that how to rein in these costs has long been the proverbial political hot potato. Any attempt to limit spending or apply evidence-based guidelines to care runs into a buzz saw of criticism. Read more
When the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act passed Congress and signed into law by President Obama, you would think the mandate for all Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty, was something that came from the deep bowels of Liberalism. In fact it was originally a conservative idea and has been until Obama and a Democrat-controlled congress took it up. Read more
This week, the Supreme Court is hearing a case that can only be described as historic. Any of you out there (in the U.S. anyway; I realize that my readership is international) who have paid even a passing attention to the news can't help but avoid reporting, debate, and polemics related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which is often disparagingly referred to as "Obamacare." If the law is upheld, or even if most of the law is upheld, it will radically reshape health insurance in this country. Having spent 13 years in the trenches at cancer centers that see a high percentage of uninsured patients, I've come to the view that I hope the law is given a chance to go into full effect, because what we were doing before sure wasn't working. Read more
The NYTimes reporting suggests a 5-4 split against ACA is likely:
Justice Kennedy, along with Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. all asked questions suggesting that they had a problem with the constitutionality of the mandate requiring most Americans to buy insurance. Justice Clarence Thomas, as usual, did not ask any questions, but he is widely expected to vote to overturn the mandate.
As does CNN's Toobin's analysis: Read more
With the Supreme Court hearing arguments for the next three days on the Affordable Care Act, many commentators, including Dahlia Lithwick appear to have so much contempt for the Roberts court that they believe the issue will likely be settled on politics rather than law. Read more
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