AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka released the following statement on the announcement the administration is delaying employer responsibility assessments in the Affordable Care Act until 2015: (see statement after the jump).
Wonkblog's Ezra Klein published 21 charts yesterday from the International Federation of Health Plans that illustrate just how ridiculous our health care prices are in the United States.
Klein writes:
This is the fundamental fact of American health care: We pay much, much more than other countries do for the exact same things. For a detailed explanation of why, see this article . But this post isn’t about the why. It’s about the prices and the graphs.
Americans overspend $750 billion in health care each year. One-fifth of our economy enriches very few at the expense of everyone else. Labs, drug companies, medical device makers, hospital administrators and purveyors of CT scans, MRIs, canes and wheelchairs are some of the entities and people reaping the financial rewards by gaming the health care system, writes Time magazine's Steven Brill in a fascinating, in-depth look at why health care prices are just " too damn high " in Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us .
While government in Washington, D.C., remains divided and marked by long-term gridlock, governments in the states are much less divided. Of the 50 states, 37 now feature state governments where the governor and majorities in both legislative houses are controlled by one party— 24 of those are controlled by Republicans . Extreme, anti-working family Republicans have repeatedly assaulted the rights of people in recent years and, by all accounts, the trend looks to expand in 2013. Working families are mobilized and fought back in 2012 and will continue to fight in 2013. The response to the "right to work" for less push in Michigan was so strong, that governors in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have since declared that they won't push for right to work in their states.
Choosing between paying the rent, food or health insurance is a heart-wrenching decision many working people have to make. Just ask Regina Holliday , who lost her husband to cancer because they were unable to pay $1,000 a month for health care. The Affordable Care Act makes it possible for 33 million working people to obtain health care coverage. When you vote this November, take a minute to consider the Holliday's story, featured in a Families USA YouTube video . House Republicans have tried to repeal health care reform 33 times . Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, also would repeal the Affordable Care Act. View more stories from the uninsured and others benefiting from the new health care law on Families USA's YouTube channel .
Did watching Mitt Romney in last night’s presidential debate seem familiar? Haven’t we heard it all somewhere before? Yes. Mitt Romney wants to repeat the policies that caused the economic crisis that we are now recovering from because of President Obama's leadership.
What is it we’ve heard before? Tax cuts for the wealthy. Deregulate Wall Street. Dismantle Medicare. Turn health care over to private insurance companies. Privatize education.
Watch this video for more.
We did hear one thing new last night. Romney wants to fire Big Bird.
If you're curious how much more the Romney-Ryan Medicare plan will cost you, the Center for American Progress Action Fund has a new infographic which spells out exactly what you'd be paying for health care. It's not pretty. View the entire Center for American Progress Action Fund Medicare Infographic .
One of the important consumer protections of the Affordable Care Act—the health care reform law that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to repeal—is that health insurance companies must clearly tell people what their policies cover and what they don’t when it comes to treatments, services and providers.
In Texas, the withdrawal, by the state insurance commissioner, of new rules that would have helped consumers know if they were facing huge out-of-network costs when they are hospitalized shows why those protections in the Affordable Care Act are needed.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is constitutional “is only beginning of the next phase of health care reform,” said the AFL-CIO Executive Council in a statement from its August meeting in Washington, D.C., this week.
The path forward should be clear: First, we must move full speed ahead to implement the ACA; second, we must firmly reject efforts to undo the progress that already has been made with the ACA, Medicaid and Medicare; and third, we must build upon the ACA, Medicaid and Medicare to achieve our goal of quality health care for all.
House Republicans shed crocodile tears about the deficit in the same breath they cast votes for legislation like the Ryan budget plan, which asks the poor to pay for deficit reduction. The Ryan budget ends Medicare as we know it, guts low-income programs and gives millionaires another tax cut they don’t need.
As much as the GOP claims they are the party willing to tackle the deficit (mainly by gutting federal programs), the House Republicans voted 33 times to increase the deficit. That’s right: 33.
It’s been four years since low-wage workers got a raise. Sign the petition to tell Congress it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
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