Posts Tagged ‘Health Insurance Louisiana’
Will Obama fail to save American capitalism from itself?
June 16th, 2010 | 
Author: Because that’s what he’s clearly trying to do, I believe.
– The financial bailout plan (following in the steps of the Bush financial bailout plan)
– temporary government takeover of the auto companies (plus big government subsidies for the auto companies)
– the half-bungled plan to reform health care insurance & make it affordable (while not allowing the government to compete with, or take over, the private insurance companies)
– even Obama’s badly timed effort to promote more offshore oil drilling, as a way of paying off the big oil companies in return for their agreeing to climate change legislation –
All of these Obama government initiatives are aimed at fixing the most self-destructive parts of this economic system, without actually turning the USA into a real socialist society where the government owns most of the economy and there are no more rich private investors.
But can Obama actually succeed in reforming capitalism, regulating it here & deregulating it there, trying to clean up its worst environmental and human disasters without actually ending the domination of American society by big money?
Can he succeed in uniting the "red states" and the "blue states" around some compromise solution that will satisfy laid-off American workers, angry Louisiana fishermen, nervous environmentalists and greedy oil oil company executives & bankers, all at once?
Or is he attempting a band-aid solution as a cure for terminal bone cancer, suggesting that nothing can be done?
Modern America is not the America of the 1950s.
The system was never designed to handle an interdependent world financial system stradled by giant multinationals.
America has shifted from being a capitalist country built on small business to one guided by giant, powerful corporations. Power has also shifted dramatically from elected officials to corporate leaders who also own most of the "free" media.
There is no easy answer on how to fix the system. But it is no longer working.
President Obama Meets with Gulf Residents
President Obama speaks after meeting with local residents at Camardelle’s Live Bait and Boiled Seafood on Grand Isle, Louisiana.
Duration : 0:10:59
Posted in Louisiana Health Insurance | 
Tags: Bob Reilly, Bobby Jindal, BP, British Petroleum, Charlie Crist, Deepwater, Florida, Grand Isle, Gulf Coast, Haley Barbour, health insurance, Health Insurance Louisiana, health insurance reform, Louisiana, Louisiana health care, Louisiana Healthcare, Louisiana Healthcare Plans, Medical Insurance, Mississippi, New Orleans, obama, oil spill, Thad Allen | 
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Anh Cao, Only GOP To Vote For Health Reform, Talks To CNN
The morning after the House passed the health care reform bill 220-215, CNN interviews one of the Congressmen who voted for the bill, Anh “Joseph” Cao from Louisiana – the only Republican to vote “yes” for the bill. Cao claims it was “a decision of conscience… to support the health care reform bill… it was the right decision for the people of my district.”
Duration : 0:7:20
Posted in Louisiana Health Insurance |
Tags: anh, barack, bill, Cao, Care, CNN, congress, conscience, conservative, criticism, decision, democrat, District, future, gop, government, health, health insurance, Health Insurance Louisiana, health insurance reform, Healthcare, Healthcare Reform, house, insurance, Interviews, Joseph, liberal, Louisiana, Louisiana health care, Louisiana Healthcare, Louisiana Healthcare Plans, medical, Medical Insurance, Nancy, news, obama, obamacare, opposed, option, party, pass, Pelosi, people, politics, president, public, reaction, reform, Representative, republican, response, Right, run, senate, sick, socialism, support, universal, voted, Washington, yes |
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Who should pay for oil spills. The oil companies or the taxpayers?
Oil tax increase would help pay to clean up spills
WASHINGTON (AP) – Responding to the massive BP oil spill, Congress is getting ready to quadruple—to 32 cents a barrel—a tax on oil used to help finance cleanups. The increase would raise nearly $11 billion over the next decade.
The tax is levied on oil produced in the U.S. or imported from foreign countries. The revenue goes to a fund managed by the Coast Guard to help pay to clean up spills in waterways, such as the Gulf of Mexico.
The tax increase is part of a larger bill that has grown into a nearly $200 billion grab bag of unfinished business that lawmakers hope to complete before Memorial Day. The key provisions are a one-year extension of about 50 popular tax breaks that expired at the end of last year, and expanded unemployment benefits, including subsidies for health insurance, through the end of the year.
The House could vote on the bill as early as Tuesday. Senate leaders hope to complete work on it before Congress goes on a weeklong break next week.
Lawmakers want to increase the current 8-cent-a-barrel tax on oil to make sure there is enough money available to respond to oil spills. At least 6 million gallons of crude have spewed into the Gulf of Mexico since a drilling rig exploded April 20 off the Louisiana coast.
President Barack Obama and congressional leaders have said they expect BP to foot the bill for the cleanup.
"Taxpayers will not pick up the tab," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday.
BP executives told Congress last week they would pay "all legitimate claims" for damages. But the government needs upfront money to respond to spills, as well as money to pay for cleanups when the responsible party is unable to pay, or is unknown. Money spent from the fund can later be recovered from the company responsible for the spill.
The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund has about $1.5 billion available. Under current law, only $1 billion can be spent from the fund on a single incident. The bill would increase the spending limit to $5 billion.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the tax increase was hastily put together, without adequate study, to help pay for an unrelated bill. The tax increase was unveiled Thursday, without any congressional hearings to study its impact.
Even with the tax increases, the bill is projected to add $134 billion to the federal budget deficit.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9FTDV7O1&show_article=1
(Yes, I know its levied on the oil companies, but who actually believes this additional tax wont be passed down from the oil companies to the consumer at the gas pump?)
Most of the people answering your question suffer from our poor government educational system, they actually believe that corporations pay taxes. For the simpletons out there all corporations do is act as a tax collector. Try and follow …I am auto company the government levies a extra billion tax on my company, I simply raise the price on each vehicle to cover the tax increase. many of you suffer from a lack of critical thinking.
Can someone explain this article for me please? Obama’s new healtcare plan?
WASHINGTON – Abortion opponents fought passage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul to the bitter end, and now that it’s the law, they’re using it to limit coverage by private insurers.
An obscure part of the law allows states to restrict abortion coverage by private plans operating in new insurance markets. Capitalizing on that language, abortion foes have succeeded in passing bans that, in some cases, go beyond federal statutes.
"We don’t consider elective abortion to be health care, so we don’t think it’s a bad thing for fewer private insurance companies to cover it," said Mary Harned, attorney for Americans United for Life, a national organization that wrote a model law for the states.
Abortion rights supporters are dismayed.
"Implementation of this reform should be about increasing access to health care and increasing choices, not taking them away," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of the Senate leadership. "Health care reform is not an excuse to take rights away from women."
Since Obama signed the legislation law March 23, Arizona and Tennessee have enacted laws restricting abortion coverage by health plans in new insurance markets, called exchanges. About 30 million people will get their coverage through exchanges, which open in 2014 to serve individuals and small businesses.
In Florida, Mississippi and Missouri, lawmakers have passed bans and sent them to their governors. Most of the states allow exceptions in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Insurers still could offer separate policies to specifically cover abortion.
Three other states may act this year — Louisiana, Ohio and Oklahoma. Overall, there are 29 states where lawmakers or public policy groups expressed serious interest, Harned said.
"You are going to see more actions like this," said Tom McClusky, a lobbyist for the socially conservative Family Research Council. "This is not something we are just going to let fall by the wayside."
Before the overhaul became law, five states had limits on private insurance coverage of abortion — Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota and Oklahoma. Abortion rights supporters are concerned that the list is growing as a result of the new federal law.
Murray had joined in voting down a federal abortion coverage ban when the Senate debated health care last year. Now she and other abortion rights supporters worry the same sorts of restrictions could spread from state to state.
"It’s really going to be a patchwork of state laws by the time these exchanges are set up," said Jessica Arons, director of women’s health at the Center for American Progress, a liberal public policy institute.
Most private health insurance plans cover abortion as a legal medical procedure, but research indicates many women opt to pay directly.
The federal law allows private insurance plans in the exchanges to cover abortion as long as they collect a separate premium. That money must remain apart from public subsidies available to help pay insurance premiums for most customers in the exchanges.
That compromise split abortion foes in Congress and around the country. Anti-abortion organizations including National Right to Life and the U.S. Catholic bishops called it a fig leaf, and continued to oppose the legislation. But Catholic hospitals and many religious orders of nuns supported it.
Abortion rights supporters were cool to the compromise, but it broke a political deadlock threatening the bill.
Anti-abortion Democrats in the House cast critical votes for the legislation after Obama also agreed to an executive order affirming long-standing federal policy against the use of taxpayer funds for abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother — known as the Hyde amendment.
Tennessee already has enacted a far stricter ban, with no exceptions. Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, who allowed it to become law without his signature, said in a statement it "creates a prohibition much broader than that found in current law and could unintentionally negatively impact the quality of health care options for Tennesseans."
All eyes are now on Florida, where Gov. Charlie Crist will decide soon whether to sign a bill that restricts abortion coverage in that state’s insurance exchange. Florida is a politically diverse state, not known as a bedrock of social conservatism. Crist is running for the U.S. Senate as an independent, after it became clear that he would lose the Republican primary to former state Rep. Marco Rubio.
Crist, who opposes abortion, has indicated he has problems with a part of the bill that would require a woman seeking an abortion to view an ultrasound of the embryo.
"Florida has always been pretty much of a middle-of-the road state," said Stephanie Kunkel, executive director of Planned Parenthood
Will this limit abortions or make it easier to get one?? I hope it limits to very limited cirumstances!
It takes a lawyer to explain the bill & then it is difficult..
It will limit who pays for the abortion, but not the abortion itself.
The objective is that people who oppose abortion not be forced to pay for it through this forced health care plan.
I sincerely hope they repeal this whole plan and start over with a new one.
P
Healthcare Reform
We support payment reform
Posted in Blue Cross of Louisiana |
Tags: affordability, Baton Rouge, BCBSLA, blue cross, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue cross louisiana, CEO mike reitz, Health care, Health Insurance Louisiana, Healthcare costs, Healthcare Reform, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Mike Reitz, New Orleans, Not for profit, On The Road, premium dollar, Shreveport |
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Tort Reform
We can improve efficiencies in the system by squeezing out some of the ineffeciencies of defensive medicine
Duration : 0:0:50
Posted in Blue Cross of Louisiana |
Tags: affordability, Baton Rouge, BCBSLA, blue cross, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue cross louisiana, CEO mike reitz, Health care, Health Insurance Louisiana, Healthcare costs, Healthcare Reform, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Mike Reitz, New Orleans, Not for profit, premium dollar, Shreveport, tort reform |
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Your Healthcare Dollar
85 percent of your healthcare premium goes to paying claims.
Duration : 0:0:50
Posted in Blue Cross of Louisiana |
Tags: affordability, Baton Rouge, BCBSLA, blue cross, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue cross louisiana, CEO mike reitz, Health care, Health Insurance Louisiana, Healthcare costs, Healthcare Dollar, Healthcare Reform, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Mike Reitz, New Orleans, Not for profit, On The Road, premium dollar, Shreveport |
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You Know Where to Find Us
Our mission is to improve the lives of Louisianians.
Duration : 0:0:49
Posted in Blue Cross of Louisiana |
Tags: affordability, Baton Rouge, BCBSLA, blue cross, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue cross louisiana, CEO mike reitz, Health care, Health Insurance Louisiana, Healthcare costs, Healthcare Reform, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Mike Reitz, New Orleans, Not for profit, premium dollar, Shreveport |
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Guaranteeing Coverage
The insurance industry has agreed to eliminate waiting periods for people with pre-existing conditions. The caveat is that everyone has to get in.
Duration : 0:1:1
Posted in Blue Cross of Louisiana |
Tags: affordability, Baton Rouge, BCBSLA, blue cross, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue cross louisiana, CEO mike reitz, Guaranteeing Coverage, Health care, Health Insurance Louisiana, Healthcare costs, Healthcare Reform, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Mike Reitz, New Orleans, Not for profit, On The Road, premium dollar, Shreveport |
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