Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
U.S. Hispanics riled over immigrants’ healthcare exclusion
By Tim Gaynor
President Barack Obama’s signature battle to overhaul the United States’ $2.5 trillion healthcare industry to extend coverage and lower costs for Americans has met fierce opposition from Republicans.
But a move by Democrat backers to exclude 12 million illegal immigrants from buying health coverage and restrict the participation of authorized migrants has drawn the ire of U.S. Hispanics — a bloc that overwhelmingly turned out to vote for Obama in last year’s election.
Hispanic lawmakers and activists are riled by the bill pushed in the U.S. Senate by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, which denies illegal immigrants the option to buy health insurance and places a five-year wait period on legal immigrants before they can access health benefits.
“When we effectively bar the immigrant community from buying private insurance, we force them further into the shadows of our society, and we relegate them to emergency room care at the highest cost to taxpayers,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, told a conference call with reporters this week.
Obama has so far been popular with U.S. Hispanics. His backing for comprehensive immigration reform, which seeks to allow millions of illegal immigrants in good standing a chance to pay fines and become citizens, helped win him two-thirds of the Latino vote in last November’s election.
U.S. cancer case the best? It is if you can pay for it…
Angela Kegler McDowell thought she was doing everything right.
A 38-year-old small business owner, she had bought her own personal health insurance and kept paying her premiums, even as they rose from $293 a month to $804 a month.
The insurance company said it had to raise her premiums when her breast cancer came back and she was forced to undergo expensive chemotherapy.
“When the renewal came up in January, they told me I was a high risk to insure and they were dropping my insurance,” McDowell told Reuters in an interview. “Even if I had a million dollars a month to pay for insurance, I couldn’t get it.” See her on video here in a related story, young adults.
McDowell has been lobbying her members of Congress to ask them to make sure the healthcare reform plan ensures that private insurance — sure to be part of any reform package –cannot drop patients if their coverage becomes too expensive.
Plans also need to be more affordable, says McDowell, who estimates she spent $42,000 out of pocket on her 20 percent co-pays and wiped out her family’s life savings even before her insurance company dumped her.
McDowell was struggling to hold her company together, battle cancer, and fight with her health insuance company– which she doesn’t want to name because she is still negotiating to be reinstated. “It was truly more than a medical battle. It was a financial battle,” she said.
Why’s everyone claiming that Medicare [in the U.S.] doesn’t/can’t work? Everyone over the age of 65 in the U.S. is on Medicare, as I am. It works quite well, I use Kaiser HMO Senior Advantage which requires paying an extra supplement. Through my work pension, what I pay extra also includes Dental and Vision. [My family had been using Kaiser for about 40 yrs. already.] My sister has Medicare without any extra supplement. The only difference is co-pays & prescriptions cost more, and there’s some difficulty in finding doctors which will take on new Medicare patients since they get paid less per visit by Medicare than they do otherwise. My brother, a veteran, uses Tri-Care, and is able to use any doctor.I agree with the previous poster who talked about folding all U.S. citizens into the same Govt. health program that congressmen, servicemen, and presidents use.I also agree with the person who said the Pres. should take the Govt. employees’ health care away, forcing Congress to find their own insurance until they solve the Health Care problem!MF
Cancer and healthcare
The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network says one in four families affected by cancer claims to have put off or delay care in the last year because of cost. Nearly third of cancer patients in current treatment cut pills or skipped doses, in the past year, nearly one-quarter delayed a recommended cancer screening or treatment and 1 out of 5 did not fill a prescription.
Today we met a 38-year-old small business owner whose premiums went up and up as she got treatment for her second bout of breast cancer. Finally, her insurance company pulled the plug entirely — yes that is legal when someone has individual coverage — and she must now pay for all her followup care herself. She gave her members of Congress an earful…
Cancer treatments are really very expensive, something should be done to help the cancer patients.
I would like to propose an idea. Since lately the teaparty and Republican shave been bashing hispanics or all races.In addition undermining our contibutions in this country which is quite significant. We should have aday without hispanics day. A day where no hispanics goes to work. We march the street all over the country tating how impoetant we are for the mere survival of this country.In order to state the important piece we make in this country. If this tea part and Republican think thery are big and powerfull they have not seen anything yet. We own more smalol buisness we proivide an essential balnce to minoritie representation in this country our vote and voice counts. Lets think about this people this is the year we let our voices heard. Imagine and a day without hispanics in the workforce. What would happen. We are strong and smart ethinic which is very politacly inclined. Lets think about it.