Health stories in the news today
Washington must cut 36,000 from its basic health plan
Seattle Times health reporter Kyung Song writes in today’s paper about options state officials are considering on how to cut 36,000 enrollees from the state’s Basic Health Plan.
Currently, the plan provides health coverage to 100,000 low-income state residents, but because of the state’s revenue shortfall, the number of enrollees must be cut to 64,000.
Five options are being considered, Song writes:
”…Basic Health officials have narrowed to five the potential options for “involuntary disenrollment”: jacking up premiums; lowering the income cutoff; eliminating members based on when they enrolled — either “first in/first out” or “last in/first out” — or tossing the whole quandary into a lottery.”
To learn more
- Read Kyung Song’s article in the Seattle Times: “You’re no longer covered“.
For information and assistance concerning insurance visit:
- Children’s Health Program (for non-citizens, visitors, undocumented): http://fortress.wa.gov/dshs/maa/chip
- TRICARE (military insurance, families, retired, etc.): www.tricare.osd.mil
- Washington’s Apple Health for Kids (insurance assistance): http://fortress.wa.gov/dshs/maa/applehealth/
- Washington Basic Health (insurance assistance): www.basichealth.hca.wa.gov/understanding.shtml
- Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner: www.insurance.wa.gov
Seattle health reform marchers chant “Single payer, single payer!”
Chanting “Single payer, single payer!” demonstrators attending a “Healthcare for All in ’09″ rally in Seattle yesterday shouted down U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a liberal democrat, staff reporter Katherine Long reports in today’s Seattle Times.
Sen. Murray is a long-time advocate of health care reform but many demonstrators feel the proposals currently advancing in Congress do not go far enough and want a single-payer national health-insurance system similar to those in Canada and some European countries,
“Protesters said they were disappointed that Murray hasn’t said anything in support of the single payer option,” Ms. Long writes.
Organizers put the crowd at 3,500; Seattle police estimated 2,500.
To learn more:
- Read Katherine Long’s Seattle Times article: Thousands hit Seattle streets seeking changes to health care.
- Go to the Health Care for All Web page.
High Court to consider special-ed private education reimbursement case
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether public school systems must reimburse parents of special education students for private-school tuition, Tamar Lewin writes in today’s New York Times.
Current law allows parents to seek public financing of private education if the public school system is unable to provide the necessary special education services their children require.
6 million special-education students attend U.S. public schools, but nearly 90,000 have been placed in private programs, Lewin writes, most with their public school system’s agreement.
“But increasingly, thousands of families unilaterally enroll their learning-disabled, emotionally disabled or autistic children in private schools — often with staggeringly high tuitions — and then seek reimbursement.”
To learn more:
- Read Tamar Lewin’s article: Supreme Court to Address Meeting the Needs of Special-Education Students
Category: Child & Youth Health, Education, Health Insurance, Health-care Policy
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MILO'S PROPOSAL FOR THE COMMON GOOD
I contacted the HCA Administrator Steve Hill directly (on May 31, 2009), stating the following:
"May I suggest that a combination of lowering the
income cutoff in addition to raising the premium
payments for the current subsidized enrollees would
clearly be the most equitable approach for you to
take in your upcoming decision regarding what to do!"
and
"Further, in terms of public relations, such a
combination approach (as I propose herein) actually
can be shown to make demonstrably common sense,
as opposed to wielding the 'blunt' and 'devastating'
instruments that 'lotteries', or 'first-in', or 'last-in'
would constitute!"
.
HCA ADMINISTRATOR STEVE HILL'S RESPONSE TO MILO
Milo:
"Your email is thoughtful and you do a great job of making the case for a combination of protecting lower income members and raising premiums. I also agree with you that the clear legislative intent of this program is for low income working people."
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GOVERNOR GREGOIRE'S RESPONSE TO MILO
Dear Milo –
I received a copy of the e-mail message you sent to Health Care Authority Administrator Steve Hill. I want you to know Steve personally read your message to me as well as others at a meeting this afternoon. Before reading your e-mail, Steve introduced it as thoughtful and insightful. It was both thoughtful and insightful, and helpful. Thanks for sharing. Rest assured we will do the best we can to meet the criteria outlined in your message.
Take care. Chris
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MILO'S INTERPRETATION OF GOVERNOR GREGOIRE'S STATEMENT
I interpret the Governor's pledge (below) as an official statement
of Gubernatorial policy regarding her recommendations to Steve Hill
(as the sole decision maker) in the matter of refraining from the
disenrollment of current eligible subsidized enrollees in BHP by:
(1) Lottery; or
(2) "First-in" length of enrollment; or
(3) "Last-in" length of enrollment.
MILO'S INTERPRETATION OF GOVERNOR GREGOIRE'S STATEMENT
I interpret the Governor's pledge (below) as an official statement
of Gubernatorial policy regarding her recommendations to Steve Hill
(as the sole decision maker) in the matter of refraining from the
disenrollment of current eligible subsidized enrollees in BHP by:
(1) Lottery; or
(2) "First-in" length of enrollment; or
(3) "Last-in" length of enrollment.
HEALTH CARE AUTHORITY TO ANNOUNCE DECISION
ABOUT BHP DISENROLLMENTS ON MONDAY, JUNE 8
Will Steve Hill adhere to Basic Health's core intended mission and purpose in the process of implementing these budget cuts that, ultimately, bear our own names as the governed constituents, as well as bearing the names of our elected and appointed officials?
A failure in the decision making process to recognize the unfairness of the three proposed arbitrary disenrollment methods (regardless of any current eligible BHP enrollee's income level, or medical condition) would constitute a failure on the part of all of our consciences (the governed as well as the governors).
"Just as the titles of winners are worthless unless they are visible to others, there is a kind of anti-title that attaches to invisibility. To the degree that we are invisible we have a past that has condemned us to oblivion. It is as though we have somehow been overlooked, even forgotten, by our chosen audience. If it is the winners who are presently visible, it is the losers who are invisibly past."
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