Democrat warns of cut to health-care safety net in state budget
At a news conference in Richmond this morning, Del. Bob Brink (D-Arlington), member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Joint Commission on Health Care, outlined the eroding support for vital safety net services in Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposed budget. Nearly $5.4 million in aid to various programs is on the chopping block.
“Gov. McDonnell’s budget would slash funding for the health care safety net by 50%,” said Del. Brink. “It literally would rip the safety net in half.” Continue reading “Democrat warns of cut to health-care safety net in state budget” »
Virginia Organizing calls on GA to move forward with health-benefits exchange
Several pieces of legislation on the creation of a Virginia Health Benefits Exchange will be considered in this year’s General Assembly session. The statewide grassroots organization Virginia Organizing is asking legislators to move forward on the creation of a consumer-friendly Health Benefits Exchange and supports several Exchange bills including: SB 383 (McEachin), HB 357 (McClellan) and HB 402 (Hope).
Health care reform advocates are concerned that Gov. Bob McDonnell has recently decided to suspend implementation of a Virginia Health Benefits Exchange in favor of waiting for a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the health care law, expected this June. The federal government will set up Exchanges for states that cannot prove by January 2013 that they are able to run their own. Continue reading “Virginia Organizing calls on GA to move forward with health-benefits exchange” »
Ken Plum: Obamacare in Virginia
President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Obamacare, into law on March 23, 2010. On the same day Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed the first lawsuit in the nation to challenge the provision in ACA that most individuals be mandated to have health insurance. Eastern District Federal Judge Henry Hudson ruled in December 2010 the individual mandate was unconstitutional because it exceeded congressional powers. The case is now before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond and is likely to go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
At the same time Virginia’s Attorney General is fighting ACA in court, Virginia’s Governor has set about implementing the new law in the Commonwealth. In a well-documented paper in The Virginia News Letter from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, Jill Hanken who is staff attorney at the Virginia Poverty Law Center argues very persuasively as the title of her article implies that “The Affordable Care Act Holds Great Promise for Virginia.” As pointed out in the article, a commission appointed by Governor McDonnell to evaluate ways to improve the state’s system of health care and to recommend ways to comply with ACA stated in its December 2010 report very frankly that “surprising to some and embarrassing to all, Virginia’s overall health system performance is actually quite mediocre. To be sure, there are excellent hospitals, physicians, health centers, and innovative health plans that are working hard to effectuate local and statewide improvement. Still, it is hard to be proud of a system in which nearly one million Virginians – and 150,000 children – lack health insurance and timely access to quality care that only it can ensure.”
Already under Obamacare, Virginians with preexisting conditions can get affordable care. Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to children with preexisting conditions affecting some 123,000 Virginia children, and in 2014 this provision will extend to adults. Young adults can stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26. Lifetime limits on new health insurance policies are prohibited. Small businesses are able to get tax credits to provide health insurance to their employees. The Commonwealth is receiving more than $50 million in federal funds to implement the new law. Billions more will come to Virginia to expand coverage under Medicaid.
Obamacare through ACA has set off some schizophrenic behavior in Virginia. On the one hand Attorney General Cuccinelli is gaining notoriety in taking on the law in court and seeking to stop it. At the same time the state is taking positive steps to implement the law and extending health insurance and medical care to thousands of Virginians who have been without them. Obamacare truly holds great promise for Virginians.
Ken Plum is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Report to governor: Virginia health-industry performance ‘mediocre,’ insurance market ‘unsustainable’
The performance of Virginia’s health industry is “actually quite mediocre.” So reports an advisory council convened by Gov. Bob McDonnell to review the health-care sector and its associated costs and benefits.
A report of the Virginia Health Reform Initiative Advisory Council issued on Monday estimates that 1 million Virginians – including 150,000 children – lack health insurance and timely access to regular medical care that access to health insurance makes possible. A key factor there: While 37 percent of employers offer health insurance to their workers, down from 48 percent 10 years ago, employers are still the single largest contributor to paying for the delivery of health-care services in the Commonwealth.
“Health care costs so much more here than in other countries that U.S. employers are having a more difficult time competing with global firms than they used to,” the report offers, along with this paradox: “An unhealthy workforce is less productive and more costly to employers than a healthy workforce, whether they provide health insurance or not.”
Other highlights from the report (link to report):
- Virginia’s overall quality of care is rated as “average,” with strengths in cardiac care, hospital care generally, and home health. Weaknesses in Virginia’s quality rankings include nursing home care, diabetes care, and maternal and child health. Virginia ranks 41st in the nation in breast cancer death rates, and 35th in infant mortality. The report notes that Virginia ranks sixth nationwide in median family income.
- While overall and hospital spending per capita are lower in Virginia than the national average, premiums are higher, and both health-care cost and premium growth in Virginia have exceeded national averages for more than a decade. Health-care cost and premium growth continue to outstrip personal income growth by two to three percentage points a year, so that both care and coverage require greater and greater sacrifice from families and employers, especially small employers.
- Virginia has some professional shortages in the health-care talent pool now that are expected to worsen over time, even without coverage expansion. Geographic maldistribution may be the larger problem than overall supply, according to the report.
- The current state of the insurance market in Virginia is rated as “unsustainable.” Many Virginians cannot afford private health insurance and are not eligible for Medicaid, and despite the best efforts of those in Virginia’s safety net, some go without needed services as a result.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
College students to mark change in health-care law
Students will gather across Virginia on Thursday to celebrate the six-month milestone of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act being signed into law. The students will be focusing on the provision that the new law extends coverage for young adults.
Starting Thursday, young adults can stay on a parent’s plan until they turn 26. Educational events will be held at the College of William and Mary, University of Virginia, University of Richmond, University of Mary Washington and Tidewater Community College (Virginia Beach and Norfolk campuses).
On Thursday, students like Rachael Johnson, age 22, a senior at Virginia Tech will now be able to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until they are 26 years old.
“My parents and I were relieved that I will be able to go back on their insurance. I aged off of my parents plan in June when I turned 22 and had to purchase a plan on the market, which gave me very little coverage for the money. Even though I have insurance, I still rely on the student health center for my care because my insurance covers very little,” said Johnson. “Now, I will be going back on my parents’ plan, which will give me one less thing to worry about while pursuing my master’s, and possibly my PhD, in clinical psychology.”
Janie Williams graduated from the University of Virginia in May and found herself kicked off of her parents’ health insurance plan. Unable to find work in her field, she has been waiting tables at a job without affordable insurance.
“I watched the health care debate particularly because I knew that I would be affected by the provision about young people staying on their parents’ insurance. I am thankful that the bill passed and that I am now back on my parents’ plan,” said Williams.
Lacey McClear of Richmond, like many college graduates, is waiting tables without insurance. She lost her insurance due to aging off her parents’ plan earlier this year. She went without insurance until going back on this week due to the new health care law.
“I would not have realized how hard it is to get insurance until I was dropped from my parents’ plan. I looked for insurance and was told I would not qualify due to pre-existing conditions,” said McClear. “I have been living my life in fear of getting sick, until this week when thankfully, I can go back on my parents’ plan.”"
The Stanley family of Virginia Beach has anxiously waited for the health care law to go into effect for their youngest daughter Amber to have coverage through their insurance. Amber is a social work student at University of North Carolina and was close to aging off her parents’ plan. Now she will be able to stay in school and not worry about health care coverage. Unfortunately the law was too late for Amber’s older sister, Amy.
Amy Stanley, age 26, now finds herself uninsured and in deep medical debt because she aged off per parents’ plan and found herself without insurance. After having an abnormal pap smear that turned up pre-cancerous cells, she was turned down by many health insurance companies on the private market due to pre-existing conditions.
“I could not afford the insurance that was available to me, and now I just go without and hope for the best. Getting healthy was the easy part of my ordeal. Dealing with insurance denials and the medical bills is the hard part,” said Stanley.
Edited by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Virginia Organizing: Taking issues to action
You’re mad as hell, and you’re not going to take it anymore. What makes America America is how we take our frustrations to action.
“The role that we play is helping citizens be able to know enough about what bothers them to be able to verbalize that to the power-brokers,” said Janice “Jay” Johnson, the chair of the Charlottesville-based Virginia Organizing, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this month.
“Citizenship is an active role, not a passive role. We’re here to support people being active in their communities,” said Johnson, who got involved in Virginia Organizing in Newport News 10 years ago because she was “looking for a way to get involved” and wanted to do more than sit around and talk and drink coffee and call that being involved.
The civic awareness and sense of civic duty that the Founders had as the cornerstones of their American experiment compete in our modern American life with work and careers and family and recreation and entertainment.
Just keeping up with the daily news can be tough, and being able to do more than yell at the TV when elected leaders do something dumb is a challenge.
“What happens is we elect people to represent us at the state and national levels and then tell them to go do their thing. But their thing isn’t necessarily the citizens’ thing,” Johnson said. “Citizens elect these people, and then they give them power. We give the power to them, and then we’re afraid to talk to them about what we really need. So then citizens feel helpless. They feel powerless to do anything. Unless they’re able to say what it is that is bothering them and they think needs to change, then they aren’t going to be listened to.”
Virginia Organizing provides people with the tools they need to empower themselves to action.
“A lot of people have things that bother them or affect them in terms of the communities they live in, but they don’t know the background of the issue or the history or what the possibility of change and what things would look like if there was change. What we do is talk with people about what they see are the issues and help them set priorities for what it is they really want to work at getting to happen and strategies for effecting change,” Johnson said.
An important part of what Virginia Organizing does is help people “find the people who can make that change,” Johnson said.
“It can be school boards, it can be state elected officials, it could be the local housing authority, it could be local businesspeople. You have to find out who your allies are,” Johnson said.
Efforts are ongoing on issues including health-care reform, financial reform and predatory lending, to name just a few of the topics that have Virginia Organizing’s attention.
Anniversaries are good times to think about what has been done to date and what will be done in the future. The future of Virginia Organizing, Johnson said, “is doing more of what we’re doing now.”
“The work never really stops,” Johnson said. “There’s always something going on that needs to change. The way the state looks at its revenue situation needs to change. We have an administration that’s looking at getting rid of revenue-producers instead of looking at ways to produce more revenue otherwise. We have to look at the perspectives and priorities of the administration of the state and whether it’s doing what is in the best interests of its citizens and where people are with that and the concerns that they have.”
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
The AFP on WREL: Report blasts Virginia health care
Posted by afp on December 23, 2010 · 1 Comment
The segment begins with a discussion of the report of a state advisory council that this week told Gov. Bob McDonnell that the performance of the health-care industry in Virginia is mediocre. What steps can the administration and the General Assembly take in this tough budget environment to try to achieve reform in health care in Virginia? Chris tries to give some insight into what the next steps might be.
We wrap the week with a review of a proposal from Republican lawmaker Bob Marshall to bar gays and lesbians from serving in the Virginia National Guard in the wake of the repeal of the federal don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Does the effort have a chance of becoming the law of the Commonwealth?
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with bob marshall, bob mcdonnell, don't ask don't tell, health care reform, health care virginia, health industry virginia, Virginia Health Reform Initiative Advisory Council