healthcare reform

NICU

Arizona’s Surprise Billing Law Doesn’t Go Far Enough to Protect Patients (video)

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On Thursday, January 16, 2020, the Regulatory Affairs Committee started bright and early with a sunset review hearing for three different departments: the Residential Utility Consumer Office (RUCO), the Department of Insurance, and the Arizona Board of Library Examiners. (This post focuses on the Auditor General’s review of the Department of Insurance.) I have been … Read more

Balanced Public Health Policy Should Be Legislature’s Goal (video)

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The Arizona House Health Committee passed the Arizona Opioid Epidemic Act in January 2018.

This is the transcript of my opening remarks at the Arizona Public Health Association Conference on Oct. 3, 2018. A video of the speech is below.

It is an honor for me to address the Arizona Public Health Association, since I have a Masters in Public Health from the University of Arizona. I worked in health communication, medicine, public health and behavioral research for many years before deciding to run for the Arizona House in 2015.

In fact, it was my background in public health that prompted me to run for office. Many times since I moved to Arizona in 1981, I have found myself shouting at the radio or the TV or the newspaper or a social post about bad policy decisions made by the Arizona Legislature. Anybody else have that experience?

In the public health arena, the Legislature far too often makes short-term decisions to save a buck or make an ideological point, but in the long-term, these decisions cost money and lives. Do you remember Governor Jan Brewer’s Death Panels? Brewer knocked more than 250,000 adults off of Medicaid—including people on transplant waiting lists. That decision made national news as transplant patients began dying.

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healthcare forum

200 Stories: Healthcare Forum Attendees Reject Repeal of ACA

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healthcare forum
Approximately 75 people attended the open mice healthcare forum.

For months, the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have been trying every trick in the book to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (ACA or “Obamacare”). Multiple repeal and replace bills died during the summer of 2017, thanks to public outcry against kicking millions of Americans off of health insurance while giving tax breaks and sweetheart deals to insurance companies and others. Overwhelmingly, Americans said: We want a health insurance system that is fair, affordable, and wide-ranging in its coverage.

Fast forward to November 2017, and the Republicans are at in again. Rather than hiding tax cuts for the rich in health insurance bills (as they tried last summer), they are hiding an ACA poison pill in the middle of a tax cut bill for the uber-rich.

Do the American people want to go back to market-driven health insurance with high costs and limited access to care and drugs? Do they want millions of adults to lose their insurance altogether– with the fight to rollback Medicaid expansion? Do they want poor children to lose their insurance– with the pending sunset of KidsCare? No! Citizen backlash on social media and in the streets has been strong and swift. In Southern Arizona, protesters have dogged CD2 Congresswomen Martha McSally, who voted for Republican plans to eliminate the ACA, kick millions of Americans off of health insurance, cut taxes for big corporations and the uber-rich, and raise taxes on the rest of us. Do Tucsonans agree with McSally and the Republican Party?

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‘Life or Debt’: Dr. Danny on the Cost of Care (video)

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Pub-opt113-sm-72by Pamela Powers Hannley

More people in the US go bankrupt because of medical bills than for any other reason.

Even in Massachusetts— where they have Romneycare (the model for Obamacare)– people with health insurance are going bankrupt at alarming rates, due to unpaid medical bills.

Now, primarily because of uncompensated care, many US hospitals are going bankrupt.

Despite the evidence that our greed-based, healthcare non-system is inadequate, Teapublicans want to scale it back— instead of expanding it. The Paul Ryan Budget would eliminate the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare), change Medicare to a voucher program, and cut Medicaid by more than 40%. The Koch Brothers are holding closed-door "educational" meetings with the Tea Party faithful, in an attempt to squash the Medicaid expansion, through the Affordable Care Act, in red states like Arizona. All of this is unfathomable. These efforts will save money for the corporatists but will encourage the sick and uninsured to forgo care or go to emergency rooms– thus leading to more personal and hospital bankruptcies and premature death due to delayed care or no care. WTF?

After the jump, watch Dr. Danny, a New York emergency room physician, explain the cost of care and what should be done about it. Thanks to Strike Debt for posting this video on Facebook.