Call Peter Roskam Today and Ask Him to Vote for H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act

On November 6, 2009, in Healthcare, Peter Roskam, by RSR
2

(202) 225-4561

Hey, miracles can happen. Maybe Peter was visited by three ghosts last night or something.

scrooge

The House is expected to vote on the bill on Saturday and  every vote is important.

So ask Roskam to vote in favor of the Democratic plan to ensure affordable healthcare coverage for all Americans and against the ridiculous Republican alternative that will result in higher premiums and watered down coverage and will actually increase the number of uninsured Americans. You can read a detailed summary of H.R. 3962 here.

H.R. 3962 has been endorsed by the American Medical Association:

“On balance, H.R. 3962, The Affordable Health Care for America Act, is consistent with our principles of pluralism, freedom of choice, freedom of physician practice and universal access. It will significantly expand health insurance coverage to Americans to empower patient and physician decision making; institute meaningful insurance market reforms; make substantial investments in quality; institute prevention and wellness initiatives; provide incentives to states that adopt certificate of merit and/or early offer liability reforms, and reduce administrative burdens.”

“H.R. 3962 is not the perfect bill, and we will continue to advocate for changes, but it goes a long way toward expanding access to high-quality affordable health coverage for all Americans, and it would make the system better for patients and physicians,” Dr. Rohack said. “This is not the last step but the next step toward health system reform. We will remain actively engaged with patients, physicians, Congress and the administration to ensure that the final bill results in marked improvements to our health system.”

H.R. 3962 has been endorsed by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP):

AARP Chief Executive A. Barry Rand said the organization supports the House bill over other proposals because the measure does more to lower drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries, strengthen Medicare and bar insurance companies from denying people coverage because of their health or age. The bill also would lower premiums for Americans ages 50 to 64 who have to buy insurance in the private market and would create a voluntary long-term care insurance program.

“Under the House plan… insurance companies will not be able to reject you or charge you an outrageous premium because you got sick once, you may get sick again, you lost your job, you’re over 50 years old or because your employer dropped your coverage,” Rand said at the briefing. “Millions of Americans will start to regain control over their lives.”

H.R. 3962 has been endorsed by the American Cancer Society:

The insurance reforms proposed in the Affordable Health Care for America Act represent a tremendous improvement over the current system. Cancer patients and survivors will no longer face the loss of affordable coverage due to their illness. These critical changes include:

  • Elimination of the use of pre-existing medical conditions and health status in determining insurance premium rates, and limiting rating differential to 2:1 on the basis of age, geography, and family size only;
  • Guaranteed issue and renewal of insurance policies, and the elimination of rescissions except in the case of fraud; ? Elimination of annual and lifetime benefit caps;
  • Establishment of a national health insurance exchange to facilitate access and affordability;
  • Provision of premium subsidies for low- and middle-income families;
  • And limits on out-of-pocket expenses.

ACS CAN supports the national approach to health insurance exchanges. We believe that a national model can greatly facilitate making quality, affordable health care more uniform across the country over time. We support the subsidies covering individuals and families up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Health insurance is essential to good health, and it is imperative that we not put low- and middle-income individuals and families in a position where the cost of insurance threatens their financial viability.

H.R. 3962 has been endorsed by the American Academy of Family Physicians:

Family physicians particularly appreciate that the revised legislation would provide health insurance coverage for some 96 percent of Americans and would reduce the federal deficit by $30 billion. It is particularly noteworthy that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the revised bill would also lower health care costs overall by accelerating the applicability of the medical home and other health care delivery improvement models.

H.R. 3962 has been endorsed by the Consumers Union:

In addition to key consumer protections that eliminate current anti-consumer practices like excluding applicants who have pre-existing conditions, the bill makes health insurance more affordable and secure. It includes a wealth of major health reforms—far too many to single them all out. We particularly support:

  • the provision on comparative effectiveness research, which will help consumers and their medical providers better determine the most effective treatment options;
  • public reporting of health-care acquired infection rates: public disclosure will help consumers and providers focus on reducing these deadly infections, which are killing 100,000 Americans per year;
  • a new public health insurance option in a National Health Insurance Exchange.

Of course the bill has not been endorsed by angry teabaggers:

obama=nazi

Who will Peter Roskam listen to?

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Peter Roskam’s Vote for Pay Cut to Du Page County Physicians

On August 2, 2008, in Healthcare, Medicare, Peter Roskam, by RSR
6

Summer has been busy and I haven’t had time to write as much as I’d like. Some important votes have slipped by without comment. One that I think is of particular interest is the vote on June 24 on H.R. 6331: Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008. Medicare recipients and the physicians who care for them should take special note.

On July 1st 2008, physicians participating in the Medicare program were scheduled to receive a 10 percent cut in reimbursement. An additional 5 percent cut was to take place in 2009. These cuts, if enacted, could have been devastating to both physicians, who are struggling to maintain the solvency of their practices in the face of reimbursement reductions by state, federal and private payers, and to Medicare recipients, who are faced with increasing difficulty in finding physicans willing to treat Medicare patients. According to the American Medical Association, as many as 60% of physicians would have been forced to limit their services to Medicare recipients under the proposed cuts.

In an effort to prevent these cuts from taking place, Democrats in the House, led by Rep. Charles Rangel, introduced H.R. 6331. In addition to to stopping the physician pay cuts, the bill provided for a number of modest improvements to the Medicare program to aid beneficiaries including:

  • Coverage of additional preventive services
  • Elimination of late enrollment penalties for the part D drug benefit
  • Coverage of pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation
  • Elimination of higher co-payments for mental health services

Prior to the vote, President Bush threatened to veto the bill because it would have reduced payments to Medicare Advantage plans – private health insurance plans that offer alternatives to traditional Medicare under contract with CMS. Such plans currently receive, on average, about 12% more than the cost of services for recipients in traditional Medicare. Outside the Administration, there is widespread feeling that these plans, which are supposed to reduce costs through careful medical management, should be receiving reimbursements at a level lower than the costs of traditional Medicare, although insurance companies argue that the cuts will increase out-of-pocket costs and decrease options for Medicare Advantage recipients.

When the bill came to a vote on June 24, Peter Roskam voted no, siding with the Bush administration in its desire to allow the pay cuts to take effect. The bill passed but was vetoed by the President on July 15. That veto was quickly overridden by the House and Senate and has become law.

Physicians and Medicare recipients in the 6th district should ask Peter Roskam why he voted to support pay cuts for Medicare physicians. Roskam can be reached at his Washington office at (202) 225-4561 or in Bloomingdale at (630) 893-9670.

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