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08 Feb 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Jesus is kept busy in this Sunday's gospel healing the many sick people who were brought to him. In one bright spot on a dark economic horizon, it will become vastly cheaper for most people to keep their health insurance after losing a job if a provision in the current stimulus proposal makes it into law. The billions to be poured into health care from the economic stimulus package will do little if anything about the chronic conditions behind the nation's stubbornly large ranks of uninsured, advocates for reform point out. Instead, the plan is a temporary lifeline for nearly desperate times. For those who qualify, relief would be substantial. Under a dramatic, temporary expansion of COBRA, the law that lets the unemployed keep health insurance from their old job for up to 18 months if they pay for it in full, costs would drop by about two-thirds for a year. Moreover, people who lose a job they've had for 10 years could stay on COBRA at their expense all the way to age 65, when Medicare takes over, if they don't get another job with insurance first. People 55 and over could do the same without meeting the 10-year requirement. It's so expensive for people to extend that insurance now that many don't do it. It can quickly eat up a majority of unemployment benefits. People who lose jobs at businesses that employ fewer than 20 people don't qualify for COBRA. For them, the government plan would bring many more jobless people under Medicaid's wing. The federal government would pay for that and give states much more money to run the cost-shared part of the program. In return, states taking the extra money would have to back down on some of the cuts they've made to the program recently. Altogether it's a pricey lifeline: $40 billion to subsidize health insurance for the unemployed and more than twice that to support Medicaid. Source: An article by Calvin Woodward for the Associated Press

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Healthcare reform suffers from hypertension

23 Aug 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

We hear in this Sunday's first reading that when Joshua questioned the religious loyalties of his fellow Israelites, they responded, "Far be it from us to forsake the Lord." President Barack Obama's recent signals that he would be willing to forsake a "public option" on healthcare insurance for the sake of bipartisan support has led to an outcry among the president's more liberal supporters. Administration officials insisted that they have not shied away from their support for a public option to compete with private insurance companies, an idea they said Obama still prefers to see in a final bill. "I don't understand why the left of the left has decided that this is their Waterloo," said a senior White House adviser. "We've gotten to this point where healthcare on the left is determined by the breadth of the public option. I don't understand how that has become the measure of whether what we achieve is healthcare reform." When the Obama campaign first crafted its healthcare proposal, the creation of a government-sponsored insurance option "was not the most important thing," said David Cutler, a Harvard University economics professor and campaign adviser on healthcare issues. Obama, like Cutler, embraced the concept because it would afford consumers more options, Cutler said. But while the idea has given conservatives an opening to attack Obama for allegedly supporting government-run healthcare, "to the left it's become this unholy grail" without which any reforms would be inadequate, Cutler said. In a further ratcheting of tensions in a highly charged debate, some Democratic leaders Tuesday accused Republicans of reflexively opposing healthcare reforms in an attempt to score political points against the Obama administration. "The Republican leadership," said White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, "has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama's healthcare proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day." Those leaders say the time for bipartisanship has passed and they now intend to pour their energy into mustering sufficient Democratic votes for the proposals. Source: Articles by Michael D. Shear and Ceci Connolly for the Washington Post and Carl Hulse and Jeff Zeleny for the New York Times

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Health care debate enters critical phase

13 Sep 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In the reading from the Book of Isaiah this Sunday, the Lord opens the ear of the prophet so the prophet might hear. President Barack Obama hopes that Congress and the American people heard his message on health care reform in a major address delivered Wednesday evening. Obama offered his most detailed outline for legislation: "Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime." He called for serious proposals from Democrats and Republicans to address chronic health care problems and rising costs, and warned, "I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now." The President also sought to lay to rest what he termed "bogus claims." "The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple. "There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false--the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up--under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place." Reaching out to Republicans and independents, Obama said his administration would authorize a series of test programs in some states to check the impact of medical malpractice changes on health-insurance costs. Responding on behalf of Republicans, Rep. Charles Boustany of Louisiana said the country wanted Obama to instruct Democratic congressional leaders that "it's time to start over on a commonsense, bipartisan plan focused on lowering the cost of health care while improving quality." Source: Text of President Obama's healthcare speech posted at Politico.com and articles by David Espo for Associated Press and CNN.com contributors Ed Hornick, Ed Henry, Suzanne Malveaux, and Dana Bash

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Health-care reform endgame

28 Feb 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday's gospel says that Peter, John, and James "fell silent" after witnessing Jesus' Transfiguration. President Barack Obama has invited Republicans and Democrats to speak up on health-care reform during a high-stakes televised "summit" Thursday. The president weighed in with compromise legislation unveiled Monday in hope that the week's events will provide the momentum needed to pass a bill. Obama's plan is not meant as the last word on legislation, the White House said on Wednesday, sounding a conciliatory note a day before the meeting with Republicans on the $2.5 trillion U.S. medical care industry. Republicans in Congress are staunchly opposed to Democratic plans for sweeping health-care reform and are widely expected to remain so after the summit, analysts said. The general public seems to agree with the experts. Americans overwhelmingly doubt that the summit will succeed in reaching an agreement on a health-care bill, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, setting low expectations for the high-profile event. More than three in four said their "best guess" is that the president and congressional leaders will leave the six-hour session empty-handed. Just one in five predict they'll reach a deal. Once the summit is over, the White House faces political and substantive problems in getting a comprehensive package approved. Many centrist Democrats are up for reelection in November in conservative states and districts, and Republicans are eagerly trying to use Democrats' health-care positions against them, commentators said. In an effort to rebuild popular support, Democrats have targeted health insurers who announce large increases in premiums. They turned up the pressure with a hearing on a recent premium increase by insurer WellPoint Inc. and a planned U.S. House of Representatives vote on repealing its antitrust exemption. They said a recent premium increase for some Anthem Blue Cross customers in California was a function of greed rather than need and highlights the need for comprehensive reform. In the end Obama may have to settle for much less than what he proposed Monday--or nothing at all. But many Democrats said that despite all the bad-news polls and the loss of their filibuster-proof Senate supermajority in a special-election upset, it would still be better to pass a sweeping bill than make small changes or none at all. Source: Articles by Susan Page for USA TODAY, David Lightman for McClatchy Newspapers, John Whitesides and Donna Smith for the Associated Press, and Reuters

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Poverty rate may be only economic indicator on the rise

24 Oct 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“The Lord hears the cry of the poor,” we affirm in the psalm response this Sunday. Unfortunately, the Lord is hearing from a lot more people these days. Thanks to the recession, 2009 was one of the worst years for poverty in America in more than half a century, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The total number of Americans living in poverty hit 43.6 million, and the national poverty rate rose to 14.3 percent. Many expect it to reach 15 percent this year. All told, a startling one in seven Americans are living in poverty. To make matters worse, state governments, facing a combined estimated budget shortfall of $380 billion for 2011, have begun cutting crucial services and laying off thousands of employees. Last year’s steep rate of job losses also caused millions of Americans to lose employee-provided health insurance. Nearly 17 percent of the population, more than 50 million people, has no health insurance, the highest level since the Census started collecting such data in 1987. The Lord rescues the poor from their distress, the psalmist says. Many charitable organizations serve a similar purpose. But more bad news: At a time when increasing numbers of people need some help, charitable giving has decreased sharply. Contributions to the nation’s 400 largest donor-funded nonprofits fell 11 percent in 2009, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported this week. The drop was by far the steepest since the Chronicle began tracking those numbers 20 years ago, nearly four times as great as the next biggest annual decrease: 2.8 percent in 2001, when charities also struggled to raise money from recession-battered donors. Catholic Charities USA was one of only a few of the top 10 charities to report increased contributions last year, with a healthy 5.2 percent jump. But overall observers don’t expect charities to do much better in 2010; most fundraising directors say they’re expecting growth of only 1.4 percent this year. Source: Articles by Arthur Delaney for HuffingtonPost.com and by Noelle Barton and Holly Hall for The Chronicle of Philanthropy

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Healthy legal debate underway over insurance mandate

19 Dec 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Sunday gospel relates that Mary “was found with child through the Holy Spirit,” while the reading from the Book of Isaiah prophecies that “the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son.” Prenatal and maternity healthcare coverage were two important concerns that prompted healthcare reformers and insurers to press for an insurance coverage mandate in last year’s landmark legislation. On Monday U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Virginia Monday ruled against the provision requiring most Americans to maintain health insurance. Hudson said the directive goes beyond the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, but he left the rest of the law intact. The U.S. Justice Department said it plans to appeal the decision. A number of lawsuits have been filed challenging the legislation since it became law. Hudson's ruling is the third from a district court so far, the other two having upheld the mandate as constitutional. Legal scholars said that unless Congress changes the law, its fate on appeal will probably be determined by the U.S. Supreme Court. While childbirth today is much less risky than in Mary’s day, it is also much more expensive. And many women find it difficult to obtain insurance coverage for a pregnancy. Under the new law, policies sold through state-based insurance exchanges as well as new individual and group plans offered outside the exchanges will be required to cover maternity care as an "essential health benefit." The new law will also prohibit health plans from turning away applicants because of preexisting conditions--which will include pregnancy. In reponse to agreeing to cover everyone regardless of condition, however, insurers and many health policy experts argue that everyone must be required to have insurance. Otherwise, they say, people would wait to buy insurance until they needed it, placing a disproportionate number of sick people in the system with not enough healthy ones to offset the cost of treating them. Source: Articles by Justin Blum for Bloomberg.net, Ezra Klein for the Washington Post, and Michelle Andrews for Kaiser Health News

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Healthy legal debate underway over insurance mandate

19 Dec 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Sunday gospel relates that Mary “was found with child through the Holy Spirit,” while the reading from the Book of Isaiah prophecies that “the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son.” Prenatal and maternity healthcare coverage were two important concerns that prompted healthcare reformers and insurers to press for an insurance coverage mandate in last year’s landmark legislation. On Monday U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Virginia Monday ruled against the provision requiring most Americans to maintain health insurance. Hudson said the directive goes beyond the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, but he left the rest of the law intact. The U.S. Justice Department said it plans to appeal the decision. A number of lawsuits have been filed challenging the legislation since it became law. Hudson's ruling is the third from a district court so far, the other two having upheld the mandate as constitutional. Legal scholars said that unless Congress changes the law, its fate on appeal will probably be determined by the U.S. Supreme Court. While childbirth today is much less risky than in Mary’s day, it is also much more expensive. And many women find it difficult to obtain insurance coverage for a pregnancy. Under the new law, policies sold through state-based insurance exchanges as well as new individual and group plans offered outside the exchanges will be required to cover maternity care as an "essential health benefit." The new law will also prohibit health plans from turning away applicants because of preexisting conditions--which will include pregnancy. In reponse to agreeing to cover everyone regardless of condition, however, insurers and many health policy experts argue that everyone must be required to have insurance. Otherwise, they say, people would wait to buy insurance until they needed it, placing a disproportionate number of sick people in the system with not enough healthy ones to offset the cost of treating them. Source: Articles by Justin Blum for Bloomberg.net, Ezra Klein for the Washington Post, and Michelle Andrews for Kaiser Health News

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Rising number of poor and uninsured signals “lost decade”

18 Sep 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The gospel parable this Sunday features idle laborers who wait all day in the marketplace for someone to hire them. Persistently high unemployment in the U.S. caused the poverty rate to jump from 14.3 percent in 2009 to 15.1 percent last year, a 27-year high. About 46.2 million people, or nearly 1 in 6, live in poverty. At the same time, the number of people lacking health insurance increased to 49.9 million, a new high. Decreases in coverage were due mostly to working-age Americans who lost employer-provided insurance in the weak economy. The percentage of workers covered by employer-based insurance has steadily declined in the past decade, from 65 percent in 2000 to about 55 percent in 2010, a U.S. Census report said. Main provisions of the health overhaul law mandating wider coverage do not take effect until 2014. In new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1996. It is the first time since the Great Depression that median household income adjusted for inflation has not risen over such a long period, said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard University. “This is truly a lost decade,” Katz said. “We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but we’re looking at a period when the median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s.” This year is not likely to be any better, economists said. Stimulus money has largely been used and state and local governments have made deep cuts to staff and to budgets for social programs, both likely to move economically fragile families closer to poverty. Sources: Articles by Annalyn Censky for CNN Money, Sabrina Tavernise for the New York Times,Daniel Gross for Yahoo! Finance, and Hope Yen for the Associated Press

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Insurers not acting like good neighbors these days

15 Apr 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“In a time of need,” scripture commentator Alice Camille says in PrepareTheWord’s Exploring the Word this Sunday, most people have found that someone was there to give them the attention they needed, which gives them a glimpse of God’s compassion and mercy. Homeowners hit with property damage from natural disasters are not receiving much compassion from insurance companies these days, recent studies suggest.Homeowner insurers are raising rates, cutting coverage, balking at some payouts, and generally shifting more expense and liability to homeowners. "Insurance companies have significantly and methodically decreased their financial responsibility for weather catastrophes like hurricanes, tornados, and floods in recent years," the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) said in a statement Wednesday after studying industry data.The industry concedes that it is trying to avoid getting trounced by those same punishing weather patterns. "Last year [2011] was an extraordinary year for natural disasters," said Michael Barry of the Insurance Information Institute (III), an industry trade group. "Insurers have taken a step back to assess whether or not they can absorb severe losses."Even homeowners that renew every year may find new limits buried in their policies. The CFA report said insurance companies have "sharply hollowed out the catastrophe coverage offered to consumers" by raising deductibles, capping replacement costs, and removing coverage for wind damage in some cases.Industry groups, however, dispute that characterization. Dr. Robert P. Hartwig, president of the III, said: "Cities such as Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and others are being rebuilt today because of private insurance companies paying losses—not from ‘hollowed out coverage' policies."Some insurance companies have pulled out of weather-challenged states altogether. In the wake of Hurricane Irene last summer, Allstate informed some 45,000 North Carolina policyholders that it would not renew contracts that were not bundled with auto insurance. "It's just a tough market to be in," said Phil Supple, a spokesman for State Farm, which was once Florida's largest property insurer. It stopped writing new homeowners' policies there in 2007. Source: An article by Matt Stroud for Reuters

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Insurers not acting like good neighbors these days

15 Apr 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“In a time of need,” scripture commentator Alice Camille says in PrepareTheWord’s Exploring the Word this Sunday, most people have found that someone was there to give them the attention they needed, which gives them a glimpse of God’s compassion and mercy. Homeowners hit with property damage from natural disasters are not receiving much compassion from insurance companies these days, recent studies suggest.Homeowner insurers are raising rates, cutting coverage, balking at some payouts, and generally shifting more expense and liability to homeowners. "Insurance companies have significantly and methodically decreased their financial responsibility for weather catastrophes like hurricanes, tornados, and floods in recent years," the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) said in a statement Wednesday after studying industry data.The industry concedes that it is trying to avoid getting trounced by those same punishing weather patterns. "Last year [2011] was an extraordinary year for natural disasters," said Michael Barry of the Insurance Information Institute (III), an industry trade group. "Insurers have taken a step back to assess whether or not they can absorb severe losses."Even homeowners that renew every year may find new limits buried in their policies. The CFA report said insurance companies have "sharply hollowed out the catastrophe coverage offered to consumers" by raising deductibles, capping replacement costs, and removing coverage for wind damage in some cases.Industry groups, however, dispute that characterization. Dr. Robert P. Hartwig, president of the III, said: "Cities such as Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and others are being rebuilt today because of private insurance companies paying losses—not from ‘hollowed out coverage' policies."Some insurance companies have pulled out of weather-challenged states altogether. In the wake of Hurricane Irene last summer, Allstate informed some 45,000 North Carolina policyholders that it would not renew contracts that were not bundled with auto insurance. "It's just a tough market to be in," said Phil Supple, a spokesman for State Farm, which was once Florida's largest property insurer. It stopped writing new homeowners' policies there in 2007. Source: An article by Matt Stroud for Reuters

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