Tag Archives: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Tell your representative to show leadership and pass immigration reform now!

I’ve learned a powerful lesson in my years of organizing: you get what you ask for. With countless activists like you making calls, joining rallies and marches, and even risking arrest to ask for nothing less than a fair pathway to citizenship as part of immigration reform legislation, all we need now is for our representatives in the House to come forward and lead on the issue.

While our communities show true courage, our legislators in the House of Representatives are hiding. They are choosing political theater over working together to fix our broken immigration system. They are hiding from our demands for bold action to keep our families together.

It’s time the House followed our lead. We’re sending postcards directly to Congressional offices with images of our communities showing real leadership and a message demanding action. Send your representative a clear message: “Real leaders don’t hide. Pass immigration reform in 2013.”

We elect our members of Congress to lead, yet the House has failed to do so by refusing to take action. We must remind them that, as representatives of the people, they answer to us — and we challenge them to model the bravery and leadership that thousands are demonstrating in the streets every day by passing immigration reform this year.

We are closer now than we have ever been to passing real reform, and our representatives need to know that we aren’t backing down. Send your message now: step up and lead on immigration reform! Click here to send a postcard.

Standing strong,

Marissa Graciosa
Reform Immigration FOR America

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Obamacare, Obamacare, Obamacare

09/25/2013 Nativegrl77 2 Comments

Health Care and the ACA ~~ Originally posted on 8/22/13

the Progress Report

In less than 6 weeks, millions of Americans will have the chance to sign up for quality, affordable health coverage for the very first time. Progressives are doing everything possible to educate Americans about the law and push back on the never-ending conservative misinformation campaign against Obamacare. Conservatives are, well, trying anything and everything in order to try and derail the law at the very last minute.

(Things are not going very well for conservatives.)

Here’s a roundup of the very latest Obamacare news:

Pro-Obamacare protesters confront Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at town hall: Multiple pro-Obamacare protesters confronted the Tea Party senator at the Dallas stop of Heritage Action’s tour promoting a government shutdown over Obamacare. The town hall slid further downhill from there when Cruz’s father took the stage, railed against Socialism, said “Sarah Palin was right,” and warned of the dangers of death panels. Even Republicans have called this strategy and tour “political suicide” for the GOP.Meanwhile, Texas Governor Rick Perry is quietly lobbying the Obama administration for $100 MILLION in Obamacare funding.

Tea Party group calls on Congressional staffers to “burn their Obamacare cards: FreedomWorks, a right-wing group that has helped fuel opposition to health reform and other progressive policies since the earliest days of the Obama presidency, is currently engaged in a cynical effort to dissuade young people and others of securing affordable coverage under Obamacare, which it is offensively likening to Vietnam war opponents who burned their draft cards.A GOP amendment to Obamacare requires Congressional staffers to receive their health coverage through the Obamacare marketplaces starting next year and now FreedomWorks says it hopes they forego their health coverage and instead pay a fine, though the group concedes “everyone should do whatever’s best for them and their families.” We assume most Hill staffers (including Republicans), like most Americans, will prefer the security of health coverage.

More GOP congressmen concede they will help their constituents enroll in Obamacare: While Republicans remain united in their irrational opposition to Obamacare, even some vocal conservatives are now conceding that they will help their constituents find out about their rights, responsibilities, and new benefits under the law.

Two more states announce affordable premiums: Colorado and Montana became just the latest states to announce that their residents will find affordable premiums when they go to sign up for coverage offered through the new marketplaces that will be opening on October 1. Indeed, the growth in overall health care costs has slowed remarkably since Obamacare passed, contrary to fearmongering from many of the law’s opponents.

GOP civil war escalates: Republicans are locked in an all-out civil war over whether or not to shut down the government over Obamacare (which even Republicans concede won’t actually stop the law but will harm millions of Americans and the economy).Heritage Action is currently on a national tour to fan the shutdown flames, with former Tea Party Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), now the president of the Heritage Foundation, going so far as to tell a town hall audience that any Republicans who are afraid of shutting down the government ought to be “replaced.” To that end, his group and others are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads going after Republicans.

For the latest news, be sure and check out ThinkProgress health.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

The Affordable Care Act & small business

09/24/2013 Nativegrl77

Image representing U.S. Small Business Adminis... — Image via CrunchBase

When it comes to the Affordable Care Act, our nation’s leaders maintain a dialogue with the country’s businesses, large and small. The work is ongoing, but the Administration has responded to your concerns by making changes to simplify the reporting process and giving businesses more time to comply.

> Read more

~ my 2cents ...

ACA is a job creator

09/23/2013 Nativegrl77

click on

The Affordable HealthCare Law resolves health care and jobs issues.

If you believe in moving into the 21st Century, believe in health care being accessible to all , if you believe it is a right not a privilege or that the overhaul is long overdue; then you are on the right side of history. Please do not believe how some are portraying ACA, as a law for the poor. I do not believe that parents with kids in college would say they are poor nor rich and these days most families have two or more in college at the same time. Therefore, having children covered until 26 is a relief to some families

The fact is over 32mil people will now have access to an improved health care system that will need more doctors, PA, and those great nurses who we usually see when we feel bad. Think about it, what does it take to run a Hospital? Our current workforce cannot possibly handle that many new customers and will need to hire more folks from the so-called bottom up such as grounds, parking lots, security, maintenance, janitors to gardeners to receptionists, and more. I have no idea how many people go to the doctor each day, but if you have an appointment during the workday, your child is in school, goes to daycare or you take them with you … most people do not; bam more jobs needed.

I cannot begin to list the impact of 32million more people added to the health care system, but the proof of it being a jobs bill is obvious.

In Solidarity …

Information : from www.Whitehouse.gov

For a comprehensive overview of the Affordable Care Act, visit WhiteHouse.gov/HealthReform and HealthCare.gov.

Let’s take a look at what this ruling means for the middle class:

Insurance companies no longer have unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women more than men.
Soon, no American will ever again be denied care or charged more due to a pre-existing condition, like cancer or even asthma.
Preventive care will still be covered free of charge by insurance companies–including mammograms for women and wellness visits for seniors.
By August, millions of Americans will receive a rebate because their insurance company spent too much of their premium on administrative costs or CEO bonuses.
5.3 million seniors will continue to save $600 a year on their prescription drugs.
Efforts to strengthen and protect Medicare by cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse will remain in place.
6.6 million young adults will still be able to stay on their family’s plan until they’re 26.

A major impact of the Court’s decision is the 129 million people with pre-existing conditions and millions of middle class families who will have the security of affordable health coverage.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Did GOP Sen. Mike Lee accidentally make the Democrats’ point about Obamacare and shutdowns?

09/20/2013 Nativegrl77

Sen. Mike Lee talks budget battles, 'phony scandal'

Key Republican lawmaker on ‘Fox News Sunday‘

Chris Moody, Yahoo! News 19 hours ago

He probably didn’t mean for it to come out this way, but Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, a leader of an effort in Congress to use mandatory spending bills to defund Obamacare, may have handed over messaging ammunition to Democrats.

Surrounded by Republican House and Senate lawmakers at a Capitol Hill press conference Thursday, Lee and his colleagues called on Democrats to pass a bill that would fund the government but also defund the health care law. The federal government will temporarily shut down on Oct. 1 if Congress does not pass a bill extending funding.

While arguing that Democrats should accept the Republican path forward on Obamacare, however, Lee said that the law “is not worth causing a shutdown over.”

“A shutdown is too much. We don’t want a shutdown, we don’t need a shutdown. We should avoid a shutdown, and Obamacare is a law that’s going to harm people. It certainly is not a good idea to shut down the government in order to force through the implementation of Obamacare at a time when the president has said he’s not going to follow the law and he’s made substantial changes,” Lee said. “Shutdowns are bad, shutdowns are not worth it, this law is not worth causing a shutdown over.”

That last line will probably return to bite Lee and Republicans who continue to push to delay the 3-year-old law, even though he was trying to make the opposite point: That he thinks Obamacare is so bad that Democrats shouldn’t fight for it to the point of a shutdown. But it may prove difficult to convince the American people that the party seeking to fund a law that has been on the books for three years and has been found constitutional by the Supreme Court is responsible for a shutdown.

On Friday, the Republican-led House is planning to vote on a spending bill that would keep the government open but strip funding for the health care law, which will go on to the Democrat-led Senate. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that the Senate would approve nothing less than a government spending bill with Obamacare funding intact and he will likely return the bill to the House with the health care funding in it.

The impasse could lead to a traditional filibuster in the Senate. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday said he would be open to procedural maneuvers that would aim to block the government-funding bill.

“I will do everything necessary and anything possible to defund Obamacare,” Cruz said when asked about a filibuster. “Any procedural means necessary.”