State insurance regulators are threatening to gut the new rule in the health reform law that keeps insurance premiums in check. This rule, called the medical loss ratio (MLR), requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% of your premiums on medical care instead of using it to pad their profits and pay millions to their CEOs. State insurance commissioners are holding a secret meeting tomorrow to decide whether they want to force a vote to rob $1 billion in rebates from consumers.
It’s no surprise that the Wall Street run insurance companies are trying to kill any rule that cuts into their excessive profits. That’s why they’re pressuring your state insurance commissioner to change the law to let them take $1 billion of your money. The truth is that the medical loss ratio works and has already lowered premium rates for some Connecticut residents by 19 percent!
Fight the insurance companies’ army of lobbyists today. Help us put an end to the insurers’ business as usual. Tell your insurance commissioner – hands off the MLR.
Health insurance companies continue to make record profits, and their CEOs have collected more than $1 billion in personal compensation in the last decade while the majority of Americans are barely getting by. Fight this greed-driven corporate power today.
You’ve probably seen news reports on the lawsuits challenging the health care law across the country. Two courts of appeals have held that the health care law is constitutional, while one has disagreed. Today, the Supreme Court announced it will hear two of these cases and issue a decision by June 2012.
To make clear what’s at stake, I’ve recorded a short video explaining the legal challenges, why we think the law is constitutional, and what women could lose if the law is struck down.
Click to watch our video about the health care law litigation.
The health care law puts an end to insurance companies‘ practice of treating women like a pre-existing condition. Already, the law is helping women and their families by making it illegal for insurance companies to drop people once they get sick, prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions, and ensuring that new health plans provide no-cost preventive health care services such as mammograms and pap smears. By 2014, it will expand Medicaid coverage to 8.2 million more women, guarantee maternity coverage, and end the practice of charging women more than men for the same insurance. All of this and more is at stake in the Supreme Court.
Once you’ve watched the video, please visit our special page dedicated to keeping you up-to-date on the latest news about the health care law litigation.Thanks for all you do for women and families.
Continues Ongoing Efforts to Provide Housing to Veterans
WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs has entered agreements to provide more than 3,000 units of permanent and transitional housing for Veterans at 25 VA medical center campuses nationwide. Additionally, agreements are pending on an additional 1,000 units, which we anticipate completing in the coming weeks. Proposed opportunities include housing for homeless Veterans, senior Veterans, disabled Veterans, other at-risk Veteran populations, and their families.
“As we approach Veterans Day, it is important that we never forget the sacrifices made by our Veterans to ensure the freedom and independence all Americans cherish,” said Secretary of Veterans AffairsEric K. Shinseki. “These efforts to ensure the well-being of our Veterans and their families demonstrate our Nation’s gratitude for their service and commitment to honoring their dedication.”
The agreements are part of VA’s Building Utilization Review and Repurposing (BURR) initiative. BURR is a VA strategic effort to identify and repurpose unused VA land and buildings in support of VA’s goal to end Veteran homelessness. VA is using its enhanced-use lease authority to permit third-party providers to finance, design, develop, maintain and operate housing with on-site supportive services, on a priority basis, for Veterans and their families.
The co-location of these projects on VAMC campuses ensures that Veterans have ready access to care and treatment designed to help them attain long-term independence and self-sufficiency.
An estimated total of 5,300 units of affordable and supportive housing will be provided to Veterans. This number includes projects already in operation or underway.
VA is proceeding with agreements with third-party providers at 25 sites nationwide. These sites and proposed developments include:
· Canandaigua, N.Y. – 48 transitional and permanent housing units
· Fort Howard, Md. – 1,437 housing units
· Lyons, N.J. – 62 permanent housing units
· Newington, Conn. – 74 permanent housing units
· Alexandria, La. – 70 transitional housing units
· Kerrville, Texas – 100 units of assisted living/extended care housing
While most of America will be sleeping off a belly full of turkey, stuffing, and pie next Thursday night, 29-year-old Anthony Hardwick will be waking up for a long night of work. That’s because Anthony has to report for his shift at a Target store in Omaha, Nebraska on Thanksgiving night.
For the first time on “Black Friday” — the biggest shopping day of the year — Target stores will be opening at midnight. That means retail employees like Anthony have to miss Thanksgiving celebrations with their families in order to work for big stores’ “Black Friday” midnight sales — or risk losing their jobs.
“All Americans should be able to break bread with loved ones on Thanksgiving,” Anthony says.
The sad reality is that by starting a petition to his employer on Change.org, he is putting his livelihood at risk. Anthony knows that he could be fired for taking his demand of Target public — but that’s how important it is to him that he spend Thanksgiving with his fiancee and her family.
Anthony isn’t alone in thinking that midnight (or earlier) start times for retail stores on Black Friday is are bad ideas — customers hate it, too. In fact, according to an article in the New York Times that featured Anthony’s petition, more and more consumers are avoiding Black Friday sales that interrupt Thanksgiving meals. And by being the first to petition his employer about this issue, he hopes to inspire workers at other retail stores to also speak out.
Target is one of the most prominent companies forcing its employees to miss Thanksgiving with their families. Anthony hopes that by calling out Target, he can force his employer to push back opening times at Target stores across the country — which will pressure other retail chains to do the same.
Please add your name to Anthony’s petition asking Target to push back its Black Friday opening time so he and other Target employees can spend Thanksgiving with their families:
The President and Mrs. Obama are at the APEC summit in Hawaii. The rest of us have to hear the continuous drone from Teapublicans who still think Americans want repeal HCR, Wall Street reform, cut Education by 20%, replace and eliminate social service programs that women, vets, older folks and the new poor use. I have to say Teapublicans in Congress must have taken a Pledge to wear earplugs in order to get through all their just say not campaign. Suffice it to say if these Teapublicans continue to go after the Middle Class Social Security Medicare/caid instead of JOBS it would definitely seem to be a recipe for trouble and likely force the USA into a double dip or deeper recession and will be the reason they will become unemployed; hopefully. I happen to think we went right into a depression what with losing 750 thousand jobs a month even before President Obama took office. The current rhetoric has absolutely nothing to do with JOBS or the Economy …If people are listening they have no intention of helping Americans unless it is on the backs of the Middle and Lower classes people …get that in your head!!! The Party of NO will be in control for about a minute and what we as Democrats need to remember is that we have to call Teapublicans out on every move they make to ruin the current President instead of focusing on and or creating Jobs. I have to say anyone with any common sense knows that the top 2% will not spend their tax cuts to create an environment so that people will be hired or create jobs and if they do it will be to outsource them for lower wages in China, Mexico etc. If you do not believe it, just tune into CNBC occasionally, and hear the words coming from various Teapublicans Ludlow and associates trot out on any given day.
I hope everyone is asking their Teapublican member of Congress what exactly the top 2% did with the Bush giveaways because it could not have been on hiring and creating jobs or we would not be in worse shape since the 2010 Midterm elections or see the mess all around us. I feel that after three years of gridlock from the Teapublican Party of No things are about to get heated within their own Family Values Platform party. Reports are and maybe Teapublicans need reminding that over 70% of Americans want to tax millionaires and billionaires, most do not want cuts to Soc.Security or Medicare, over half of us want the new Affordable Health Care Act to be law. Yet, conservative members of Congress have given themselves over to Mr. Norquist as well as the big money brothers Koch and if you start to think about it that ditch President Obama pulled us from is a whole lot closer now that we have an extreme part of Congress controlling the House of Representatives … The question is do Teapublicans care what happens to their own family friends and co-workers jobs and status in life if they continue this lemming march toward disaster?
Anyway –
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” –George Orwell
I personally do not want to go back to colonial days we must move forward stay in the present so discrimination fails …the past fails and equal rights for all prevails.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” –Margaret Mead
State insurance regulators are threatening to gut the new rule in the health reform law that keeps insurance premiums in check. This rule, called the medical loss ratio (MLR), requires insurance companies to spend at least 80% of your premiums on medical care instead of using it to pad their profits and pay millions to their CEOs. State insurance commissioners are holding a secret meeting tomorrow to decide whether they want to force a vote to rob $1 billion in rebates from consumers.
Be a Seed for Change 
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