CONGRESSMAN GRAYSON PROUDLY SUPPORTS AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA ACT

[ProSense]

CONGRESSMAN GRAYSON PROUDLY SUPPORTS AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA ACT

November 7, 2009 9:18 PM (Washington, DC) – Congressman Alan Grayson voted tonight in favor of the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The bill (H.R. 3962) will deliver life, health, and peace of mind to the tens of millions of people in the United States who do not have health insurance.

Congressman Grayson said, “I promised from the start to vote for any bill that saves money and saves lives. This bill does both. This bill will help save the lives of the nearly 45,000 Americans who die every year because they do not have health insurance,” Congressman Grayson said.

Congressman Grayson never wavered in his support of health care reform. Leading up to the vote, he personally spoke with hundreds of constituents, to listen to their concerns and answer their questions. Since August, he has held three health care town halls, a health care telephone town hall meeting, and dozens of other open meetings; consulted with the members of his Health Care Advisory Board; and considered the overwhelming number of calls and emails from constituents.

Congressman Grayson said, “A lot of people say they love America. To them I say, ‘it’s not enough to love what’s in America. You cannot just love the Appalachian Mountains, the Mohave Desert, or the Gulf Coast. You need to love Americans as well. And loving people means taking care of them, sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry, and healing the sick.’”

The Affordable Health Care for America Act received broad support from hundreds of important and influential organizations including the AARP, American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce, and Voto Latino.

[bluestateguy]

1. Oooooh!

He's in the hip pocket of BIG INSURANCE!!!

[MajorChode]

4. Fucking traitor! Sellout! How dare that bastard!

[Go2Peace]

21. UNREC for continually spamming the boards with the same tired OPs

[geek tragedy]

2. Alan Grayson is a traitor to the Democratic party and a rightwing shill

who sold his soul to the insurance companies!

Purist bedwetters--did I miss anything?

[HughMoran]

6. lol

not nice

[CakeGrrl]

7. Grayson vs. Kucinich - the cage match!

[emulatorloo]

3. THANK YOU CONGRESSMAN GRAYSON and to all the others who voted YEA

CONGRATS TO OUR NEW REPRESENTATIVES FROM NEW YORK AND CALIFORNIA.

AND WELCOME TO REP CAO!

[NYC_SKP]

5. He's a Manicurian Candidate. I knew it all along...

K and R.

[Hekate]

9. His fingernails are well-groomed?

K and R

[slipslidingaway]

8. Wrong ....

he should speak with Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H. about the numbers he is quoting.

"This bill will help save the lives of the nearly 45,000 Americans who die every year because they do not have health insurance,” Congressman Grayson said..."


http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/september/harvard_study_f...


Harvard study finds nearly 45,000 excess deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage
PRINT PAGE
EN ESPAÑOL

Lack of health insurance now more lethal
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 17, 2009

Contacts:
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.
David Himmelstein, M.D.
Andrew P. Wilper, M.D., M.P.H.
Mark Almberg, Physicians for a National Health Program, [phone], [e-mail]
David Lerner or Karmen Ross, Riptide Communications, [phone]

[ProSense]

10. The bill passed. He's right. n/t

[slipslidingaway]

12. Maybe he should speak with the people who published the study and...

say otherwise, leaving 18 million people behind translates roughly to 18,000 deaths according to Dr. Woolhandler.

[MajorChode]

16. You have yet to contradict him

Grayson never claimed this bill would save 45,000 lives. He said he would vote for a bill that saves lives and this bill will help save 45,000 lives. It makes no promises that all of them will be saved, only that the situation will improve and you'd have to be pretty naive and/or pretty misguided to think it won't.

[slipslidingaway]

18. Maybe a more accurate statement would have been it will save 36000....

lives, but still leave 18000 to die.



"...This bill does both. This bill will help save the lives of the nearly 45,000 Americans who die every year because they do not have health insurance..."

[slipslidingaway]

11. Amy Goodman interview with Dr. Steffie Woolhandler - 18,000 will die ...

under the House bill, I wish Grayson had backed a medicare for all bill.



http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/18/as_baucus_unveils...

"AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Woolhandler, this report you just came out with, 45,000 people a year die from lack of health insurance. Where are these numbers coming from?


DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER: Well, this was a federal study done by the CDC. They collected the data; of course, we analyzed it. They collected the data. They interviewed thousands of people and also had them examined by a physician and gave them lab tests. So we have very detailed information, not only about socioeconomic factors like education and income, but also their baseline health, how healthy were they at the beginning. Some were uninsured. And then the CDC followed these people for up to twelve years to see who lived and who died. So we were able to see what was the effect of lacking insurance on death rates and found that, in fact, people with no health insurance had a 40 percent higher death rate than similar people who had insurance.


So this—actually, when you do out the numbers, this implies that for every million people who remain uninsured in this country, about 1,000 deaths can be expected. So, perhaps Senator Baucus is happy with leaving 25 million Americans uninsured, but that translates into, predictably, predictably 25,000 American deaths each year due to the lack of health insurance..."

[WeekendWarrior]

13. Hmmm, let's see...

18,000 vs. 45,000. I go with 18,000.

[slipslidingaway]

15. That has nothing to do with his statement being incorrect...

plus this is a big giveaway to the insurance companies who are losing customers.

I wish he had used his voice to stand up to the insurance companies and fight for health care for everyone.



They're Winning - Private insurance companies push for 'individual mandate'

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

...But this time, it turns out, the health insurance industry has good reason to support at least some change: It needs it. Private health insurance faces a bleak future if the proposal they champion most vigorously -- a requirement that everyone buy medical coverage -- is not adopted.

...Insurers do not embrace all of the healthcare restructuring proposals. But they are fighting hard for a purchase requirement, sweetened with taxpayer-funded subsidies for customers who can't afford to buy it on their own, and enforced with fines.


...The industry's real trouble begins in 2011, when 79 million baby boomers begin turning 65. Health insurers stand to lose a huge slice of their commercially insured enrollment (estimated at 162 million to 172 million people) over the next two decades to Medicare, the government-funded health insurance program for seniors..."


For insurers, getting "run over" would be the adoption of a so-called single-payer plan, where the government pays all medical bills. Such a plan would wreak havoc on the private insurance market, and is widely viewed as politically unfeasible this year. So the best way for the industry to preserve the private insurance market -- and derail the campaign for a single-payer system -- may be to go along with more palatable proposals on the table now, said Jeffrey Miles, a healthcare analyst and president of the Miles Organization, a Los Angeles insurance brokerage firm...

"If healthcare goes down this year, you are going to end up with single-payer care much sooner than anyone expected," he said." ("he" is "Jeffrey Miles, a healthcare analyst and president of the Miles Organization, a Los Angeles insurance brokerage firm..."

[MajorChode]

17. Hmmm, if he didn't, then who did?

I wish he had used his voice to stand up to the insurance companies and fight for health care for everyone.

Just who exactly did more to stand up against the insurance companies? Not even the almighty Dennis did as much as he turned out to be nothing more than an obstructionist.

[slipslidingaway]

19. The isurance companies needed more paying customers ....

why not point out that the insurance companies do nothing to provide care, all they do is skim profits for investors.

[lumberjack_jeff]

23. Flawed logic

The 45,000 who die today for lack of insurance are not choosing to remain uninsured... they simply can't get it.

When the bill takes effect, everyone will be able to get coverage.

[Hekate]

14. ProSense, this post is a breath of fresh air. Let DUers tearing their hair out over what's missing

... from the Bill (and there is still a lot more that needs to be there eventually), suck on this gumdrop for awhile.

Many DUers are as fickle as a pennant in the wind with their celebrities. Recently I read a post with many enthusiastic responses urging that Grayson be the next Speaker of the House after we get rid of that "spineless traitor" Nancy Pelosi. Oy, I thought: this cannot last.

We have achieved a huge milestone tonight. I am quite disappointed that women's full health care needs are STILL being denied, but folks, that is the nature of the country we live in. It is stupid, stupid, stupid sometimes. However I don't feel like I am looking at the underside of a bus, either.

Thanks are due to Grayson -- and to Ted Kennedy (who, it should be remembered, didn't want abortion in there either), and Dingle, Obama, Pelosi, Cao, and all the others who busted their butts bringing this Bill forth. Thanks are due to the millions of us who wrote, signed petitions, phoned in and otherwise let our Reps know where we stand.

Now it is up to the Senate to get it to President Obama's desk promptly. The Repubs WILL stall and try to hold it back into the next political season. WE have to write our Senators, sign petitions, phone them, and even march on DC again in order to help our Dems do the right thing.

And after that -- work on the improvements.

Hekate

[countingbluecars]

20. K&R n/t

[JimWis]

22. K&R