Monthly Archive for February, 2010

Insurance companies are raising rates as much as 39% but fewer and fewer Americans have coverage. Health care costs are crushing our families and small businesses. We’ve had enough of insurance companies’ denial of claims, inflated profits, and soaring premiums.

John Booker, a direct-care worker in Indiana, can’t wait any longer for reform. We need reform now.

The pressure is mounting for Congress to pass national health reform. When President Obama holds his bipartisan health care summit this Thursday, he will focus on four key issues that are critical to reform:

• Ending insurance company abuses
• Extending coverage to millions of uninsured Americans
• Controlling skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket costs
• Reducing the deficit

Please, take a minute now to let Congress and the White House know that you support reform, and that it must happen NOW!

Contact the White House: Prior to the summit, call and/or write letters of support (Word doc) to the White House. Let them know that you support health reform and that the summit is an important step toward moving it across the finish line.

Contact your member of Congress: Call your member of Congress now at 1-800-828-0498 and tell them we need reform that makes health care affordable and comprehensive.

Remember, what is good for direct-care workers is good for all of us.

Last Wednesday, Melanie’s March, a historic march on Washington for health care reform, kicked off in Philadelphia.

Participants are walking the 135 miles to D.C. over eight days in honor of Melanie Shouse, a health care reform volunteer and Obama supporter who died recently of cancer because she did not have health coverage.

The march will culminate in a rally in D.C. on February 24th – just in time for the start of a crucial bipartisan health care summit in Washington.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has released Insurance Companies Prosper, Families Suffer: Our Broken Health Insurance System.

The report cites half a dozen examples, from Maine to Washington State, in which insurers, despite record profits last year, have sought outrageous premium increases for people who buy coverage individually (i.e., those who are not covered by their employer or another group plan). In almost every case, state insurance regulators rejected all or part of the requested increases.

“It shines a light on the urgency for health reform,” Sebelius said.

The report concludes with details of how national health reform will drive down premium costs and limit out-of-pocket costs while providing more choice and better protection for consumers.