U. S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-23/u-s-health-and-human-services-secretary-kathleen-sebelius
One year ago today, President Obama signed into law sweeping changes to the nation’s health care system. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act re-organized a sector that accounts for one-sixth of the national economy. Some of its more popular elements have already kicked in. Insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. And some preventative treatments are now free. But the law faces threats. In a mostly symbolic vote, the GOP-controlled House voted to repeal the Act as one of its first actions. And portions of it could be overturned by the Supreme Court. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on the health care overhaul law.
Guests
Kathleen Sebelius
secretary,Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Related Video
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius responds to a caller in Nantucket, Massachusetts - a small-business owner who is paying $1,600 per month for health insurance coverage for her family of three, with a $5,000 deductible due to her son's pre-existing condition. "At this point, unfortunately, there aren't a lot of new provisions available," Sebelius said. "Right now, as a taxpayer, the family from Nantucket is also paying for everyone who doesn't have insurance who is coming through emergency room doors accessing the health care system, often in a very expensive way," Sebelius said. The Secretary added that more insurance options for small business owners will be available in 2014 as the health-care exchange system expands:
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius responds to a caller who objects to the part of the health care reform law that requires individuals to purchase health care. The caller argues that she and her family are in good health and don't utilize the health care system enough to warrant having to pay for insurance cost:
Comments
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My premiums keep going up a lot. They now cost more than 25% of my income. I'm healthy, not overweight, get regular exercise, don't smoke. At a checkup last week for a minor running injury, I refused an unnecessary x-ray. Are the hospitals and doctors gouging the insurers? Are the insurers gouging the public? Where is all the money going? The health care system in Germany works very well, covers everyone, and costs much, much less. What is wrong with their system? Do we deserve less than the Germans? Where is all our money going? I'm thinking of dropping my insurance, banking the money saved, and paying my medical bills myself. I'll save a lot of money, barring an unexpected disaster. Thank you for focusing on this topic which is important to every American.
The majority of people I know do not have health care. In five years when my husband retires, I will lose my health care insurance through his employer. As I am a 24hr caregiver for my disabled daughter I will not be able to work a full-time job, if I could find work with benefits in Michigan. Right now, most health insurance is linked with employment. If there is no jobs, there is no insurance. If there is no insurance, most health care providers will not even accept you as patient. This health care bill was a ray of hope whose light grows ever dimmer. Is someone else's right to not participate in this health care system greater than my need or 20 million people's need for health care? If it ever goes to the supreme court, I hope they can see beyond the wants of a few to the needs of many.
Found the solution to our Healthcare issues.
When it comes to Healthcare Reform, both parties are at odds, there is no gray area; party-line racist insults and defensive action + concessions from the Democrats.
But when it comes to attacking a country that has nothing to do with USA, both parties are in harmony and more war monger than each other, and off to the races to please Tel-Aviv.
We need the third party. Under the leadership of next American President Netanyahu, I think Likud will unify America and we will solve our Healthcare problems and we will be a one happy nation. Why pull the strings from the behind since 1967.
Get it?
There are no poor man affordable cost constraints on our "for profit" health care system. I, myself have experienced un-needed and unecessary procedures and practices and tests for sleep apnea and diabetes.
The only cure is to change the system to treat health care as a human and Christian right. Care for the patient, not profit. Efficiency will be automatic.
Just went through trying to insure my 6 and 8 year old children and my 39 year old self. They did not discriminate my son with Asthma. But, they DID RATE HIM higher risk and that pushed the premium to over $1300 a month!!!! Otherwise perfectly healthy! Outrageous!!! The insurance companies are thieves!
Secretary Sebelius is over promising the benefits of this health insurance law. The law was crafted as a piece of corporate welfare that leaves in place the $8000 per person Americans spend on the medical industry which is double what other industrial nations WITH universal health coverage spend. That spending continues to soar.
Secretary Sebelius's use of weasel words like "long term", "hopefully", etc indicate we will likely be spending $16000 per person for our less than best health care system in twenty years. At best the law tinkers around the edges on the issue of cost inflation.
She can repeat the phrase "affordable" all she wants however calling a sows ear a silk purse won't make it one.
Please ask the secretary how the new healthcare law helps not-for-profit companies to save on the cost of employee healthcare coverage.
Thanks so much for your show each and every day, Diane - it is wonderful!
As a self-employed person with a pre-existing, I cannot obtain coverage for the pre-existing even though I can afford it. Even though my entire life I have exercised and followed a healthy diet, and have been healthy all of my life, cancer caught up with me (40% of Americans will have this diagnosis before they die). So, I can enter a high-risk insurance pool with my state, but how does that work when the state is close to bankrupt? Not only is the Affordable Health Care Act unfair to those like me, those whose premiums keep rising, and those whose taxes subsidize others for insurance without benefit themselves, I see a mandate to buy insurance from for-profit-health insurance companies as a transfer of wealth. Please tell me how this is reform? How arrogant!
Why even bother to listen to Obama's shill. This administration is desperate to keep the "affordable care act" alive, which is anything but affordable. It is Obama's only accomplishment and not a very good one. It's a wealth redistribution scheme at it's worst and people will in time understand that perfectly when their insurance costs soar and they get less.
This is not at all an unbiased salon-style discussion if the only guest is the White House's mouthpiece for the legislation. This is precisely the biased presentation for which NPR is being currently criticized.
We do need government to ensure we all have healthcare. We definitely do not need government to watch out for Insurance companies' profits. They do a fine job of that on their own.
Since the healthcare reform was even suggested, insurance companies have been raising their rates and limiting the things they cover rampantly to protect their profits. They have made the most of both the Democrats insisting on covering everyone, and the Republicans insisting government need help to protect their profits.
In doing this, they now are refusing coverage for many diabetes testings and even some treatment. Lyme disease testing and most treatment goes uncovered and is growing exponentially as the tests become more conclusive. So they'll cover exploratory surgery for pain, but not the cause which is more and more often Lyme Disease. This is just an example of how they are playing all of us.
Nevertheless, I'll go with the Democrats on this one. After going to an ER and seeing all the people with common colds who are there because they have no health insurance, I firmly believe all should be covered.
The premiums keep going up, but the doctor's fees keep coming down. The insurance companies are becoming extremly wealthy and powerful and manipulate the doctors. This is the only "trade" where you work 7 days a week, 10 to 12 hours per day and you get paid whenever the insurance companies want and the fees that they control. You call a plumber, an electrician, etc and they get paid the fees that they charge and in a timely manner. The doctors send bills and the insurance companies deduct 35%, 45% of the fee or what is even more appalling they question the services of the doctor that has seen the patient face to face.....and dont even questions the insurance companies! They know best! They have "nurses" that can diagnose the patient from the other side of the telephone! No wonder you can not make appointments in the same day with Primary Care Physicians, reasonable young people dont want to be in a profession that demands your life and gives back nothing but headaches. Why dont you start investigating the insurance companies? What do they do with their profits? Why do they have to raise the premiouns so much and pay the doctors so little????
Please remind Ms Sebelius that promoting health and wellness prevents TYPE 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease and the cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown.
When talking about preventing "diabetes", please use the correct term ... to prevent "Type 2" diabetes.
I'm a 69 year-old retired male in MD. My wife continues to work and covers me with her insurance at work. For the first time with this enrollment period that insurance now covers
an annual physical for me. Previous coverage provided an exam once every 3 years.
This is a result solely of the new healthcare bill. Does anyone really think that the coverage would have been extended/improved without the new law. Thank you to President Obama and every congressional YES vote.
The ACA is not health care reform. It is additional insurance regulation and mandates that require higher premiums to support the additional risk. The entire medical-industrial complex must be reformed. Both the financing of health care and the delivery of health care.
Health care reform is not about high minded progressive rights (to health care). It is about practical solutions to the high cost of labor (excessive cost of health care benefits). The cost of labor must be reduced, without reducing the wage paid to the middle class, by reducing the cost of health care. Health care must be reformed if we are to save the American economy.
My book, Discovering the Cause and the Cure for the American Health Care Crisis, is in the final proofing process and will be available in May, 2011. Please provide this email to Kathleen Sebelius.
Roger H Strube, MD
www.rogerhstrubemd.com
There's no question that the American health care is a joke. A failure for the President & the people but a windfall for the greedy insurance companies. What the U.S. has is capitulator and Chief.
I understand that Vermont is working on having a single payor plan (sometimes called Medicare for all) and as a result they have over 200 General Practice doctors plus a number of medical students saying they will move there if it passes. What do you know about that?
My son just lost his job after more then 10 years in the same company. Is there anything available in this new Health Care Reform for him?
Every time I see a McDonald's advertisements I want to get one of their hamburgers. The US DHHS should be more aggressive with their commercials. Maybe they should start using the same tactics to entice Americans to eat healthier foods.
Why do these Senators or congressmen aren't prosecuted for misleading the American people on the information being relayed to us?
Please stop confusing us, especially the unfortunate ones who has little knowledge about the Health Care System....
It stuns me that anyone would say that she doesn't need help with medical bills. Is she clairvoyant? As Sec'y Sibelius implied, one just doesn't know what the future holds In one's 40's, women should have had a base line mammogram and continuing mammograms after that. She should also be having regular pap smears, blood work, urinalysis and a yearly physical. forgoing these exams leaves a person vulnerable to chronic diseases with costs everyone more.
We have a group of two and my wife has cancer. we now pay $2349.99 & $3000.00 deductable and on hsa plan. Anthem has tried everything to drop us. Her healthcare cost last year to anthem were under 13,000.00. Leaves no money to pay the copays.
Callers have indicated the primary problem with health care today. It is too expensive.
We need the option to buy less expensive care. Most cannot afford the $8,000 or more per person that is considered the national average. We need packages that cost maybe half of that. This may mean that we won’t receive certain services and perhaps live (on average) to 75 instead of 80. We can live better, if shorter, using the money saved.
Unfortunately, go to the doctor today and you face relentless ordering of tests and procedures at insurance inflated prices to catch the rare but possible malady. We can’t afford this.
Now the law says we will have to buy this overpriced service. That is not going to be possible for most of us. Let the courts try to make us.
The show talks the sad stories. What does Ms Sebelius tell my son who is healthy, with good health habits, and in his twenties who now must pay higher premiums for all others how are older, unhealthier, smokers and the like, and the poor and uninsured?
He's going to pay 40 work years of higher insurance. Ms Sebelius talks how "all in" will spread the risk. If all have insurance there is no risk- just health care expenses paid by all and the taxpayers.
The expemtions granted to some unions and corporate sectors are the best indication that this plan is unfair and unsound. States need to create, drive and insititute solutions - not the federal government. National solutions to the health care problems are unrealistic; costs are not shared equally and do not create any competition within health care providor economies to control costs.
Thank you, Kathleen Sebelius, for answering the last caller's question/comments about her family and their sparse use of the health care system with such respectful common sense language. She speaks very clearly and intelligently about the topic. I wonder what the impact of so many people and states bucking this good idea of universal health care will be...
When Congress is ready to pass real health care reform they should look to our neighbors to the north. Real Canadians talking about real health care video: http://ushealthcrisis.com/2009/09/real-canadians-talking-real-health-care/
Canada has Medicare for all with 100 percent coverage (U.S. Medicare covers 80 percent). 92 percent of Canadians like their health care system. They spend about *half* of what we spend per capita. Taxes are *nearly equal* on both sides of the border. Canadians receive many benefits for their tax dollars beyond health care, including cheaper higher education.
No bills, co-pays, deductibles, preexisting conditions, dropped coverage, lifetime caps, or bankruptcies. Better prevention, outcomes, and care. Canadians are free to choose any doctor—no insurance bean counter can override a doctor. There are no requirements for preauthorization. Coverage is not tied to any workplace or business.
More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care goes to paperwork, overhead, executive salaries, and profits in the U.S. The Canadian system operates with just 1 percent overhead. Canada spends 10 percent of GDP on health care and everyone is covered. The U.S. spends 17 percent but millions are underinsured or uninsured. Savings in the hundreds of billions of dollars would make a significant contribution toward deficit reduction.
Single-payer systems are not the “socialist” bogeyman they have been made out to be, they are social insurance systems (doctors work in the private sector while their pay comes from a public source). Staying alive should not depend on a business that is run for profit with people who can deny care because it will hurt their bottom line. Medicare for all is the answer to bringing down costs.
The last caller offers the best example of the collective ignorance of our populace. She states that she is healthy and therefore doesn't feel the government should impose a system upon her or her family. I applaud her positive lifestyle choices. I will state that I too have have lead a healthy life. I gave birth to two beautiful girls. One is healthy, one has developed a chronic illness; crohn's disease. My daugther's lifestyle did not create this problem, however she is looked on as a burden by insurers and could be excluded from insurance if allowed to regulate their own. Can't we all agree that care is necessary for every individual in the US? If we can agree that all will at some point need care, then we must look to reform the system to allow all to be insured.
No - don't get it, don't agree. Why drag Israel into it? They may have better health care policy, but your balimg them for our problems smacks of a personal agenda, not any soundly reasoned insight.
Hello,
Why did the Repulicans (who are so concerned about our national deficit)
pass the presciption drug plan for seniors without
allowing them to purchase generic drugs instead of only name brands?
it's apparent to me that the Republicans are talking out of both sides of their mouths.
Their opinions are created from the money from the drug companies that line their pockets.
R Kinney