Americans across the country repeatedly say they tired of the political divides – particularly with respect to the issues related to health care and jobs. They want solutions and they want everyone to work together to find common ground and offer real-world, sensible & practical solutions.
And for the tens of millions of unemployed, under-employed – and uninsured Americans – the need for solutions couldn’t be more important and couldn’t possibly come soon enough.
According to the ‘Colorado Health Access Survey’ [CHAS*], more than 1.5 million or one in six Coloradans are uninsured or under-insured and 85% of respondents to the survey say they can’t afford the insurance premiums.
In her article titled, ‘Uninsured rate jumps as Colorado employers cut health benefits’, Katie Kerwin McCrimmon writes,
“A sharp drop in employers who offer health insurance and Colorado’s ailing economy have led to a dramatic surge in the number of Coloradans who are either uninsured or underinsured.
[…] The number of Coloradans getting their insurance through employers dropped to 57.8 percent this year from 63.7 percent two years ago. During that same period, the number of Coloradans without health insurance has jumped from 678,000 to 829,000.
“That’s a huge number of people. Just think of 150,000 people. That’s the population of Grand Junction,” said Dr. Ned Calonge, president and CEO of The Colorado Trust*. “The impact on individuals is almost unimaginable.”
The number of employers no longer offering health insurance to their employees is also on the rise. And the driving factor blamed for the increasing number of uninsured and under-insured in Colorado: job losses and rising costs for health insurance. The number of ‘chronically uninsured’ – those who have been without insurance for a least a year jumped to 60 percent and 52% of respondents were out of work.
“We’re reaching a tipping point where there will be more people who are uninsured than are insured,” Calonge said. “The results tell us that things were not good in 2008 and 2009 and they’re getting worse. We have to do something and we better start to do it now.”
Meanwhile, the political follies are underway – and the ‘debate’ over programs like Medicaid and Medicare are front and center in this year’s presidential elections. Yesterday Wendell Potter, an author, media analyst and corporate watchdog wrote a piece about the misrepresentations being made as part of the election-year posturing on both sides of the aisle. In his piece, ‘Doctors for America Sending Truth Squad to Tampa to Set the Record Straight on Health Care Reform and ‘Doctors for America’ he writes about a coaltion of 15,000 doctors and medical professionals who are descending upon the nation’s Republican and Democratic National Conventions this week and next:
“In anticipation of these sorts of misrepresentations, doctors from all over the country — all members of a four-year-old organization called Doctors for America — have traveled to Florida to serve as a truth squad. And while they’re dispensing facts, they’ll also be providing more than a little free care. When the GOPers leave the Sunshine State, the doctors will hop on a bus and head to Charlotte to try to persuade the politicians and delegates who will gather there that they need to start aggressively defending the reform law.
Doctors for America is a bipartisan grassroots organization of 15,000 physicians and medical students from all 50 states. The organization’s executive director, Dr. Alice Chen, said the doctors decided on the road trip because “politics, not patients, has been driving the health care debate and is threatening to roll back the promise of a better health care system.”
If there are concerns about Mr. Potter’s credibility consider this: he has held a variety of positions at Humana Inc. and CIGNA Corporation. When he left CIGNA in May 2008 he was serving as head of corporate communications and as the company’s chief corporate spokesperson.
In a recent Associated Press article titled, ‘Some below poverty line don’t qualify for Medicaid’, Carla K. Johnson and Kelli Kennedy wrote,
“The political rhetoric during a presidential campaign focuses on the middle class and leaves the uninsured working poor largely invisible, said Rand Corp. researcher Dr. Art Kellermann.
“We hear a lot of talk about unemployment and the aspirations of middle-class Americans. But we don’t hear about the consequences of unemployment and the consequences of the collapsing middle class,” Kellermann said. Losing health insurance is one of those consequences.”
“It’s like the public just doesn’t want to believe anything else until it hits home,” he said, “Until it’s their own child, brother or parent that got laid off when they were 58, until then, it’s not real.”
The Denver Unemployment Examiner has written several times about a growing group of Americans that are particularly at risk: ‘adults without dependent children’. Many of the nation’s long term unemployed (and under-employed). The Associated Press writers go on to say,
“Medicaid now covers an estimated 70 million Americans and would cover an estimated 7 million more in 2014 under the Obama health law’s expansion. In contrast, Ryan’s plan could mean 14 million to 27 million Americans would ultimately lose coverage, even beyond the effect of a repeal of the health law, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation of Ryan’s 2011 budget plan.
For now, most states don’t cover childless adults, but all states cover some low-income parents. The income cutoff, however, varies widely from state to state.”
Please read the entire article here: http://www.examiner.com/articl…
You must be logged in to post a comment.
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: So You Like Meat, Do You? Ready To Slaughter It Yourself?
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: Thursday Open Thread
BY: kwtree
IN: Thursday Open Thread
BY: coloradosane
IN: Thursday Open Thread
BY: Duke Cox
IN: Wednesday Open Thread
BY: coloradosane
IN: Wednesday Open Thread
BY: coloradosane
IN: Wednesday Open Thread
BY: coloradosane
IN: So You Like Meat, Do You? Ready To Slaughter It Yourself?
BY: kwtree
IN: So You Like Meat, Do You? Ready To Slaughter It Yourself?
BY: JeffcoBlue
IN: So You Like Meat, Do You? Ready To Slaughter It Yourself?
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!
Primarily intended to drive visitors to a link outside CO Pols.
Guvs, would you consider this spam? You’ve left several of this guy’s posts up, so I guess not, but it seems to me this is someone reposting a fragment of content from another site with the intention of taking viewers to that site, not someone who intends to participate in our community.
make a fascinating, compelling topic boring.
I guess I understand your perspective. By the way, I’m a female not ‘this guy’.
I am one the state’s verY, very long term unemployed. And for many weeks and months at a time, the only income I’ve had besides the $200 I get in food stamps, is the pitiful income I earn as a result of writing my articles on Examiner.com. So far this month I’ve earned a total of $8.44 and last month I earned $7.06. There was a time when I actually wrote enough – and spent enough time ‘promoting’ my article that I earned about $60/mo.
So I’m sorry for posting a ‘fragment’ of my article with a link to another site’ otherwise known as ‘spam’. Contrary to your assumption that I don’t want to ‘participate in your community’ I actually have a very real, personal reason for writing about the issues I write about. That’s because it is my life as I’ve known it for the last 4 years. Prior to that, I was solidly middle class and financially independent – and shamefully – wasn’t a bit interested in the political games that are played and the discussions that take place around them.
As for the comment below, “make a fascinating, compelling topic boring”.
wow – I don’t know what to say, other than this is the kind of crap that brings tears to my eyes every time it comes up. The problem with this country is that so many people find ‘boring’ the absolute nightmare of a life the poor, unemployed and others must endure day in and day out. I assure you, you wouldn’t find it boring if you were living the nightmare I write about in my articles. Let me tell you it really sucks to be down here, living that ‘boring’ life that nobody cares about.
One more thing – in my article I write about the terrific opportunity to Coloradans to get involved in the efforts of Sen Irene Aguilar to create a statewide health care cooperative – which will be re-introduced next year. And while I desperately need a job am doing what I can as a volunteer on this effort – BECAUSE I NOW KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE EALTHCARE I ONCE TOOK FOR GRANTED AND WHICH YOU PROBABLY STILL TAKE FOR GRANTED.
have a good day.
Kelly Wiedemer
Denver Unemployment Examiner
You have one comment on a diary that’s not your own since February of last year, and it was a comment promoting an event you’re affiliated with. Your diaries all seem to promote your stuff, which is OK, we have lots of issue advocates here and we embrace them. But I think it’s going a little too far to ask folks to go outside CO Pols to even read the full content that you wish to share.
I haven’t gotten an answer from the Guvs, so I assume they’re fine with what you’re publishing. I won’t be putting it on the front page. I’m familiar with the Examiner model (and, hell, I could even suggest some better ways to make money writing online — Examiner hasn’t really been “with it” for months now) and I sympathize with your employment situation. But yelling at me for being in favor of basic “netiquette” will neither get you a job nor increase your earnings from Examiner.
I felt that the comments were pretty unfair and harsh. I am not trying to do anything wrong – or have ‘bad ediquette’. Sorry you felt I was ‘yelling’ because the truth is I was crying as I wrote my response.
As for Examiner – I’d rather not write using their platform to be honest. The only person making any money at it is Anschutz.
btw – am always learning and point is well-taken.
Calypso Bay Jacobs Well Land Estate Reviews – Roche Group – Luxury Real Estate located between Brisbane and the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.
calypso bay
calypso bay