We still want health insurance aid, no matter what ideologues want to think

I’m sending off a payment this week to an insurance company – one meant to be a binder for the health insurance policy I hope to have for 2018.

Will it continue?

Yes, I’m amongst the people who really can’t afford to pay the full cost of this policy, and am hoping to continue to receive the assistance I have got in past years from the federal government as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

YOU KNOW, THE one that President Donald J. Trump and his ideologue allies want to believe is the most disgraceful part of the Barack Obama legacy, the one they’d like to believe will wither away and the one that Trump himself has claimed to have killed off because of provisions of his $1.5 trillion tax plan.

As I comprehend it, if I had chosen to ignore the issue, I would no longer be susceptible to financial penalties for failing to have health insurance.

Which the Trump-ites want to believe will make many people disregard the issue, and will cause the problem to wither away.

Which is why I found it amusing to read reports showing that the number of people who filed their applications by the Dec. 15 federal deadline for ACA financial help with insurance was nearly as high for 2018 as it was for 2017.

IN ILLINOIS, IT was 339,740 people (including me) who filed for help for next year (which begins Monday), while it was 356,403 people who sought help this year. Nationally, according to the Chicago Tribune, it was 8.8 million people, compared to 9.2 million to the previous year.

Which is amazing, when one considers that in their efforts to undermine the federal initiative, they made a point to cut back the registration period. The aforementioned Dec. 15 deadline in past years was the end of January.

I know in my case, it made me think more promptly about being sure my application for Affordable Care Act assistance with health insurance was in on time, and that it be double-checked to ensure there were no glitches that would cause me to be rejected due to my own ignorance.

Will Trump's ideological opposition prevail?

Because it seems the ideologues who now control of the federal government want to do to this program what they have allowed to happen to immigration policy.

AS IN OUR nation has an immigration policy filled with so many bureaucratic glitches that it can be easy for some unknowing soul to make a mistake that is later used against them as a reason to reject any sort of compassion for someone wishing to remain in this country.

Just as I suspect the Trump-ites are hoping many of us blew the deadline or make a mistake with our renewal applications so that they can reject our requests for assistance that makes health insurance affordable – which was the whole purpose of the Obama-era initiative.

So could it be that this program so despised by the ideologues who want to believe that anybody without health insurance is just a deadbeat who won’t “get a job!” is actually so popular that we, the people, went to great lengths to make sure we couldn’t be denied?

Personally, I’m not sure what to believe. My own application through HealthCare.gov responded to me by saying all is in order, once I get that binder payment to the insurance company by Monday (the first of the new year).

BUT I’M GOING to be uncertain about my fate for the next few days. Because as I have been in recent years, I’m self-employed – as in doing work for companies and checking the mailbox for checks.

Part of Obama legacy to be most missed?

I do know that when I looked at the actual cost of the policies offered by various insurance companies, all cost more than I could cover in their entirety on my own. The idea of federal aid in providing health insurance to the masses is something that benefits our society as a whole, unless you happen to believe that a certain individual’s profit margin is more important than not having healthcare available to as many as possible.

I’ll be checking the news accounts of coming days, weeks and months to see if further politically partisan tampering with the issue further restricts the ability of the Affordable Care Act to fulfill its purpose.

And if I find myself unable to fill a medicinal prescription in the future, I’ll be amongst those complaining, along with, of course, Walgreen’s – which I’m sure has as its bottom line selling as many drugs as possible and could see its bottom line slashed if some of us can't pay in full!

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Who's going to suffer to enable GOP to satisfy their Obama-hating sentiments?

It's no surprise that Republicans are ever-so-eager to dump the Affordable Care Act. The Republican influences that now control federal government want to erase every trace that Barack Obama ever was president. That most certainly includes his prime achievement -- bolstering the number of people who actually have health insurance when they become ill.

RAUNER: Not rushing to back Trump's vision

It's not even a surprise that Republican officials on Capitol Hill are split on how to handle the situation -- with some trying to come up with convoluted repairs and others who would just as soon scrap the whole thing and be done with it!

BUT I HAVE to admit to being a bit shocked that Gov. Bruce Rauner was publicly critical of the reform plan that now-President Donald J. Trump put forth this week -- the American Health Care Act! It has to be better, because it has the word "American" in its title. If only Obama hadn't have titled his health care reform plan to emphasize the fact it would be "Affordable" for people.

Rauner had a reaction to the new plan that is supposedly the Republican alternative to provide medical treatment to the masses, and the stories being published across the state carry headlines such as "Illinois 'won't do well' under House GOP health plan."

He thinks Illinois will wind up faring worse under the Trump-inspired proposal. Our state's people will be "left in the lurch," says the governor, who thinks there will be pressure to reduce insurance coverage in our state. "Illinois won't do very well under the changes they're recommending."

I'm sure some people will be shocked to learn that a Republican governor is not immediately leaping on board to back this proposal that will be key to understanding how the ideologues of our society intend to replace Obama in all segments of our society.

Would Obama's plan have been better ...

BUT I'M SHOCKED as in "shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" (remember "Casablanca's" Capt. Renault character?). Rauner's own ideological leanings are such that he wants to undermine organized labor and unions, but actually has been supportive in the past of some progressive causes.

He's not the kind of guy who would have felt compelled to make a priority of erasing the program that actually provided many millions of people with health insurance they previously couldn't afford to buy for themselves -- although there are many Trump-ite tyes who are exactly those kind of people.

Rauner's own re-election campaign strategy for 2018 focuses heavily on turning the other parts of Illinois against the Chicago city masses who will vote overwhelmingly for whomever the Democrats nominate to run against him. What happens if Trump starts extending his contemptable Tweeter missives into shots against the whole of Illinois (we were one of the states that clearly preferred the thought of "President Hillary R. Clinton" and I think most of us are proud of that fact)?

... if he had included the word "American" in the title?

Will Rauner wind up having to eat his initial opposition to Trump's version of healthcare reform?

OR WILL HE wind up gaining the backing of the Protect Our Care Illinois Coalition, which consists of various progressive-minded groups. They said this week that some 350,000 Illinois residents who were able to purchase private medical coverage will find the cost shoot up so high that they won't be able to afford to keep it.

And yes, as a freelance writer, the reason I have had health insurance in recent years is because of the subsidy I qualified for under the Affordable Care Act. My insurance plan remains in place for now, but I must admit to feeling some trepidation, wondering what will be forthcoming.

Would Renault be 'shocked' to find GOP partisanship?

Of course, there also are the 650,000 Illinois residents who were benefitting from expansion of Medicaid in recent years who could suddenly find themselves shut out of health care.

That's an even 1 million people living in Illinois who will sustain some sort of loss -- all because Republican ideologues don't want the president who came from our state to have any lasting accomplishment. And because I'm sure many of the ideologues probably think it's not their concern if some people can't merely get a health insurance benefit as a part of their job.

YES I'M SURE many of those people want to believe that the insurance-less are merely too lazy to go to work. "Get a job!" is bound to be the war cry we'll hear.

But it will be intriguing to see how Rauner handles his political situation, since many of the kinds of people whom he theoretically needs to rely upon for support are ones who are on board for Trump and will expect the governor to be fully supportive of the president -- and would think nothing of dumping on Rauner if he doesn't back The Donald.

Considering that a recent poll showed Rauner with a 32 percent approval rating and being beaten significantly by a still-nameless Democrat. Or, as the Capitol Fax newsletter out of Springfield put it, 56 percent of people would support the tax on pop and other sugary beverages; which means people would rather pay more for their pop than vote for Bruce Rauner.

Would crackpots prevail in this show?

It's going to be an intriguing coming few months as we figure out which segment of the Republicans manages to prevail -- the ones who want health care reform to carry the brand of Donald Trump or the ones who'd just as soon do nothing. The ones who will have us thinking of the past eight years as "The Obama Years," which might be like that old "The Wonder Years" program, only this show features the Arnold family with a neighboring family of cranky malcontents determined to impose their will over all.

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Would Trump approve health insurance reform if it could be named after him?

I have always suspected that the real objection most Republican political officials have to the Affordable Care Act is that it is something that soon-to-be former President Barack Obama will get credit for.

After all, many of these people want to believe that Obama is evil incarnate and that everything he may have brought about during his presidency needs to be abolished. History needs to be rewritten so that we can deny there ever was such a presidency.

THE IDEA THAT Obama came up with a proposal that provided for health insurance benefits for people who – for whatever reason – didn’t have any is something that just cannot be allowed to remain in place.

Yet the reality of the situation is that having those millions of people who used to be uninsured going around without any way of paying for medical care they may need IS a serious problem for our society.

Those people were a drag on us all – particularly if they were having to show up at hospital emergency rooms for medical care and sticking the hospitals with the bill. Which they, in turn, found a way to pass along to the rest of us.

Republicans have made it clear there are measures they will desperately do away with the instant they take control at 12:01 p.m. on Jan. 20, 2017 – Obama’s immigration reform measures that were implemented by executive order are likely gone until the day a future Democratic-leaning president reinstates them.

AS FOR THE Affordable Care Act, that was approved by Congress, and even approved in basic concept by the Supreme Court of the United States. So Congress will have to take on an act to repeal it – which they have tried repeatedly to do only to be vetoed by Obama.

It is presumed that a “President Trump” will be more willing to sign such a repeal into law.

 

Is "Trump - the Insurance" in our future?

Yet Trump is going to learn that there were some serious benefits to having such a plan in place – largely that a straight-out repeal would wind up restoring many of the problems that used to exist from having so many millions of people uninsured.

He’ll also find out that once one gets beyond the partisan politics, the public largely supported the basic idea – with the exception of the ideological crackpots who wanted to believe it wasn’t their concern whatsoever to help provide anyone else insurance.

UNLESS TRUMP WANTS this to be the issue for which the public eventually turns on him and begins kicking themselves in the rear for casting ballots for him in the first place, he’s going to have to come up with an alternative program.

He may even wind up realizing that it won’t be radically different from what the Obama administration provided us – a measure that provided some financial assistance for those who otherwise would have trouble covering the cost of an insurance plan for themselves.

Because the reality is that many companies view the expense of providing insurance for their employees to be something they wish they could cut. It would help enhance their financial bottom line!

A simple abolishment would be about as reckless an act as Trump could commit against our society.

I HAVE TO confess to having a personal stake in this. Working as a freelance writer means I haven’t had a traditional job for 11 years now – which also means I haven’t had an employer willing to cover the cost of an insurance policy during that time.

Ideologues branded Obama, now want to repeal

My own insurance these days is from a plan for which the Affordable Care Act provides me a tax subsidy that covers just over half the cost – with the other half of the bill coming out of my own pocket every month.

It also was during the past year of having such a plan that I have discovered my own condition (high blood pressure) for which I am on a daily regimen of three different pills whose cost would be prohibitive if I had to pay the full bill out of my own pocket.

Yet I doubt I’m the extreme – there likely are people who will be in worse shape if Trump winds up making a moot point of all the paperwork I’m going to be filling out later this week to ensure my own insurance policy is renewed for another year.

WILL THE KEY to the public good be to letting the political partisans craft a plan that can be given a new brand – perhaps following the lead of how Trump the real estate developer named so many of his buildings after himself.

As in “Trump, the healthcare!” We may have to get used to it.

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The compromisin’ court? Or should we think of them as do-nothings?

I thought for sure we’d hear the whining and screaming from people all upset that the Supreme Court of the United States, bogged down in a politically-partisan tie due to being a member short, failed to uphold a provision of the Affordable Care Act.

That the ideologues who don’t want President Barack Obama to have a political victory by providing access to health insurance for the masses would be upset that the 4-4 tie would result in a lower court being upheld in its decision to strike down parts of the act.

BUT THAT’S NOT what wound up happening. In fact, I could see how it would be the conservative ideologues who were counting on the court’s partisan split and shortfall of a member to result in a positive ruling by default.

Instead, the nation’s high court wound up issuing about as sensible a ruling as could be achieved. They unanimously issued an order saying the lower courts need to come up with a compromise situation. One that would appease all.

Although when it comes to Barack Obama and abortion, there probably is no such thing as something for everyone.

The issue at stake in this case was that certain entities don’t want to have to include medical coverage in the health insurance packages they offer their employees that would cover a woman’s ability to terminate a pregnancy.

THEY WANT TO think that if people work for them, then they somehow forfeit their access to what has been a fully legitimate and legal medical procedure since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling of 1973.

Appeals courts with a partisan leaning had ruled those companies could get away with such narrow-minded thinking.

Had the court given in to the 4-4 split caused by the death earlier this year of Justice Antonin Scalia, that ruling would have been upheld by default. The lower court’s ruling would have stood.

Instead, the high court came up with their idea of a compromise, which shows a willingness to not let partisan politics become the cause of creation of the rule of law.

IF ANYTHING, THIS court decision affirms my basic faith in government. Because I have come to believe that while our government officials are always capable of doing something incredible stupid, shallow and narrow-minded, every now and then they will be capable of doing the right thing.

If anything, it is the reason why people who talk about throwing out our government and issue penny-ante talk of revolution (including many of those how talking about backing Bernie Sanders for president) usually strike me as being fairly shallow thinkers.

It will be interesting to see how the appeals courts wind up resolving this issue.

Because they’re going to have to figure out what constitutes compromise. They’re going to have to come up with the way of letting religious organizations express their opposition to abortion without actually interfering with a woman’s right to decide for herself what she should do with her body.

BELIEVE IT OR not, that is a very radical thought for some of those religiously-motivated people. Then again, for many of them they just want to use “God” as an excuse to tell women (and all other people) what they can or cannot do.

I don’t know how this situation will resolve itself, or what the compromise will look like. For all I know, the appeals courts may wind up failing, and it will come down to a Supreme Court of the future ultimately having to make the decision.

If it does turn out that way, let’s hope the court shows as much responsibility in the future as it did on Monday.

Even though I’m sure if it does happen that way, the conservative ideologues of our society will wind up reviling such a decision the way the masses of our society still sneer at the way the high court resolved the 2000 election voter count.

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More of us now have health insurance. That ought to be the ACA bottom-line!

We’re in the final days during which people can take advantage of the Affordable Care Act to try to sign themselves up for a health insurance policy, so as to guarantee that they are in compliance with federal laws requiring them to have some form of medical coverage.

OBAMA: Blame? Or praise!

The ACA that is a key part of Barack Obama’s desire for a presidential legacy requires people to be signed up for a health insurance policy by Monday – although the ones who literally waited until this final weekend before  trying to sign up will not have policies take effect until May 1.

OF COURSE, THE focus that some political people want to put on this is all negative. Either because they don’t want Obama to have anything in the way of public policy he could claim as a success.

Or because they really are clueless enough to believe that all those millions of people in this country who were going without health insurance were doing so because they chose to do so – and NOT because the insurance bureaucracy was such a mess that it was too complicated for many to get insurance.

Yes, the truth is that there are those people who would prefer to ignore the problem of so many millions going without insurance when they get sick – ignoring the fact that they wind up becoming a burden that the rest of us wind up having to pay for.

So when I read the reports indicating that some 6 million people who previously had no health insurance now have something resembling an insurance policy for when they become ill, I can’t help but be impressed.

THAT NUMBER MAY well be responsible for the assorted polls of recent weeks that show the total number of people opposed to Obama’s health care reform measures is on the decline (a Kaiser Foundation poll showed the gap between those who hate the idea and those who back it falling from 16 percent to 8 percent in the past two months).

Although the years of rancid rhetoric about the issue by Republican political operatives interested in doing the bidding of conservative ideologues have taken a toll.

Will this sign someday be as despicable ...

There are still many people who want to believe it is a sordid, un-American plot at stake to try to get insurance coverage for people so that a hospital stay when they become seriously ill does not bankrupt them.

Yes, we all heard those stories back in November during the early days of the sign-up period when there were assorted computer glitches that complicated the process.

AS A PERSON who was lacking a valid health insurance policy (in recent years, I've worked for companies that didn't want to provide such a benefit to me), I found that when I finally got around to using the websites put together by Illinois government officials to guide people through the process, they seemed to work very well.

... as this leaflet?

It took me about 45 minutes in all, but when I was completed I received notice that I was signed up for an insurance policy (and even got help in covering about 40 percent of its monthly cost).

I’m sure it helps that I knew off the top of my head all of the personal data that I had to provide, and that I don’t have any pre-existing medical conditions (at least none that I’m aware of). But it worked.

I will feel sorry, however, for those people who waited until the final days (literally, this weekend and Monday) to try to sign up. They may create a backlog on the Internet that causes some delays.

ALTHOUGH HOW SORRY should we feel for someone who waited for months before finally trying to do something? I don’t think we feel much compassion for someone who tries to file their income tax returns on April 16?

So what is going to become of this issue?

I know fully well there are Republican political operatives who are not only convinced, but also are counting on, displeasure among people with health care reform to cause so much anger against Obama that they take it out on him by voting for Republican political people for Congress.

There are those who tell you they are sure the GOP will regain control of the Senate and keep the House of Representatives – which would create such a hostile environment for Obama’s last two years as president. They WILL vote to repeal health care reform – forcing Obama to have to veto their effort in order to maintain it.

BUT WHAT HAPPENS if, despite all their years of griping, it winds up that people with insurance now no longer encounter problems when they become ill. What happens if the rancid rhetoric turns out to be cheap talk?!

I’m sure some will continue to let their partisanship get the best of them. But as for the real majority of our society, maybe this becomes a non-issue.

And the fact that some people were so desperately determined to oppose the idea of people having health insurance will become yet another point that they, and their descendants, wind up having to apologize for in future decades.

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Everything takes its sweet ol’ time in world of Ill. government operations

In a quarter-century of watching up-close government in operation, the lasting impression I have gained is that nothing is done in a timely fashion.

Relying on government agencies for something (regardless of what level the agency in question is at) ensures you will ultimately get the benefit in question. As far as how quickly, it will come whenever it comes.

PEOPLE WHO ARE capable of doing things on deadline (such as myself) are often the most frustrated with the endless delays – some of which were due to bureaucratic bumbling while others were due to politically-partisan delays.

Sometimes, people who desperately oppose something count delays in its implementation as being a political victory.

Take the whole matter of health care reform – which is in law and which in theory should start showing benefits next year. But Republicans in the House of Representatives (at least the most ideologically-motivated ones) are engaging in any actions they can to cause delays.

Although their blatantly-partisan efforts will be aided by those efforts by the state governments that will encounter their own delays in helping people enroll in the efforts meant to provide some form of health insurance coverage for all.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS reported this weekend that while Illinois expects to eventually have 1,200 workers in place to help people with questions as they decide exactly what health coverage plan best suits their needs, there are only about 100 such workers currently in place who are fully certified.

Considering that the six-month period in which people have to get themselves some sort of health insurance begins Tuesday, it would appear obvious that many people will have to figure out things on their own.

Perhaps the state figures that many of us are inherently procrastinators, and that the need for all those people trained and certified to help on this issue will not be needed until later in the process – perhaps around March when the sign-up period is coming to an end.

Will we get an ugly rush of people by the end of March seeking health insurance; similar to the ugly rush we get every year around April 15 when the masses decide to finally break down and file their income tax returns?

OR WILL THERE be early applicants who will become so frustrated with the lack of help that some may wind up erroneously deciding that those Republican ideologues may have been on to something with all their rhetoric about how health care reform was some sort of messed-up scam?

All I can say at this point is that I hope people are patient as they work their way through the intricacies of GetCoveredIllinois.gov – the site that people are supposed to use to sign up for help with health insurance.

But health insurance isn’t the only issue where the state is lagging behind in offering help. Take “concealed carry,” the matter of people being allowed to carry a pistol on their person in public for self-defense.

People wishing to have their firearm holstered (or tucked away in a purse or duffle bag) will have to gain permits from the Illinois State Police, who will require them to complete 16 hours of training from state-approved instructors. The process for applying to take such training will begin Jan 5.

BUT IT SEEMS that thus far, the state police only have 54 instructors approved to offer such training – and most of them are in the more urban six-counties of the Chicago metro area.

Some downstate Illinois counties don’t have any instructor yet, and it’s not clear when they will.

I’m sure from the perspective of the people who wanted to start carrying a pistol in a shoulder-holster the very day that the General Assembly overrode Gov. Pat Quinn’s amendatory veto of the issue, this is an unconscionable delay. Plus the fact that they won’t be able to go to a local office and may have to make a trip to a distant county to get the permit is scandalous to them!

I’m not as offended by that concept, because I realize it can take time to get people into place – just as it will take time to get all those workers certified to help people gain health insurance.

I ONLY HOPE that the delays for both of those groups of people can be resolved in a timely manner – and not with one significantly taking longer to fix than the other.

Because I’d hate to think that sometime in the near future, someone who could not get some sort of health insurance coverage would wind up dying from gunshot wounds inflicted by someone who was too quick on the draw because they thought their personal safety was being threatened!

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