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Arabic Chaldean Hispanic Organization (ACHO)
http://www.acho1.org/
Please support
H. RES. 1725 Bill
501(c)(3) Tax Exempt
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Dear Mr. Kalasho:
I thought you might appreciate
knowing that Thursday afternoon the Senate passed important health care
reform legislation.
This bill, the Health Care and
Education Reconciliation Act (H.R.4872), is the second and final step by
Congress and the president to enact necessary health care reform measures.
This legislation now must be approved by the House of Representatives,
which will likely occur Thursday evening, and signed into law by President
Obama. The first step in this process, the enactment of the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L.111-148), took place earlier this
week. Together, this landmark package will vastly improve access to and
the affordability of health care for millions of Americans.
President Obama signed the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act into law this past Tuesday.
Immediately, small businesses got a tax cut to help defray the costs of
providing insurance to their employees. Within three months, people with
pre-existing conditions will have access to a special fund to help cover
the gap until insurance exchanges, where they can obtain coverage, become
operational. And retiree health plans will qualify for a reinsurance
program to help lower costs. In October, the federal government will begin
helping states set up agencies to help consumers choose new health plans
or to challenge unfair decisions by their current insurance plan.
Eventually, these agencies will assist consumers enrolling in the
insurance exchanges where millions of people will find dependable coverage
that meets minimum quality standards at a price they are more likely to
afford.
Within six months, insurance reforms
will begin to take hold. New health plans will be required to let women
see an ob-gyn without seeking insurance company approval. They will be
prohibited from denying coverage to children based on pre-existing
conditions and required to allow children to remain on their parents’
policies until age 26. Health plans will have to provide preventive care
without co-pays or deductibles, and they will be barred from setting
lifetime coverage limits. These are historic improvements in our health
care system, and they will take place within the first six months after
the enactment of this legislation.
With the passage of the Health Care
and Education Reconciliation Act (H.R.4872) further improvements to the
health care reform bill were made, improvements that many called for so
loudly during our December debate. Among other measures, this
reconciliation bill will provide equitable Medicaid funding for all
states, instead of a select few, will close the Medicare prescription drug
“doughnut hole” that hurts so many seniors, and will cut the deficit by an
additional $143 billion dollars.
In one sense, the health care debate
that came to a close this week has been going on for more than a year. But
in another sense, it has been going on for a century. Presidents and
members of Congress from both parties, seeing health care costs
continually rise, have grappled with this issue ever since President
Theodore Roosevelt. Yet, attempts at reform have largely fallen short.
They have foundered for many reasons: the subject is personal and complex;
the timing has been wrong; the politics have been difficult; and leaders
on all sides have failed to find the compromises that would have enabled
them to move forward. But, the recurring theme is that time and again,
reformers have failed to overcome the enormous obstacles that those who
profit from the status quo have been able to erect. And because we have
fallen short in the past, Americans today face a health care system that
costs too much and too often delivers too little.
The health insurance industry has
dominated health care decisions in this country for too long. I voted in
favor of this historic legislation to finish the task of bringing landmark
change to health care in America.
You may be interested to read my
full statement, which is available on my website, at [http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=323359].
Sincerely,
Carl Levin
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