ISO Health Care

The health care debate has flared up in Congress, with many agreeing that reform is necessary but with not quite enough (yet!) agreeing on how to begin fixing the problem. For rural families, the challenges of accessing affordable health care are likely more complicated than for their city cousins, e.g., a partial list of added challenges includes:

• State Children's Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) ... a great program which more than 1/3 of rural kids benefit from, but many families still haven't signed up. What does it take to get the word out?
• Attracting doctors to our small communities.
• Keeping the doctors once we're recruited them. (Doctors in rural communities have higher costs and often lack the advantage of telemedicine because of still lagging broadband shortages.)
• Keeping hospitals open when they lack the advantages of big city hospitals that can afford more patients and more equipment.

To help you sort out the debate, please scroll down the left column of this blog to see Senator Sherrod Brown discuss the need for a strong public option, i.e., a government sponsored option that would serve as an incentive for private health insurers to keep their prices affordable.

Can Progress be made in America without the Feds Playing a Tighter Role in Regulation?

As we write this blog, today is Sunday, February 22 -- only about a month after Barack Obama was sworn in as President. Obama was elected with a strong mandate for change and now, barely more than 30 days after he was sworn in, "Change" is fast on its way. The economic stimulus package, State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act have passed and been signed into law.

Meanwhile, the housing crisis, the automakers' mess and the banking situation still need additional help, as does the need to bring the federal government back to its traditional role as the enforcers of tough regulation. Yesterday, one of our readers wrote in to ask,

"Where the hell were the auditors, regulators? This continuing string of travesties may be enough to cause the American people to become like Howard Beale in Network, "Mad as hell" and "Not going to take it any more." They might even give up their self-destructive love affair with Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, and Ronald Reagan's apotheosis of selfishness to the pantheon of virtues."

The widely reported story our reader referred to was "Madoff Never Made Supposed Investments" So far, the court-appointed trustee has examined records "only" back to almost 1993 and no evidence that any securities were ever purchased during that time has been found.

Assuming this remains true as the investigation continues, this fact raises further question, e.g., where did the trade confirmations and fake statements to investors come from ... from someone at the Stock Market? ... and why didn't all these "checks & balances" (Stock Market, Brokerage Firm, Bank Accounts, IRS, etc., etc.) ever come to light through our government "regulation" system? Remember that Madoff confessed ... no government regulatory authority actually looked into this crime.

Chairman Edolphus Towns from New York is the new Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Let's watch carefully to see that the Madoff situation gets the full investigatory spotlight, so that we can learn which regulatory agencies dropped the ball and who profited in addition to Madoff.

Health Benefits Inspire a Rush to the Altar, or to Divorce Court

Let's just say this very clearly: Access to basic health services should NOT be based upon whether you're married or divorced.

The divorce rate for American marriages is over 50 percent these days, and the problem of how difficult it is for people to access affordable health care is making things worse. Kevin Sack wrote the story "Health Benefits Inspire a Rush to the Altar, or to Divorce Court" for the New York Times. Read it here.

Overall, it's a pretty sad state of affairs that getting good health care depends on whether you've got a spouse that has it, or for that matter, that you have to divorce your spouse in order to be poor enough to get assistance with your medical bills. This said, it brings us to some key differences regarding what the two leading presidential candidates (presumptive nominees) have to say about health care. We credit National Journal -- not the campaigns, for these differences, noting that National Journal frames the key difference as "over the scope of government involvement in America's health care system."

To put this another way, Senator McCain's plan depends primarily on tax incentives to individuals, while Senator Obama's plan pays for his proposed program by allowing President Bush's tax breaks to expire for people who earn over $250,000.

There are differences in their voting records, including:

• State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
  
• McCain voted NO; Obama voted YES .. for reauthorization and expansion in 2007
  
• Stem Cell Research
• Obama SPONSORED 2006-07 legislation -- VETOED by President Bush & OPPOSED by McCain -- that would have expanded federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research
  

National Journal lists SEIU, the American Hospital Association, Families USA and America's Health Insurance Plan as key supporters of Obama. National Journal does not list any organizations as advocates for McCain.

SEIU made its endorsement of Obama based upon his work in support of universal coverage, with employers, individuals and government sharing the financial burdon.

Ohio Needs More Information

Kevin Merida writes "In Rural Ohio, It's No Country for Democrats". It's yesterday's story in the Washington Post but it's also a 2000, 2002 and 2004 story because of the continuing theme that all too often rural voters vote against their own needs and values simply because they lack information.

In the Post's story, elected county engineer for Darke County (Greenfield, OH) James Surber asks, "I have always said that the three most baffling questions you could ponder forever are: What's the meaning and purpose of life? Why is Bruce Willis a star? And why do farmers vote Republican?"

At My Rural America, we have to admit that Surber's Bruce Willis question is completely above our pay grade, but as to why farmers voter Republican, we are still pondering. Overall, the simple answer to his question is that the news isn't getting to farmers.

For example, a test of rural policy issues recently debated shows:

• 2008 -- President Bush is still wielding his "veto" club over the Farm Bill.
• 2007 -- Despite the fact that a few Republicans joined the new Democratic Majority to pass disaster assistance for drought stricken farmers, and despite the fact that the President signed the bill into law, some farmers who were stricken by drought in 2005 still are not paid. Why? It's USDA's job, but it's the President who ultimately is responsible to be sure USDA carries out the law.
• 2007 -- Health Insurance for Children. Sure ... the Senate voted overwhelmingly to support SCHIP but rural Republicans in the House are still dragging their feet about over-riding President Bush's veto. Meanwhile, it is rural children who are most likely to benefit from the bill's passage.
• 2006 -- The Republican Majority in the House voted overwhelmingly to cut back veterans' benefits.
  
• 2006 -- Two Republican Members joined House Dems on the Appropriations Committee to save the American food aid requirement for international food aid to Sudan. It stopped the President's Budget request to allow purchase of the food from other places. Where would the President have purchased the food ... maybe from France? or maybe from the Middle East?
• 2003 -06 -- Republican Majority, following the President's Budget Request, overwhelmingly vote to cut back veterans' benefits in a time for war.
  

There is more but even at this quick glance, it's clear that Ohio farmers need more information, so here's our request:

Dear Reader: Please forward this story to a friend in Ohio. The election is coming and Ohio's rural voters need to get started preparing themselves for the general election.

Children's Health Care ... Is the President's Veto a sign of battles to come?

We all know about warning signals. There are the easy ones, like a red light that tells us to stop or a yellow light saying caution. We also know about other kinds of warning signals, e.g., when the fish show up dead on the shore, we know we have an environmental disaster on our hands .... and that we'd better clean it up, or we'll be sick from the water, too.

Now, Ron Brownstein, writing for National Journal, has identified a new warning signal, saying, "The current debate (on children's health care) is a prelude to next year's fight over broader health care reform."

President Bush said he vetoed the bill because the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) would direct its benefits toward middle class families who don't need the help. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office refutes, finding that 85 percent of the nearly 4 million uninsured children the bill would add to the rolls live in families already eligible for the program.

In fact, the Urban Institute found that three-fourths of the children who would be newly enrolled, live in families who earn less than twice the federal poverty level, or about $41,000 for a family of four.

For rural children, the situation becomes particularly dire. The Carsey Institute's studies on rural children's health care finds there is growing need, with rural children's dependence on SCHIP for health care six percent higher than for urban children.

All of us from rural areas of the country have stories to tell ... about how diminished our small -- now smaller, home towns, have become as the good jobs left town and many of the remaining families have more trouble making ends meet. Now, some of us are counting on the emerging bio-fuel renewable energy industry to bring back some of those new jobs. But meanwhile, our children don't have time to wait.

What the President really meant with his veto, is that he wants to send a message to middle class voters that assistance on health insurance will cost more than it's worth. It's the same message that the old "Harry and Louise" political ad used to kill Bill and Hillary Clinton's proposal for universal health insurance coverage. That old "Harry & Louise ad, by the way, is now used in Wikipedia as a primary example of modern propaganda, i.e., how ads can twist facts and confuse their audience.

However Brownstein also reminds us, "Since then, the cycle of rising health care costs and declining access has threatened more middle-class families: Of the 1 million children who lost health insurance over the past two years, fully two in five lived in families earning more than twice the poverty level."

Congress is considering now whether to over-ride Mr. Bush's veto. We urge you to call or email your member of Congress. Ask them to support SCHIP. Click below to find out how to email your Representative and Senators.

United State House of Representatives

United States Senate

We're also doing our first poll on this blogging site, so take a look at it, too ... and let us know what you're thinking.

PASS THE BILL ... Facts on State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)

These facts come from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. The Institute specializes in rural studies. All data is from 2005, the most recent data available:

• Almost 4 million rural children depend upon SCHIP.
• 32 percent of children in rural areas rely on SCHIP or Medicaid compared with 26 percent of children in metro areas. This number has been rising steadily as manufacturing and other jobs with benefits dry up and private insurance becomes unaffordable.
  
• Even with SCHIP available, many continue to go without insurance.
  
• More than 1.3 million rural children were uninsured.
  
• More than half of these children were in families whose head worked full-time, year round.

To read more about this important program: Rural Children Increasingly Rely on Medicaid
and SCHIP.

Your Member of Congress is voting today ... or maybe tomorrow ... on this important bill. Please call your representative NOW to let him/her know how important it is that this bill passes:

202-224-3121
Ask for your specific Member of Congress.
To find out his/her name, click below
Representative Offices