P.S. After I received my first disability check, when it came time to renew AHCCCS, I was over income. So I talked to the people at AHCCCS and asked what I was to do? Without any insurance, I couldn’t even go to the emergency room if I got sick again. They said that was not the case; if my bill was higher than (they gave me some mathmatical formula that I can no longer remember) they could still help me. Indeed I did have an incident wherein I needed to go to the emergency room, and that gave me another 6 months of AHCCCS.

“Folks” is condescending.

Really? How so? Obama uses it all the time and I never get that anybody is offended.

The HELP Committee on Wednesday morning will begin consideration of The Affordable Health Choices Act – a measure aimed at reducing health care costs, protecting choice and guaranteeing quality. Nurses, medical students, and individuals with first-hand experience joined Bingaman and his colleagues at a Capitol Hill news conference in support of reforming our broken health care system.

Bingaman is also a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which is the other Senate committee that has jurisdiction over health care reform. Bingaman is the only Democratic senator of the HELP and Finance committees.

I’d sent an email to a HELP committee member urging that “public option” must be in the package, whatever. Have gotten two or three responses from folks I’d no idea was on the committee. One was Sen. Jeff Bingamon from New Mexico (I’m a former New Mexican, so that interested me), which referenced his site http://www.bingaman.gov/news and found two press releases about what he’s doing for the reform cause otherwise which I found very interesting and FDL folks need to know about. He’s taken on a some needed smaller pieces of the huge issue; while I’ve no idea if the donut hole issues is being addressed in the other vehicles being considered, I was rather impressed, although I’m sure that it needs to be part of the whole package.

, Bingamon Bill to Help Low-Income Seniors Pay for Medications

This bill (Helping Fix the RX Gap Act of 2009) corrects for the donut hole under Medicare D in which medication assistance ends once a recipient reaches $2700 in benefits and then can’t access benefits again until after paying the next $3,454. Bingaman proposes to cover the hole with credit from other federal health programs, Pharma assistance programs, and safety-net hospital med coverage.
My hunch this would not solve all the problems related to the donut hole, but God knows that it could be part of an answer to the donut hole for which a whole lot of seniors have wanted an answer.

The second bill is Medicare Quality and Payment Reform Act of 2009
The requirements are rather interesting and have been reflected in the MedPAC, Commonwealth and other entities. The three main components are as follows:

Provide a report on readmission rates and resource use to Medicare providers’

Establish benchmarks based upon these data, that over time,w ill be used to adjust Medicare payments. In analyzing payment levels and determining what tests and treatments are appropriate, HHS must take into account the overall health status of the patient or other factors that influence health care needs.

Institute a voluntary pilot program, which would replace the current fee-for-service payment system with bundled payments for certain high cost and high volume services. These payments would encompass the cost of an entire patient care episode over a set period of time (e.g. 30 days)

The goals are to lower costs and improve overall quality. Some of the terms have been referenced in recent posts and comments and while I suspect these proposed provisions are not enough, but they are a start and specifically address badly needed Medicare related issues.

And, lacking a universal single payer system, Medicare problems must be addressed within that framework if not in other proposals.

Blessings and thanks to all for being part of our education on these broader issues,