Texas Voice for Health Reform Weekly Update | July 30, 2009
Special Feature on what Texas Gains from Health Reform
ACTION
Keep up the pressure! Both the House and Senate aimed to vote on their chamber’s versions of health reform bills by the August recess. However, both chambers will leave Washington, D.C. for their break without voting on these bills. We are already hearing about anti-health reform organizing efforts for the month of August, and we must ensure that our voices – the voices for health reform now – are heard loud and clear and that our representatives know their constituents support their efforts to pass a meaningful health reform bill.
Throughout the month of August, we encourage everyone to communicate with your members of Congress via telephone, email or fax; visiting them in their district offices during the recess; educating your family, friends, and coworkers about the importance of health reform; and submitting letters to the editor and op-eds in your local papers.
• Find contact information for your representatives (by ZIP code): http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
• Families USA Letter to the Editor Tool: http://www.standupforhealthcare.org/page/speakout/speakout
• Toll Free Number to Call Your Members of Congress: 1.877.264. HCAN (4226)
Calling on constituents of Henry Cuellar (28th district) and Chet Edwards (17th district)! We need your help and support to do some targeted organizing in your communities during the month of August. Please contact Kymberlie at quongcharles@cppp.org if you live in one of these areas.
NEW & UPDATES
Wednesday afternoon the news/rumor is that the House Energy and Commerce Committee (E&C) resumed its Markup for the House Tri-Committee draft of Health Reform. Four of the seven Blue Dogs on E&C agreed to a deal with Chairman Henry Waxman. Details of the compromise are subject to approval by the full Committee, but multiple reports say the bill:
• retains employer responsibility, but doubles the small-business exemption payroll size from $250K to $500K;
• preserves the House version of the public plan, but adds a new option to create state-based nonprofit insurance co-ops.
• has the Secretary of HHS negotiate public plan rates, rather than using Medicare fees.
• scores at $900 billion over 10 years, covers 95 percent of uninsured citizens, and preserves insurance subsidies for persons and families between 300 percent and 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. However, the subsidy rates for that income bracket may have been reduced.
Reports go on to say that E&C intends to complete markup before the House leaves for August recess. House Leaders agreed to postpone their floor vote until September at the earliest. Members can now return home with some of the more controversial aspects of the Tri-Committee draft moderated.
In the Senate, Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus announced this afternoon that he has “all but completed” a deal with ranking minority member Charles Grassley to secure at least three GOP votes for a Committee markup, to be completed before the Senate recesses next Friday. Baucus reported that CBO has scored the agreement at slightly under $900 billion/10 years, fully offset by savings or revenue measures, with modest reductions in the deficit occurring by the tenth year.
Reports indicate that both the Senate Finance Committee and the House Leadership will be doing further work on their revenue proposals during the August break.
Send Us Myths, Errors and Big Fat Lies!
A number of you have shared with us some of the wild rumors and outright lies being circulated about health reform. While it makes our heads hurt, we can’t refute these stories unless we see them, so please keep sending us the links, emails, and press accounts! We will create a special section for Q&As, truth checks, et cetera, and we are thinking of a new “Hall of Shame” for the most outrageous untruths being circulated by folks.
Reminder: Immigrants are NOT responsible for Texas’ Worst-Place Uninsured Status
U.S Census uninsured statistics only identify non-U.S. citizens, without distinguishing between legal and undocumented immigration status. Based on the Pew Hispanic Center estimates and other historical data, we (CPPP) guesstimate that about 1.4 to 1.5 of the 2.5 million TOTAL Texas non-citizens in the table below are undocumented.
Those of you who have read CPPP’s health primers in recent years may recall that we have pointed out that even after removing all of the non-citizens from the Texas population, we still have the worst uninsured rate in the U.S. And that’s compared to other states with their immigrants still included in their stats! While immigrants, especially undocumented, are surely at higher risk of being uninsured, this illustrates that they are just PART of Texas’ problem, but not the cause of it.
State and Local Officials Support Health Reform
June Highlights from RWJ’s Consumer Confidence in Health Care Index
RESOURCES
Special Feature on what Texas gains from health reform
One of the biggest questions for Americans right now is “What’s in health reform for me?” With several bills in the works and the complex nature of this issue, it’s no wonder that people are confused. The following are several new resources that we think help to clarify some of these questions.
• Families U.S.A.’s new report Coverage for All: We All Stand to Gain According to this new report, , Texas is one of five states that have the most to gain from health reform with more than 4.5 million newly insured Texans by 2019
• House Energy and Commerce Committee Analysis on Benefits of House Bill 3200 by Congressional District offers short one-pagers for every district in the country and covers the bill’s impact on small business, seniors, health care and financial security, hospitals and health care providers and covering the uninsured
• New York Times: Impact of Health Care Measures is an excellent graphic tool allowing readers to compare bills using true-to-life variables for real Americans
Other useful resources
Kaiser Family Foundations New Resources on Key Elements of National Health Reform Proposals
CALENDAR
Please email quongcharles@cppp.org if you have health reform activities for our calendar
July
• 31st: House of Representatives breaks for August recess (reconvenes September 8th)
• 7th: Senate breaks for August recess (reconvenes September 8th)
• 8th: Representative Burgess Town Hall meetings
• 23rd: TVHR presents at Gray Panthers Annual Forum, AFL-CIO Hall, Austin, TX
• Date TBA: Dallas Area Interfaith House Meeting on Health Reform
•
September
• 11th: Deadline to submit entries in Texas Impact’s Health Reform Sermon Contest
