It must be some of President Obama’s Irish that brought him some St. Patrick luck and the promise of a yes vote on health care from Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich, who ran for president himself, was one of the few “holdouts that thought the bill didn’t go far enough” on the Democratic side. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/dennis-kucinich-health-care_n_502182.html

I am also betting that my favorite bloggers Markos Moulitsas has something to do with his reversal. Markos, the darling of the netroots and founder of the DailyKos, “suggested that Kucinich should face a primary challenge if he votes no.” Hats off to Markos, who has always wanted single payer and public option at the very least for putting his liberal agenda behind him and helping push health care through the final hurtles.
The other good news on this St. Paddy’s day, (thinking of you, Senator Ted Kennedy), is that the passage of health care reform will help Americans right away even though the loudest voices and the tea baggers would have you think differently.
Representative John B. Larson, House Chairman of the Democratic Caucus, listed “the following top ten immediate benefits you’ll get when health care reform passes” (not in 2013 or 2018 or whatever the critics say). The legislation will:
1. Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;

2. Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;

3. Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;

4. Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;

5. Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;

6. Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;

7. Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;

8. Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;

9. Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;

10. Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

By enacting these provisions right away, and others over time, we will be able to lower costs for everyone and give all Americans and small businesses more control over their health care choices. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-john-b-larson/he-top-ten-immediate-bene_b_501748.html

On a personal note, these provisions will benefit my family in profound ways. My husband has Type-1 diabetes and pays almost $400 dollars a month with insurance now. My daughter is uninsured. This is the same daughter that took training a few years ago at Blue Cross in Boise. As her job training progressed, she soon realized that her main task was to deny any and all claims that crossed her path immediately without hesitation.

I am proud to say that she gave up great benefits, good pay and health care because she couldn’t live with herself if she did this. She has gone on to create her own niche in Boise that fits her values and her personality, but she cannot afford even catastrophic health insurance. I know of many full-time employed people who have had to drop their insurance, if they wanted to pay their rent or house payment.

A friend of ours in Montana was recently denied bone marrow treatment because it was considered “experimental.” Oddly enough it wasn’t experimental when the same man received a bone marrow transplant earlier and had almost ten years of recovery. The state health insurance that covered his wife and him delayed treatment. This young father of two boys died from complications awaiting the treatment that could have saved him.

All around us, we have incidents that reveal the broken health care system where insurance companies make unprecedented profits that continue to rise. The insurance and the pharmaceutical industries are breaking the backs of Americans. Things have to change and this is our last chance make a significant chance in health care.

President Obama sent out an email to all the faithful today and talked about why he is still fighting for health care. “And I’m here for my mother. She died of cancer, and in the last six months of her life, I saw her on the phone in her hospital room arguing with insurance companies instead of focusing on getting well and spending time with her family.”

I have no better argument than the president’s words…