New York has tough competition! Health Care for All Massachusetts is blogging on behalf of Patriot’s fans and the Community Service Society, Children’s Defense Fund-New York, and Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy are taking the field for Giant’s fans.

Be sure to read New York’s blog post, New York is Taking GIANT Steps to Cover Kids, and submit your comments. Include the words “Go Giants!” in the text. The team with the most comments wins, so share with your friends and colleagues!

With the ongoing GOP presidential debates there’s been so much negativity floating around the health reform conversation.  So, it’s nice when every now and then something positive is able to break through all the rhetoric.

This week, Harris Interactive/Health Day released the results of their latest poll on health reform.  Naturally, they did find that Americans are sharply divided when it comes to their opinions on the Affordable Care Act.  But, it turns out that more folks seem to be coming around to the many different parts of the law.  For example:

• 57% of Americans polled favor allowing children to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until they turn 26.  This is up from 55% in Nov. 2010.
• 59% favor creating insurance exchanges where people can shop for insurance – up from 51%.
• 70% favor providing tax credits to small businesses to help pay for their employees’ insurance – a big increase from 60% in November 2010.
• 53% favor requiring all employers with 50 or more employees to offer insurance to their employees or pay a penalty – up from 48%.
• 53% favor requiring research to measure the effectiveness of different treatments, up from just 44%.
• 38% also favor creating a new Independent Payment Advisory Board to limit the growth of Medicare spending – up from 32%.

Granted, that’s not to say that folks favor EVERYTHING about the law.  In terms of the requirement that everyone buy insurance, that one didn’t budge.  Only 19% of folks fully support that one, a number which hasn’t changed at all since the last poll (22% of folks say they’re not sure what they think about that).

Anyways, it’s not all pretty, but it’s pretty interesting nonetheless.  Here’s a link to Harris’ press relase, if you would like to learn more, and a link to a related article from Health Day.

Did anybody watch this? On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius made a guest appearance on the Daily Show to talk about the Affordable Care Act.

She does a pretty good job of hashing out what’s in the law and what’s not, and Jon Stewart is, as always, just charming.

In case you missed it, you can still watch the full interview, in two parts, on the Daily Show website.  Click here to watch. 

PBS Newshour had a great little segment last night on a project out of Colorodo aimed at improving health among the Latino population.  This is done by delivering public health messages via telenovelas.

For those of you who may not have grown up watching Univision or Telemundo, telenovelas are basically like soap operas, but way better.  They have shorter runs, different genres, and jucier stories that develop much more quickly.  They also happen to be a big hit in the Latino community.

The Latino community, however, happens to have the highest rates of uninsurance in the nation – about 34%. 

“Encrucijada: Sin Salud No Hay Nada,” or “Crossroads: Without Health, There Is Nothing,” is a telenovela funded by the Colorado Health Foundation that follows four health workers and focuses on a lot of issues that affect Latinos disproportionally, like diabetes and lack of insurance. Viewers are encouraged to call a toll-free number if they are experiencing issues like those faced by the characters on the show.

Apprarently, this show has been going on for a while becuase they are already filming season 2!  And, it seems to be getting some traction too – since the show first aired in May of last year, more than 800 people have phoned into the hotline.  That’s no small peanuts!

Wouldn’t it be great to do something like this in NY? Maybe El Bloombito could even have a small cameo role as, well, mayor or something :-)

Click here to read the story from PBS Newshour, titled “Telenovelas Provide Platform for Public Health Message.”

Click here to watch the trailer (in Spanish).

I’m sure all of you are busy celebrating your State of the Union bingo victories from last night, but anybody who missed last night’s address by President Obama can easily fill themselves in today.

You can watch a video of the entire address above, or read the full text by clicking here (via Bloomberg).

Noticeably absent from the president’s speech was any talk of health care or health reform.  Sure, Medicare and Medicaid both got a quick mention.  But health reform…not so much.  Here’s a transcript that Kaiser Health News put together on just the health care mentions.

That’s been the source of some speculation this morning.  So, just why didn’t President Obama mention the Affordable Care Act? Well, my guess is that he probably didn’t think it would do any good to bring up such a contentious issue at this point in the game.  Sarah Kliff, of the Washington Post, also offers her take in an article titled “O Health Care, Where Art Thou?”

Just a little bit of food for thought.

From left: Lorraine Gonzalez, Children’s Defense Fund of NY, Kevin Keogh, Small Business Majority, Jennifer Torres, New York Immigration Coalition, Becca Talzek, Make the Road NY, Heidi Siegfried, New Yorkers for Accessible Health Coverage, Jasmine Burnett, Raising Women’s Voices.

HCFANY held a short briefing this morning for coalition members and allies in the NYC area. For those of you who were not able to make it to HCFANY’s NYC briefing this morning, here is just a short recap of the events.

The first session focused on a recap of the 2011 legislative session, presented by Elisabeth Benjamin of the Community Service Society.  Lisa Sbrana, a policy analyst with the NYS Department of Health was our special guest for the day.  She gave a pretty thorough overview of where NY is in the health reform implementation process and talked about the new health insurance exchange bill in the budget, which is essentially very close to last year’s exchange bill. 

She also updated us on the progress the state has made on the different studies the State has promised to do.  For example, the Urban Institute’s report on the Basic Health Plan provision of the ACA is due out next week.  Another report on how New York will pay for the exchange after 2015 is set to be released by Wakely Consulting later his quarter. 

Lisa also directed us to the Enroll UX 2014 website, at www.ux2014.org , which is a design initiative that NY is participating in with 10 other states, the federal government, and several state health care foundations to hash out the basic enrollment interface that consumers will use on many of the forthcoming health insurance exchanges.  Many states (including New York) will be able to use this as a template to customize as they implement their own exchanges.

The second session included a presentation from Lois Uttley of Raising Women’s Voices, on how to talk about health care reform in 2012.  This was based on data pulled together by Lake Research Partners.  

Lastly, a panel of HCFANY steering committee members went over HCFANY’s policy objectives for 2012, and who our key constituencies will be.

Overall, we walked away with a lot of new information on where New York is now in terms of health reform implementation, and what to expect in the coming months.  What a fine way to spend the morning!

• Click here to view Lisa’s Presentation, titled “Health Insurance Exchange Planning: Status Report and Preliminary Modeling Results” (NEW!)
• Click here to view Lois’ presentation, titled “How do we talk about health reform this year?”
• Click here to view photos from today’s event.
• To learn more about the state’s design process for the upcoming health insurance exchange website, go to www.ux2014.org
• To learn more about the State’s efforts around health reform implementation, go to www.healthcarereform.ny.gov
• For questions regarding federal health reform implementation at the state level in NY, email healthcarereform@exec.ny.gov

You could easily read one thing telling you Americans love health reform and then turn around and see another saying Americans hate health reform, with both somehow having the numbers to back them up.

So, who is right?

Well, that’s a tricky issue.  See, people can use numbers to show whatever they want them to show, but they don’t often show you the fine print.  This is a topic covered today in a guest piece written in The New Republic by Harold Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago, and Vivek Murthy, a physician and co-founder of Doctors for America.

The article spotlights a piece that came out in Forbes recently that said that doctors are against “Obamacare.”  It cited a poll to prove this. 

But, it turns out the Forbes article wasn’t telling the whole story.  Pollack and Murthy explain this by going through to point out the polling information that the Forbes article actually left out.  They also point out many other facts that are left out.  The result? Well, it turns out that all doctors everywhere can’t be defined by a single poll.  And, all things considered, it looks like most doctors probably do like health reform.  

Anyways, it’s definitely a good read.  If anything, it serves as a good reminder that much of what you read on contentious issues like health reform should be taken with a grain of salt.  Especially during an election year! 

Click here to read the New Republic article, appropriately titled “No, Doctors Don’t Hate Obamacare.” 

As mentioned in the update to yesterday’s post, the proposed budget released yesterday included a new provision to establish a New York health insurance exchange (or “Health Benefit Exchange”).   This was included in the Health and Mental Hygiene Article VII bill.

The proposed language in this new iteration of the bill looks in many ways very similar to the negotiated bill that passed in the Assembly last year.  There are a couple of small changes though.  With relation to the governing board, the timelines have been changed somewhat.  And, the timelines for reports on the various studies that were included in last year’s version have also been shifted around a bit. 

Lastly, there’s a new provision that says that the exchange can also rely on information from other outside studies (if they are determined to be reliable) instead of conducting any of the listed studies.  Now, that is interesting, though it’s not clear yet how much this will factor in.

So, there you have it.  Basically it’s a new version of last year’s bill.  Let’s cross our fingers that this one actually passes!

• Click here to read the exchange bill provision in Section E of the Article VII bill.
• Click here to read HCFANY’s statement on the proposed 2012-2013 NYS Executive Budget

Governor Cuomo is set to give his budget address today at 2 PM to outline his spending plan for the next year.  Expected to be on the agenda, of course, is more on Medicaid.  Some are speculating that he will talk about a state take-over of local county Medicaid expenses. 

Also expected on the agenda is talk of the New York State health insurance exhange, which was included as a priority in his State of the State address given earlier this month.

Today’s budget address will be streamed live on the web for anyone interested in viewing it.  You can click here to watch.

UPDATE: The budget documents have been released and are posted online.  Click here to view them.  The formal proposal for an insurance exchange is in Section E of the Health and Mental Hygiene Article VII bill, which you can view by clicking here.  

Well, those wizards at the Kaiser Family Foundation have done it again.  They have found yet another way to blow this blogger’s mind.  This time, in the form of a 9 minute cartoon on health reform.

It’s titled “Health Reform Hits Main Street,” and is narrated by – who else? – Cokie Roberts.  Never thought I would see a cartoon narrated by Cokie Roberts.  But, then again, I never thought I would call health reform “cute” either.  For those who don’t remember, Roberts is a news commentator for ABC News and NPR.  Apparently, she is also a member of Kaiser’s Board of Trustees.

As you may have guessed by now, the cartoon is super cute.  And educational! It basically explains the problems with the current health care system, the changes that are happening now, and the big changes coming in 2014. And…it’s available in Spanish too!

So, go ahead: pick your language, pour yourself a big bowl of Lucky Charms, and click play!

P.S. – And no, the Spanish version isn’t also narrated by Cokie Roberts.  Rather, it is narrated by Dr. Isabel Gomez-Bassols, host of the program “La Doctora Isabel, el Angel de la Radio” which airs on Univision.

Yesterday, we learned that a group of over 450 legislators from all 50 states (and Washington D.C.) have joined together to file what’s called an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

An amicus brief is basically a written legal opinion which is submitted to the court in response to a case.  But, it’s up to the court to decide if they will take that opinion into consideration or not. The brief will be filed tomorrow, Friday the 13th (no ominous foreshadowing intended).

Twenty-five legislators from New York were part of this filing: Assembly Members Richard Gottfried, Thomas Abinanti, Michael Bendetto, James Brennan, Kevin Cahill, Jeffrey Dinowitz, Sandy Galef, Vanessa Gibson, Deborah Glick, Rhoda Jacobs, Ellen Jaffee, Charles Lavine, Barbara Lifton, Alan Maisel, Joan L. Millman, Felix Ortiz, Crystal Peoples-Stokes, Nick Perry, Peter Rivera, Robert Rodriguez, Linda Rosenthal, Michelle Schimel, Eric Stevenson, David Weprin, and State Senator Gustavo Rivera.  Click here to read Assembly Member Gottfried’s press release on the matter.

Now, anybody not in Rivera’s district may be thinking to yourselves, “Yay Assembly! But where are my State Senators?”

And yes, we all know that the State Senate has a Republican majority and that makes turning out a whole lot of support for “Obamacare” rather…difficult…, but that doesn’t mean our Senate Democrats are all just sitting on their hands either.  A group of Democratic leaders in the State Senate (i.e. Minority Leader John Sampson and Senators Tom Duane and Neil Breslin) this morning sent an open letter to Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos on the the benefits that an insurance exchange will bring for New Yorkers (and state coffers), stressing the importance of reaching bi-partisan agreement on this issure.  You can click here to read the full letter.

So, if you’re happy to see your elected officials working to make health care better and more affordable for YOU – be sure to tell them! Drop a line to their office or shoot them a quick email and just say, “Hey man (lady, whatever), thanks for sticking up for my health care needs and for working to do what’s right for New York.” Really, it’s the least you can do.

And if you didn’t see your elected’s name up here…well, go ahead and ask them why the heck not!!! A little guilt can go a long way too .

You can click on those names up there to contact folks directly, or if you don’t see your own electeds’ names up there you can find them on the State Senate website and the State Assembly website.  And if you don’t know who your electeds are, you can also plug in your address on either of those website to find out.

Jonathan Gruber thinks so!

He has written a new graphic novel (you know, like a comic strip, but longer) on – you guessed it – health reform!  The idea behind this, of course, is to be able to explain the law in a more easy to digest way because, the fact of the matter is that a lot of people still don’t understand exactly what health reform entails or why they should support it.

In case you’re still scratching your head thinking about who this Gruber fellow might be, you may recall that he was one of the lead economists who worked on the original Massachusett’s health reform bill on which the federal law was based. 

Kaiser Health News posted an interview with him on his new book and his reasoning behind taking this approach to tackle a pretty complicated subject.  You can read that interview here.

The book, which is titled, “Health Reform: What it is, Why it’s necessary, How it works” is now available Amazon.com for $11.15  and gets an average of 4 out of 5 stars (from 14 reviewers).  You can click on the picture below for a preview, or click here to go directly to the Amazon site to see a longer preview (or buy the book). Check it out!   

 This morning, HCFANY members held a press conference in Albany to release two new reports that we’ve put together to highlight just how New Yorkers are being helped by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Click here to read the press release.

See, it turns out that a lot of people out there actually think that the ACA, or “Obamacare,” is something that is going to happen in the future, and something that ultimately will be determined by the Supreme Court or in the next election.  But, that’s not necessarily true.  In fact, many parts of the ACA have already taken effect and are already helping people here in New York!

To underscore this reality, HCFANY has put together a book of stories gathered from our fellow New Yorkers around the state, titled “Health Reform Works: How the Affordable Care Act is Already Making a Difference for New Yorkers.”  Take a gander at it when you get a chance – you may just see some folks you recognize in there!

The second report was put together by our friends and fellow HCFANY members, the Public Policy and Education Fund (the research arm of Citizen Action of NY).  This report summarizes the most significant benefits of the ACA for average New York consumers and small businesses.  To talk about this new report, today we have a guest blog from Bob Cohen, the report’s author. 

Enjoy!

Guest blogger –  Bob Cohen, Policy Director, Citizen Action of New York

 Polling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) shows what first seems like a weird contradiction.  The latest Kaiser polling shows that Americans are split down the middle when you ask them whether they support the law itself.  Yet, large majororities support most of the protections of the law, including the subsidies for consumers to buy health insurance (75%), the Medicaid expansion (69%) and the creation of health insurance exchanges (79%), with even 62% of Republicans in support of an exchange).

The explanation of the contradiction might lie in another polling number: 4 in 10 are not sure how the law will affect their own families. Since many people don’t know the benefits of the ACA, they rely on the politically motivated right-wing generalizations about “big government” and “ObamaCare” for their opinions.

Well, Citizen Action has a solution!  A new report by our research and education arm (Public Policy and Education Fund) gathers the facts on the benefits of the law for consumers and small businesses.  We document both what’s already in place today, and what New Yorkers can expect in the future.  Click here to read the report.

I’d like to provide a few highlights from the report on the major benefits of the law that are already in place:

• 2.6 million New Yorkers did not have to pay co-payments or deductibles for preventive services in 2010.
• 4 of 5 New York small businesses are eligible for a small business tax credit to help them buy health insurance for their employees.
• 252,300 New York seniors and people with disabilities in the Medicare “doughnut hole” received a $250 rebate check to help with their prescription drug expenses in 2010. 
• 191,000 New Yorkers under 26 are able eligible stay on their parents’ health plans.

Benefits of the Law In the Future 

And the best is yet to come: many of the law’s protections are not in place today.  Here’s a sample of what we can expect in the future:

• Up to 1.2 million uninsured New Yorkers are projected to become insured by 2014.
• The average New York household is projected to save $1,161 annually when the law is fully implemented, with lower income households saving significantly more.

The important point for politically active folks is that in order to ensure that New Yorkers realize the full benefits of the federal law, legislation is needed to create a “health insurance exchange” in our state: a marketplace for the purchasing of health insurance at a discounted price by individuals and small businesses. The establishment of a New York exchange in 2014 will benefit individuals and small businesses by ensuring they have good health insurance choices that meet their needs and will help keep health insurance premiums more affordable.

Happily, in yesterday’s State of the State address, Governor Cuomo called for exchange legislation to be passed in the 2012 legislative session.  We need to work hard in the coming weeks to make sure that the State Senate – which didn’t act on agreed to exchange legislation in its 2011 session — gets the message.

The exchange did indeed make it into Governor Cuomo’s State of the State address (his official speech anyways, not the abridged version he actually said), which is great news for New Yorkers.  To quote from his speech book: 

“When the Exchange is implemented, more than 1 million New Yorkers will gain health coverage and individuals who currently buy their coverage directly will see their cost drop by 66%.  Small businesses will see the cost of providing coverage to their employees drop by 22%… We must enact the legislation necessary to establish the Health Insurance Exchange now.”

Those are some hefty numbers! And for millions of New Yorkers, these changes are long, long overdue.  We are ecstatic to hear Governor Cuomo publicly prioritizing this as an issue.  This is making out to be a very promising session for health reform. Now let’s get to work!

To read HCFANY’s official statement on this year’s State of the State address, click here.

Click here to read Governor’ Cuomo’s official speech book for his State of the State address.  (See page 24 for the bit about the Exchange)

What will be on his agenda for this year? Well, we can guess a few things that will probably be on there… Medicaid…the State budget… hydrofracking.  Worthy issues, no doubt.  WNYC gave a good analysis of this yesterday on The Empire.   

What do we we especially want to hear on his agenda? A health insurance exchange for New York tops out HCFANY’s wish list.  Let’s hope it tops Governor Cuomo’s list as well.

The Governor’s speech is scheduled to be broadcast today at 1:30pm.  You can watch the Governor’s speech streaming live via his homepage, which you can access by clicking here (also available in Spanish and closed captioning).  

Let’s keep our fingers crossed, folks!

What a great year for New York’s health care consumers!

It has been a memorable year for health reform, what with new programs, new policymakers, and new progress towards winning quality, affordable health care for ALL New Yorkers.  While it hasn’t all been pretty, overall, New York has taken great strides towards meeting HCFANY’s goals.

It has been wonderful to work with such a dedicated team of advocates and individuals this past year.  Thank you so much for all of your hard work!

All the best,

HCFANY

It seems like for a while there all the talk was about the so-called “young invincibles” – a free-wheeling breed of thrill-seeking young adults who have no desire for comprehensive health insurance, but rather prefer more risky alternatives such as health savings accounts or a pack of Hello Kitty band-aids and some strong whiskey.  

And yes, young adults below the age of 30 really are more likely to be uninsured.  But, is that really because young people suffer from a mass delusion that makes them not want health security? Or could it be the lack of affordable options, the depressed job market, and the decline in employer-sponsored plans that could account for these high rates of uninsurance?

Turns out it’s the latter.  This week the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that approximately 2.5 million young adults gained health insurance in the past year since the dependent coverage expansion up to age 26 took effect under the Affordable Care Act.  That’s a whole lot of young people!

Now all of a sudden, the talk of young invincibles is nowhere to be found.  Instead, the media has been flooded with stories of young people around the country who have jumped to sign up for coverage under their parents’ plans and who can now rest easy knowing their health needs will be taken care of. 

The video featured above comes from the Campaign for Better Healthcare, out of Illinois.  It highlights interviews from just a few of these young people who are benefitting from the new health reform law.

And, for many young adults, it’s not just peace of mind gained.  In some instances, it is another chance at life. Ryan Schuessler, a 24 yr. old from Wisconsin found out he had stage 4 Burkitt’s Lymphoma just as he was about to graduate from college. The treatments he needed to save his life cost over $500,000. But, because Ryan was able to get on his parent’s plan, he doesn’t have to worry about how he’s going to pay for his medical bills. He’s just happy to be alive. Click here to watch Ryan’s story.

Here are a couple more of stories below, though these are just a sampling of the more than 2.5 million personal stories out there: 

• Natalie Hough, a young college student with a heart condition in North Carolina.
• Caryn Powers, a 24 yr. old Texas woman with Crohn’s Disease.  Her medicines alone cost $3,000 per month. Caryn relies on her new insurance to keep her healthy enough to work.

Well, ThanksObamacare.org officially wins this blogger’s vote for coolest web feature of the week. 

They’ve put together a nifty little game, modeled after the old game of Life only without the little cars, that walks you through your life at different stages and lets you choose if you want to proceed with and without Obamacare.  For each decision, you get an explanation of how you will fare and your happiness meter goes up or down. 

The whole thing is just delightful to play and does a great job of putting wonky concepts into a context that makes sense for everyone.

Check it out if you get the chance.  You won’t be disappointed!

Click here to visit ThanksObamacare.org and play the Obamacare Game of Healthcare.

Well, just ask the Kidswell Campaign!  They have just blown this blogger’s mind with a set of state snapshots they put together highlighting these questions and others.

They’ve also got a list of exchange establishment grants awarded and applied for to date.

Not sure how long these have been up, but I just wanted to give kudos to Kidswell for a job well done.  These kinds of national overviews are very handy for state advocates who are looking to find out where they stand on the national stage in terms of progress on health reform implementation.

For example, you can see that New York received “early innovator” grant funding to implement the ACA.  And, 14 states now have enacted exchange legislation, with another 4 states and Washington D.C. with bills introduced and pending.  Yet, here is an area where New York is actually lagging. 

It’s pretty neat stuff.  Check it out if you have a moment: http://www.kidswellcampaign.org/national-snapshots

The first story comes from Baltimore, where a bride named Meredith Gould decided to put the money her wedding guests are willing gift her to good use by putting health insurance on her wedding registry.  A luxury item, no doubt. Meredith is thinking ahead to what she actually needs and trying to be proactive about her health.

The second story comes from Los Angeles, and tells about a woman named Spike Dolomite Ward who, uninsured and newly diagnosed with breast cancer, has found new appreciation for President Obama’s health reform law after she was able to get coverage under her state’s Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan.

The third story, from Myrtle Beach, is a post-mortem story written about a young woman named Devin Pate who, having been asked about her fears related to the rare cancer that was slowly taking her life, named her medical bills as main thing keeping her up at night. 

Three different stories with three different outcomes, but they all point to one thing: Our nation’s broken healthcare system.  While our country’s politicians hash out the virtues of Obamacare on the national stage, and our own state policymakers duke out similar battles closer to home, everyday folks continue to grasp for straws when it comes to staying healthy, or even staying alive.  Some may get lucky, others won’t.

As we move into the coming election year, it’s important to remember that while these three women got their stories published in the paper, millions more have not.  We have a chance to get it right, to put an end to this madness by putting people before politics and doing what we need to do to fix our broken healthcare system. 

Health reform is here.  Now let’s make it happen.