Today or tomorrow, the U.S. House of Representatives will pass a bill that repeals the Healthcare Reform Act that was signed into law last year. That, of course, is the law that has generated so much controversy in this country. I personally support this much needed law.
If you also support this law, don’t worry at all when you hear that the House has repealed it. It’s all a big show.
The Republican Party campaigned in 2010 promising to repeal the law. And they will take this first step. But that’s as far as it will go. The next step would be for the repeal to be considered by the U.S. Senate and the Democratic Party still runs things over there. But, let’s think worst case scenario. Let’s say that the Senate also repeals the law. In that case, the next step is the repeal legislation would go to the President and guess what he will do? He’ll veto the bill.
When a bill is vetoed, it goes back to the House and the Senate. Both of those bodies can override what the President did but they have to get two-thirds of their body to vote for repeal. And the Republicans don’t have those numbers.
So, you can watch what is going on with interest if you’ve got nothing to do. The Republicans are just doing this so they can go back to their constituents and tell them that they “fought” to repeal that “horrible law.”
At this point, I assume you know that a new health care system is being implemented in this country. If you don’t know this then…..well, there is no sense in reading this cause, honey, you are on another planet.
We’ve heard all the arguing and seen some of the commercials and watched the elections and all. We’ve heard how the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, has vowed to repeal the new law. Well, that’s a total crock because while the House of Representatives will vote to repeal it, it’s unlikely that the Senate will do the same and, if by some chance they do repeal it, well, Obama-Man is sitting there with his ole veto pen. End of story.
We’re gonna be living with this new law for some time. That being the case, I thought I would regularly send you a short explanation of what all of this means to you to cut through all of the stuff that you see and don’t have time to sort out.
A number of the provisions of the law will not take effect for quite a while, but some things are already in effect. So, right now, here’s the deal:
Any health plan that you get through your job or any new individual plan has to let any kids you have under 19 to have coverage. In other words, they cannot be denied coverage if they are already sick or have some medical condition.
If your health insurance allows you to have coverage for your dependents, then they can be covered until they are 26 years old. After that, you kick them out of the house and they’re on their own.
Insurance companies cannot drop you from their plans when you get sick just because you made a mistake on your coverage application.
Many insurance companies say that during your lifetime you can only be covered up to a certain point. Today, there are no limits.
If your employer offers a health plan, you generally can’t be turned away or charged a higher premium because of your health status or disability. This protection is called “nondiscrimination.”
If family members are eligible but are not currently enrolled under your health plan at work, you may be able to add them during a “special enrollment” opportunity outside of the usual “open enrollment” period.
A while back I wrote about how I had a gout attack. It was focused on my left big toe and I can tell you it was the most horrible pain I have ever felt. It lasted for about three weeks. Ultimately, it started to subside but I will tell you that those weeks were pure hell, not just for me but for my family. Basically, you get gout when you have too much uric acid in your blood. This happens when you drink a lot of alcohol (I don’t unless my mother in law is coming to visit), eat rich foods (guilty – I love my fish) and don’t drink enough water (guilty – do I really want to be peeing all day long?).
Now, a new study has come out that says that drinking orange juice, soda or other sugary beverages can also increase gout in middle age women. For women in the study who drank two or more servings of these drinks a day, the risk of gout was more than double that for women who drank sugary sodas and less than once per month.
So, my first reaction is: I can’t drink Orange Juice? What the heck? I was raised on Orange Juice. In my day
Orange Juice
it was practically mandatory to have a big glass for breakfast (along with my real eggs and real bacon). This study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The thing that I found interesting was that, while gout is not common in the United States, the rate of incidences has more than doubled over a 20-year period, from 16 cases per 100,000 Americans in 1977 to 42 per 100,000 in 1996. Coincidentally, over this period we Americans have consumed increasing amounts of soda and other drinks sweetened with fructose.
After my gout went away, I went to my doctor and he put me on alluprinol. The interesting thing is that one
Drinking Water
of the warnings on the label is that alluprinol “may cause gout.” Nice, huh? But I did some research and found that getting gout in some weird way flushes out that high uric acid. I’ve been on the pill for three weeks and, KNOCK ON WOOD, no problems so far. Of course, I’ve been drinking a LOT of water and spending a lot of time in the bathroom. I also have been exercising more.
We’ll see how it goes, but I hate getting old, I just hate it.
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