{"id":1926,"date":"2008-09-03T23:13:45","date_gmt":"2008-09-04T04:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.marcstier.com\/wordpress\/?p=1926"},"modified":"2011-07-23T22:05:43","modified_gmt":"2011-07-23T22:05:43","slug":"rally-on-thursday-can-you-count-on-your-health-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=1926","title":{"rendered":"Rally on Thursday: Can you count on your health insurance?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone\u2014except those at the higher reaches of the conservative  movement in America\u2014acknowledges that far too many Americans do not have  health insurance. And most people understand that this has costs for  all of us. Nationwide, about twelve percent of our insurance premiums go  to cover the costs of the uninsured.<\/p>\n<p>But that problem might not be the most severe problem with health  insurance in America today. A deeper issue may be the efforts of  insurance companies to deny coverage care to people who actually have  insurance.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Health Care for  America Now\" href=\"http:\/\/healthcareforamericanow.org\/\">Health Care For America Now<\/a> (HCAN) is holding a rally  tomorrow to address this issue. For more on HCAN see my earlier <a title=\"post\" href=\"http:\/\/youngphillypolitics.com\/health_care_america_now_which_side_are_you\">post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->11:30 am<br \/>\nIndependence Blue Cross<br \/>\n1901 Market Street<\/p>\n<p>We know from the anecdotal evidence we are collecting that there are  many people in this state who are paying high insurance premiums for  policies that<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Won\u2019t cover their chronic diseases because they are \u201cpreexisting  conditions.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Won\u2019t cover diseases that are new to the individual if there is a  reason to think they were suffering from it before the policy started.<\/li>\n<li>Have very high deductibles<\/li>\n<li>Have very low lifetime limits<\/li>\n<li>Won\u2019t pay for the best possible care.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And we know that there are many people who are denied decent health  insurance because they are too old or sick.<\/p>\n<p>But we don\u2019t know how many people fall into these categories since  our insurance companies don\u2019t tell us how many there are.<\/p>\n<p>So tomorrow we are going to demand that the health insurance  companies in the state, starting with the three biggest, Independence  Blue Cross, Highmark Blue Cross and Aetna, reveal this information.<\/p>\n<p>We are going to call for passage for HB 2005, a bill that would limit  the ability of private insurance companies to charge more for those  with preexisting conditions<\/p>\n<p>We are opening an 800 phone line which Pennsylvanians can use to tell  us their horror in dealing with their health insurance companies, 800  764-1832.<\/p>\n<p>And we are going to ask everyone in this state to look closely at  their health insurance policies to see what is covered and what not.<\/p>\n<p>Health care is going to be a central issue over the course of this  election year and the following year. Before they reach some conclusion  about what kind of health insurance system we should have, Americans  need to know what kind of insurance they have now.<\/p>\n<p>We think many Americans are going to be surprised to find out that  they can\u2019t really count on their health insurance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone\u2014except those at the higher reaches of the conservative movement in America\u2014acknowledges that far too many Americans do not have health insurance. And most people understand that this has costs for all of us. Nationwide, about twelve percent of our insurance premiums go to cover the costs of the uninsured. But that problem might not be the most severe problem with health insurance in America today. A deeper issue may be the efforts of insurance companies to deny coverage care to people who actually have insurance. Health Care For America Now (HCAN) is holding a rally tomorrow to address this issue. For more on HCAN see my earlier post. <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=1926\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-v4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5915,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions\/5915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}