Eight of the nation’s leading child health and advocacy organizations reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling today to uphold the Affordable Care Act:
“Today, the Supreme Court upheld a law that invests in children’s health from the ground up,” said American Academy of Pediatrics President Robert W. Block, MD, FAAP. “The Academy endorsed the Affordable Care Act because it addresses the same ‘A-B-C’ goals that are entrenched in our mission and in our 82 years of child health advocacy: providing all children in this country with Access to health care services, age-appropriate Benefits to meet their unique needs, and high-quality, affordable health care Coverage.”
“Today’s decision is a clear victory for children of all ages, races and incomes in America,” said Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund. “I am delighted the Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act, including the Medicaid expansion, but I am deeply concerned by the limitation of the expansion that could exclude millions of poor parents. Together we need to work until all children and parents and everyone in America are guaranteed access to comprehensive, affordable health coverage.”
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling means children – especially chronic and complex patients that children’s hospitals specialize in treating – will continue benefitting from Affordable Care Act provisions including those that prohibit annual and lifetime caps on coverage,” said Mark Wietecha, President and CEO of the Children’s Hospital Association. “Children’s hospitals are innovating care delivery for this special-needs population through such models as medical homes with funding from CMMI and through other collaboratives. This care not only improves pediatric outcomes but takes costs out of the system – a goal shared by Congress and the Obama Administration.”
“Today’s ruling is a significant win for kids. State and federal officials can now get on with the urgent business of effectively and assertively implementing the Affordable Care Act so that more kids can have access to the health care they need. We urge policymakers to act quickly and make the right implementation choices so the Affordable Care Act can continue making progress covering uninsured kids, protecting millions of kids and parents from abusive insurance practices, and delivering quality care for kids from head to toe,” said First Focus President Bruce Lesley.
“While today’s decision is great news for our nation’s children and families, we remain concerned that the Court left open the possibility that the lowest income parents and other adults could be left behind. Now the responsibility for ensuring this is indeed a victory for all rests squarely on the shoulders of the states,” said Joan Alker and Jocelyn Guyer, Co-Executive Directors of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children and Families.
“This decision represents a landmark victory for pregnant women, infants and families. The Affordable Care Act will extend the benefits of health coverage to millions of women, children and families who would otherwise face every illness as a potential catastrophe. This law will give more pregnant women access to prenatal, maternity and postnatal care; more children the ability to obtain lifesaving vaccines and services to ensure their healthy development; and more families the financial security of knowing that they have adequate insurance. The Affordable Care Act will require that every health plan offer care for maternity coverage, in contrast to today’s individual market, where only 13 percent of plans cover maternity care,” said Jennifer L. Howse, PhD, President of the March of Dimes.
“We’re very pleased the Supreme Court upheld the entire Affordable Care Act,” said National Family Voices Executive Director Sophie Arao-Nguyen. “The law is a great step forward in protecting and improving the health of all children, including children and youth with special health care needs and disabilities. Today’s ruling means these vulnerable children will continue to enjoy the critical protections afforded by the law, such as bans on pre-existing condition exclusions, lifetime limits, and all annual limits on insurance coverage as of 2014. We’re grateful young adults can still be covered under their parents’ insurance plans up to age 26, and also that as of 2014, former foster children will be covered under Medicaid up to age 26. However, we’re disappointed the Court weakened the expansion of Medicaid to cover additional low-income adults. Family Voices will continue to join with our partners in each state to advocate for state coverage of this population.”
“Children have been some of the biggest winners in the health reform law, and now millions of American families can breathe easier knowing that care will be accessible and affordable,” said Bill Bentley, president and CEO of Voices for America’s Children. “With the fate of health reform now clear, every state should proceed with implantation of the law, full speed ahead. A number of states have been dragging their feet when it comes to establishing the new insurance markets for health plans, but now they must start laying the groundwork if the law is to benefit everyone by 2014.”
[Notice, however, how many of the above institutions will further benefit from the federal mandated health care
provision. It’s true many poor children will probably benefit from “taxing” the middle class to pay for the health care for the poor. Nevertheless, government coerced purchasing in the name of taxation without representation is a breach of the fundamental rights of the middle class. It is shame “poor children” are used for such divisive political shenanigans. But, one has to admit the democratic party can get the job done.]
Obamacare is so complex that only a few of its impacts have been widely publicized. In fact, many of the law’s far reaching mandates and requirements are still being defined by Washington bureaucrats. But as you look closer at some of its lesser known provisions, one thing becomes clear: the authors of Obamacare are more concerned with a government takeover of health care and less worried about you the consumer and the increasing cost of health insurance because of this law’s mandates. Here are just three of the major market changes – among many – that all Ohioans should understand.
Collective Bargaining versus Obamacare
By David Zanotti, CEO, The American Policy Roundtable
Partisans and pundits heralded the 2011 Ohio election as a “bell weather indicator” of the 2012 election to come. Ohio voters may have thrown the pundits a bit of a surprise. On Election night Ohio voters threw out Issue 2, a collective bargaining reform bill but at the same time issued a resounding rebuke to Obamacare.
Issue 2 was a referendum against a statute passed by the legislature. Big labor gathered and paid for the petition drive and the ballot campaign. The collective bargaining statute they were protesting was 300-pages long. Ohio voters have a long tradition of voting “No” on any measure that is not clearly presented and well understood. People did not know what was in the statute. Both sides amplified this voter confusion by spending millions on negative commercials. The issue was doomed from the start and the Republicans walked into this defeat with an amazing lack of clarity. In spite of all the above, 39% of voters supported the collective bargaining reforms in Issue 2. A clear 61% rejected Issue 2 and sent it resounding defeat.
Issue 3 was a constitutional amendment placed on the ballot by citizen petition. It was a referendum on Obamacare seeking to exempt Ohioans from mandatory nationalized health care. Granted this is a symbolic approach given that federal law trumps state laws and Ohio is not exactly a bastion of states rights advocacy. The fact the measure passed is remarkable in such a pro-union turnout model, especially since the pro-Issue 3 campaign had no money to spend. That Issue 3 passed with a higher majority (66% for) than the defeat of Issue 2 (61%) is even more substantive. In other words, there was a 5% greater animosity toward Obamacare in the Ohio electorate than the animus toward Governor Kasich’s collective bargaining reforms. In this off election year where union turnout dominated the day, Issue 3 passed in all 88 Ohio counties.
Said another way, 34% of Ohio voters favored Obamacare while 39% of Ohioans favored the collective bargaining reforms. Thus, the pro-union, anti-Kasich turnout on November 8, 2011 is even more distrusting of the current nationalized health care plan than collective bargaining reforms.
Governor Kasich and his allies got their clocks cleaned on Issue 2 on November 8th. If this election is an indicator of things to come, however, the 2012 election may actually become a referendum on Obamacare. Not even the pro-union crowd in Ohio seems to like that idea.
David Zanotti serves as CEO of The American Policy Roundtable an independent, non-profit, non-partisan education and research organization that has been active in Ohio public policy and ballot issues since 1980.
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Posted in Ohio, politics
Tagged commentary, health care freedom, Issue 2, Issue 3, Obamacare, public union bargaining reform