Republican state attorney general Rob McKenna is trying to overturn the newly passed health-insurance reforms by suing the federal government. If he gets his way, he’ll repeal health protections for millions of people in Washington who previously had restricted coverage, risked losing their coverage, or had no coverage. Like these people.
A few years ago, after months of feeling under the weather, Marcelas Owens’s mother, Tiffany Owens, began vomiting blood. As Marcelas tells it, she called her supervisor at Jack in the Box and said she was too sick to come to work. The supervisor told Tiffany she’d been taking too many sick days already and she now had a choice: show up or be let go.
Tiffany lost her job, and with it her health insurance.
This was October of 2006. A short while later, she was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. It’s a tough-to-beat disease with no known cure, but with proper medical care and treatment, people who have it can live 20 years or more. Unable to access regular medical care, Owens was in and out of emergency rooms, and then, in June of 2007, she died at the age of 27, when Marcelas was 8.
If his mother had been able to get health insurance after she lost her job, 11-year-old Marcelas said in a phone interview with The Stranger, “I think she would have at least had a fighting chance against the disease. I couldn’t say whether she would have lived or died because I’m not a doctor, but I think she would have at least had a fighting chance to live with the disease a bit longer.”
The health-care reform law provides options for people facing situations such as the one Tiffany Owens faced—people with a “preexisting condition,” no job, and limited financial resources for getting on a health plan. It prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to someone just because that person has, say, pulmonary hypertension. It also provides tax credits to help lower-income people pay for insurance.
After hearing about Marcelas, who goes to elementary school in Columbia City, Senator Patty Murray began telling policy makers what had happened to him and his mother. The Washington Community Action Network then paid to send Marcelas to the nation’s capitol to lobby, testify, speak about his mother, and, ultimately, stand right next to President Obama as the bill was signed.
“It was exciting because I know that I helped, that I had a small part in helping with the health-care bill being signed,” Marcelas said. “I don’t want any other kid to lose a family member because they’re not as rich as some people, or have to choose between food or medical attention.”
Now far fewer kids will have to experience losing a parent too soon for lack of good health care, like Marcelas did. That is, unless Rob McKenna wins his lawsuit. ELI SANDERS
Carrie Sellar, a 38-year-old self-employed mother, has been denied health coverage for a condition she doesn’t have anymore. It’s called AV nodal reentrant tachycardia, two short circuits in her heart’s electrical system that used to cause her heart rate to jump suddenly, making her short of breath and giving her headaches. Doctors corrected the condition a decade ago. “They went in through my femoral artery and pushed an electrode into my heart,” she says. “They mapped the electrical pathways to figure out where the fault was, zapped the short circuits to destroy them, and it was pretty much done. It’s a neat treatment.”
Even though the condition is cured, it continues to haunt her. Sellar, an independent logistics consultant, makes enough money to buy insurance for herself and her daughter in the open market, but insurance companies don’t like her history of tachycardia. “They send you a great fat packet about your parents’ health and your grandparents’ health, what you eat, what you weigh,” she says. “And on the front page was a list of conditions and boxes to check. If you’ve ever been treated for one of those, they tell you not to bother filling out the rest of the form, just go to the back and sign your name. And it’s like: ‘Oh, that can’t be good.'”
Predictably, she was denied coverage.
For now, Sellar and her 8-year-old daughter, Morgan, have health insurance via Sellar’s partner, who gets it from the company where he works. But having to depend on that limits their lives. He’s frustrated about having to keep his current job when he’d rather work for a nonprofit that wants to hire him, but that nonprofit can’t cover his family’s health-insurance needs; Sellar is frustrated about her dependence on her partner’s insurance when she could afford her own.
Under the new health-care law, insurance companies are barred from denying coverage to people because of preexisting conditions. McKenna, in pushing his lawsuit, would strip people like Sellar of the ability to purchase their own coverage.
“I was proactive and got my problem fixed years ago, and now it’s a penalty,” Sellar says. “It’s ridiculous.” She argues that it’s not McKenna’s place to spend taxpayer money to undo the work of our elected representatives in Washington, D.C. “He’s not going to stop health reform,” she says. “He is just going to spend a lot of our money—when we don’t have any—on his personal political grandstanding.” BRENDAN KILEY
Barry Faught is excited to finally buy his staff health insurance. He employs two people and himself at the Soho Coffee Company in the Central District, and all of them have been without health insurance for almost two years now. Faught’s motto has been “Don’t get sick.” He says, “You don’t realize how big of a deal [getting sick] is until one person can’t cover their shift.” Preventative medical care and access to a doctor would help Faught and his employees avoid medical emergencies and help them recover faster when they do get ill.
Among its other benefits, the new federal law grants business owners with fewer than 50 employees a tax credit (covering 35 percent of health-care premiums now, increasing to 50 percent by 2014) to help cover insurance costs. Faught researched insurance plans for months in anticipation of the bill’s passing. “It’s still a big expense,” he says, “but it’s also finally manageable. I’m proud to be able to cover my employees.”
State attorney general Rob McKenna is suing the federal government to prevent insurance from becoming affordable for Faught. In Washington’s 7th Congressional District, comprising Seattle and Vashon Island, the law immediately helps 21,300 small businesses afford insurance coverage—to say nothing of the estimated 142,300 other small businesses in the state—according to a study conducted by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
“Health insurance obviously isn’t as important to Rob as it is to us,” Faught says, “since he’s already got it.” Every tax-paying resident in the state already pays for McKenna’s insurance plan—and his paycheck—which means that if McKenna suffers from exhaustion while fighting to kill insurance reform, he can afford to see a doctor.
“Every small-business owner in the state should be pissed off at Rob McKenna,” Faught says. “We’ve been uninsured for too long. It’s time for small-business owners to fight for this.” CIENNA MADRID
@64 – Also, 64, you need to catch up on your rhetoric. You might have been sick and missed Fox news the last couple of days so I’ll catch you up. You’re not supposed to call Democrats socialist anymore; they did a 180 and now you’re supposed to think that we’re corporate shills, selling out the country and destroying the government’s power by handing it to the free market. Now, YOU guys are supposed to be the ones who want to take power back from the free market and make sure there is a strong government regulating it. Of course when you guys want it, it’s not communism, it’s “protecting the constitution”. But the free market system that you guys fought so hard to preserve a week ago is now supposed to be your enemy, and you’re supposed to call us liberals things like “corporate whores” and “greedy capitalist sell-outs” instead of “communists”. I’m sure Glenn Beck will send you an update packet explaining the new terminology soon but I figured I’d get you started on the right foot.
It is a Mistake to say that Rob wants to deny health insurance coverage to anybody in this state. It is his job to protect Washington state consumers, and this bill should concern everybody as it will Federally mandate that each citizen purchase a service from private industry. Do you really think this is a good idea? Do you feel “Free” under these conditions? Stick to the facts and understand what it is he is doing. Thanks
I haven’t read all of the comments but I am getting the sense that people don’t want to be “forced” to buy health insurance. I am a physician and did part of my training in Brussels, Belgium. Does anyone taking issue with the health care plan know where that is? One of the first official things that we had to do when we arrived in Brussels was to join a “Mutuelle” which cost about $100.00 a month in 1971 if I remember correctly. A Mutuelle was the equivalent of an HMO. So we were forced to buy Health Insurance! Everyone had to have health insurance in Belgium,. That is the way the system was able to work. And it worked very well. That is why everyone needs to buy health insurance in this country. It isn’t socialism, my friends, its reality.
What’s amazing is that this recently passed health care legislation is extremely moderate. In fact, it’s very, very similar to the health care legislation offered by the Republicans in the recent past, before they were completely taken over by the radical right.
Bob Dole, Mitt Romey and John McCain all supported bills mandating that people purchase private, for-profit health insurance policies. Now, of course, they’re completely against it, mainly because they know that this bill will probably be popular in the long run, and they don’t want Obama and the Democrats to get any benefit from it.
Either Rob McKenna—who has pretended to be a “moderate” for years—agrees with this far right position, or he has been completely intimidated by the extremist, unhinged conservatives who are now running the Republican Party.
Which is it, Rob? Are you actually of this right-wing mentality or are you just to scared to speak out against it and show some independence?
@69 – Riiiight. So, despite the fact that the Republicans have actively opposed this bill from the beginning, have tried their best to stop it, and are now trying to repeal it, they ACTUALLY want us to keep it. And the Democrats, who single-handedly wrote the bill, fought for it for a year, bickered endlessly about its contents, finally passed it, and are now trying to rally support around it… they ACTUALLY want us to repeal it. So to be a good democrat and not be a “republican dupe”, we have to throw all of our support behind the republicans and ensure that they take control of health care legislature. Yes, that makes total sense.
instead of criticizing the way the article was written, or the literary talent, or lack thereof, why not get real and get mad that these people even have to be interviewed about such a subject. Sheesh people, commenters, get over yourselves, and find your hearts. Think about someone else for a change who isn’t as fortunate as you are to have healthcare.
I know its hip to slam anyone disagreeing with the “mandate” part of the bill. But its the only part of the health care reform that bothers me.
Making people buy private products from unregulated private companies in a theory that it will lower the cost for everyone else is a scam.
Opening up medicare at cost for everyone, making it an income tax, and just subtract it from everyone. Regulate and protect, just as the state do for all other mandatory services, power, car insurance, water, garbage, etc. Its required, it needs to be regulated.
Nothing in this bill provides basic cost regulation, not taxed correctly, not implemented fairly. The once piece, the mandate is garbage sold to get it through. The real regulation was dropped, real change was skipped.
The most common excuse I hear, even thought its a bad part of the bill, ignore it, because we need it. I wouldnt let Bush get away with that, I wont let Obama get away with that.
Kudos to Rob for standing up for our basic rights of choice and protections from a forced mandate to fill the coffers of private corporations.
What mystifies me is that people are screaming about a “mandate” to purchase health insurance when in fact every family of 4 is paying at least $1000 and every individual about $450 to try to cover the cost of uncompensated care in WA. Does the fact that the fine is codified and you are aware of paying it make it worse? In addition, the people who are most likely to choose (note the word) not to purchase health insurance are the ones who are most likely to need it (young adults in particular) There is good data on this at the Insurance Commission’s website: http://www.oic.wa.gov
Don’t we have a recall provision in the state of Washington? Why don’t we show our disapproval of this form of Attorney General abuse of power and start a recall movement against McKenna. He is one of the few Republicans who have had support in this state from all the voters on both sides. He needs to realize he has just alienated all people in this state who think this law is important.
McKenna is upset because people will be required to buy health insurance. All drivers are required to have car insurance and no one can get a mortgage without purchasing home owner’s insurance. Why haven’t these mandates been deemed unconstitutional? Everyone needs coverage. As it stands now, we all pay dearly for those who are without.
Why this is all retarded:
(1) If this law were to be unconstitutional (which it isn’t), then it only takes ONE state to go to court. McKenna’s jumping in to this doesn’t do anything other than grandstand and waste our tax dollars.
(2) If mandating that everyone pay for something is wrong, then I guess Social Security and Medicare taxes are wrong. Tell me which of your elderly relatives you’d like to remove first.
(3) Along those same lines, that also means that things like public libraries, roads, and police and fire departments are evil, since we all are forced to pay for them. Where do I line up with my torch?
Seriously, isn’t the U.S. supposed to be a moral leader? What I am reading is a bunch of selfish bastards whining that they have to spend money to help others get insurance. Yet, they don’t see anything wrong with paying for someone to go to the ER for routine health care.
Can’t have it both ways, folks.
@81 – *sigh* No, no, you’re still way behind. You’re supposed to have switched gears at this point, and now complain that the people who want this bill are those who have insurance through their employer, and the insurance industry, and that you feel really bad about the hippies and dead beats because they’re being unconstitutionally forced to buy health insurance. Get with the times! Fox News isn’t going to tolerate your tardiness in spreading their new message for long.
Have any of you read the lawsuit? It only deals with the requirement to purchase health insurance and the expansion of medicaid. It does not challenge the reform laws about pre-existing conditions or subsidizing health insurance for poor people, even if McKenna and company win their lawsuit, ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE WILL STILL BE ABLE TO GET INSURANCE.
Personally, I support health care reform and I really don’t like what McKenna is doing, but get your facts straight. This is pretty shitty journalism, it’s basically misinformation and libel. This has nothing to do with Rob McKenna, you’re being just as sensationalist as Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh and this is why real, reasoned debate never gets anywhere.
@85 – That’s not how it works. If the lawsuit wins, the bill gets repealed and we have to start over from the beginning.
@84 – I know this might be hard to believe since you seem to spend half your time floating around in conspiracy land, but the bill wasn’t written by the Heritage Foundation, it was written by THE SENATE!!! Yes, the Senate, made up of Senators, who we voted for. If you had been following any of the progress of health insurance before last week, you may have been able to follow the news where the Senate had several different versions of the bill, they argued back and forth, wrote things in and out of it, and eventually ended up with what we have today. It has similarities to the Republican health care ideas which were discussed within the Heritage Foundation, like the mandate of insurance, but just because Republicans thought the mandate was a good idea doesn’t mean the whole bill was secretly written by some ultraconservative right-wing underground cabal that’s controlling the Democratic party. When Nancy Pelosi said “This bill is based on ideas from the Heritage Foundation” she was saying it as a snide response to a Republican who was complaining that the bill was ultra-liberal and didn’t have any Republican ideas in it. She didn’t mean that her party is secretly being controlled by the Heritage Foundation; she was just saying that the bill is very moderate, not very liberal at all, and definitely not “socialist”.
It is a moderate centrist bill; no one’s denying that. It’s what we probably would have got if the Republicans had actually decided to help and make a bipartisan bill. But it is not some massive conspiracy being run by the Republicans. I can’t even begin to imagine how you could look at the current situation and state of the Republican party and think that somehow this is all part of their ultra secret plan. They’re floundering and being obstructionists; they don’t have a secret plan; they’re just a failing party trying to cling to power.
@87 – Wait, are you saying that the U.S. is a right-leaning centrist nation that likes capitalism? HOLY SHIT STOP THE PRESSES! Yeah, I know that. I’m not any under any sort of illusion that the Democratic party has some sort of far left liberal socialist utopian vision. They are pretty centrist, and yes, this is a pretty moderate bill. However, it’s still much better than it was before, and it’s a step in the right direction. For the vast, vast majority of citizens, this mandate makes no difference, since they get insurance through their employers, parents, medicare, medicaid, or something else. For the small group that don’t have insurance, the overwhelming majority WANT insurance; they want it badly, because they’re sick or dying or smart enough to realize that relying on emergency rooms only is a bad way to live. I don’t know what your situation is that you are so adamantly opposed to getting health insurance, but if you’re one of those unemployed but well-off people who think they shouldn’t have to pay for insurance because they’re not sick yet, then you’re probably also one of those people who will immediately start complaining endlessly when you do get sick and doctors won’t bend over backwards to fix you up free of charge. The mandate makes sense; hospitals and doctors can’t keep treating people free of charge with no tracking, and it’s not going to work to follow right wingers like gilettebrett’s advice to just tell doctors to let people die in front of them if they don’t have an insurance card. Most doctors, unlike most republicans, actually give a shit about people, and don’t want to see them die needlessly. That’s why most of them become doctors.
And in 89, you’re wrong, there ARE ceilings on premiums, there ARE funds to help you pay if you can’t afford it. Though there’s not explicit anti-trust legislation, they formed the health exchange specifically to break up monopolies over locations. The bill also gives power to state and federal commissioners to monitor insurance plans and stop large premium increases.
You’re right that a single-payer system or public option would have been pretty nice. But we lost that battle months and months ago. But you seem to have the ridiculous notion that backing the Republicans in repealing this bill and putting them in charge will somehow result in single-payer, and that’s about the stupidest thing I can imagine. If you want to eventually get to single-payer, the Democratic party is your only hope. There is not a chance in hell that the Republicans would ever implement something like that. This bill is a step in the right direction; things move slowly in the U.S. Most people here think there are communists hiding under their bed waiting to kill them at night; there’s just no way you’re going to convince enough of them to support single-payer until they start to see that the Republicans are wrong in their scare tactics.
@2 the rationale that you and your republicun friends so willfully parrot is exactly the same reasoning that George “States Rights” Wallace used in opposing desegregation. It’s an unprecedented federal invasion, blah blah blah. And we know how that turned out.
You, your friends, and George Wallace. Nice company. You must be proud.
I really like how rabid progressives sound just as insane and closed minded as reactionaries. sgt. doom has made me embarrassed to call myself a leftist, and yes, it is in part because he spells dude “dood”. gross.
don’t you get it? you’re not wrong, but things aren’t going to be changing any faster. sorry man, that’s not how this works. I hate the mandate too, but I also hated The Patriot Act, Iraq II, etc, and I never saw any lawsuits filed by state AG’s over the constitutionality of those things. so now I’m just living in bemused disappointment. boo hoo. at least I don’t sound like a raving douche.
It’s the Stranger, people. They are obviously being hyperbolic to get a major point across. Obviously McKenna doesn’t “hate us.” He just wants to stop the bill that helps us.
And to #81. I’m not a hippie, freeloader or a dead beat. I’m offended at your comment. A huge part of this bill is about regulating insurance companies and how they cover pre-existing conditions. As a communications student, I still have access to my parents’ health insurance, but once I’m done and off their insurance, without this bill I won’t be able to get health insurance because I have a rare pre-existing condition. To be honest the freeloaders are probably the ones who won’t want the bill because they don’t want to buy health care at all. It’s the hard working citizens that get fucked by the system that want this bill to pass.
@92 – Ohhh, ok, so your solution is to murder 90% of the population of the U.S. Cool, good to know you’ve got a good handle on reality. For a second I was worried you were some kind of nutjob.
Yeah, killing everybody in a bloody massacre is definitely the best way to get health care to people in need. Good to know we have people of high moral character like you looking out for us to protect us from those eeeeeevil democrats and their sinister plans. Some day hopefully I can get past my media brainwashing and figure out that murdering everybody who disagrees with me is the solution to all of life’s problems.
Dear fucking god. Who are you people?
1. If you cannot afford to buy insurance, you will now be covered by medicaid.
2. If you can afford to buy health insurance, THEN WHAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM?????? You can afford it!
3. I know it breaks your selfish, unpatriotic fucking heart to have to pay for the care of fellow humans in need, but the thing is, YOU DO THAT ANYWAYS. The cost of treating chronically ill poor patients via emergency rooms is astronomically higher than that of buying preventative medical care for the poor throughout a lifetime. Instead of those high ER bills getting foisted onto the taxpayers, we now pay for our own insurance and in the process, buy enough for everyone else to share. So now you actually get to spend less money on health care, you’re welcome.
4. We are all going to need health care in our lifetimes. All of us. If you are lucky, you are going to get old and sick and infirm before you finally die. Unless you’ve squirreled away stockpiles of money (in which case, please see #2 and stfu), someone else is going to be paying for your medical care. Just because you currently have insurance, or are not sick, does not exempt you from involvement in the communal pool of socialized health care. In other words, YOU ARE GOING TO PROFIT FROM THIS LEGISLATION, UNLESS YOU ARE RICH, IN WHICH CASE, STFU.
Really? pics of kids that Rob wants to hurt? What a joke. This health care bill is crap and you know it. Making us buy insurance, whats next? Making us sell our cars? this is crap and the healthcar bill is sham.
@All the people complaining they now “have” to buy insurance – Why the hell don’t you have insurance NOW, and what do you do when you get sick? Are you all just living off of mommy and daddy’s trust funds and sitting around unemployed, out of school, doing nothing, but rich? Have you never gone to a doctor? Or do all of you already have insurance, and are completely unaffected by the mandate at all, and are just complaining because Fox News is telling you to?
@103 – Poor psychotic delusional douche, I already told you that all this bullshit you’re spouting about the bill being written by the Heritage foundation is false, as is most of the other drivel you’re copy/pasting from conspiracy sites. And no, you are not a “democrat”, you are what we call a “lunatic”. Democrats vote and work within the political system to actually accomplish things. Lunatics rail about how the whole world is out to get them and make wild, ridiculous claims about things they don’t understand, all the while calling everyone else around them insane… look, you’re already plotting to kill everyone and establish a new world order because only you know what’s good for everyone: that’s pretty much textbook B-movie lunatic villain. You stick to your “I’m gonna kill all youz dumb peoplez” plan, DOOD, and leave the actual politics to people who don’t spend all their time in a padded white room.
@ doom
yawn. I made no rude assumptions about your level of information regarding the bill, or what your leisurely activities happen to be. thanks for not returning the favor. all I was getting at is I think your constant ranting (four posts in a row dedicated to different people where you repeat the same argument you made 80 posts ago?) is foolishly counterproductive and borderline insane. it’s like you and that “Alleged” right wing guy deserve each other. you are more concerned about arguing with strangers on a stupid newspaper’s stupider blog than being really active.
and FYI: I’m not a Democrat and certainly not a Republican. I’m probably further out to the left than you actually. I just have no illusions about The Way Things Are in the US. that includes the consequences of what is going on currently and what I can do personally to change them. if I was as impatient for change as you, I would have moved to Sweden.
fuck you, I’m not going to argue with you about the merits of this bill, the failing national and global economy, or the clear and present danger that corporate excess mixed with our political parties is causing. that’s not my point, brah.
Doom,
I’m actually a very well educated, highly literate, and extremely thoughtful woman of above-average intelligence. Let’s skip past your petty insults, which simply show your lack of confidence in your own logical abilities (but do seem more effective when you put my screen name in italics!), and move on to the heart of your assumption-based non-argument:
Yes, I have read the legislation. It’s just that I’m smarter and more well adjusted than you. Troll.
I had paroxysmal tachycardia as well, and when I was 18 had the same procedure (it’s not even called surgery because it’s so non-invasive). The condition itself has no adverse long-term effects, and once it’s corrected, there are absolutely NO MORE problems – it’s as though it never occurred. Let me repeat this: once the procedure is complete, you are 100% NORMAL. However, due to this, I was also denied health care. This specific case is ridiculous – like denying health care to someone who broke their toe as a child. Now I’m on my husband’s plan. I wish my best to Carrie.
Your knowledge on the subject is simply profound. Thanks for sharing this with the world and bringing us all in the light of awareness. I was personally unacquainted or you must say ignorant but you made me aware…thanks for this.
http://www.samrx.com/