Tuesday, April 5, 2011

UnitedHealth, Wellcare and Hawaii Senate Bill 1274: a true Wall Street romance


Hawaii SB 1274 remains alive, along with its assault on the health care rights of almost everyone with employer-paid or Medicaid insurance. Raphael Del Castillo sent out this information at 4 am today:

I just came from the decision making by the House Comm on Finance, which passed SB1274 on with amendments. It was disappointing and frustrating. Health chair Ryan Yamane came to tell the committee that they were waiting for “language” to preserve the consumer protections in our existing law, but have not received any (my language recommendations don’t count – who knows, make up your own reasons). They are waiting on the Insurance Commissioner and the Abercrombie Administration. THERE ISN’T GOING TO BE ANY LANGUAGE FROM THE COMMISSIONER. IF HE DOES NOT SUBMIT ANY, THEY WILL PASS THE BILL AS IT STANDS, SO WHY WOULD HE SUBMIT ANY?

MORE ALARMING STILL IS THE FACT THAT NO LEGISLATOR HAS YET RESPONDED TO THE OBJECTIONS TO THE EXCLUSION OF MEDICAID MEMBERS FROM THE EXTERNAL REVIEW. THEY ARE NOT LISTENING TO ME. NEVERCARE IS A LOT RICHER.

MEDICAID MEMBERS, THIS MEANS THAT IF YOU DO NOT PROTEST, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR RIGHTS NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS (UNLESS THE BILL IS KILLED).

Del Castillo is asking for an immediate email campaign to President Obama.

sit down and send an email to the President, president@whitehouse.gov (with cc: to all of the addresses below) asking him the following two things: Why is the Obama Administration conspiring with health insurers

1. To DENY Hawaii consumers their long-established protections?
2. To DEPRIVE the poorest and most vulnerable of Hawaii’s people of the protections they now have against the richest health insurance company in the world?

Put this in the subject box: “NO ON SB 1274”

The petition distributed through change.org has also been updated to include President Obama, as well as the governor and Hawaii State Senate.

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I'm the mom of a child with disabilities. Hannah's first neurologist said she might never develop beyond the level of a 2 month old infant, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. The brain damage was just too severe. Nine years later, she walks, uses a touchscreen computer and I've just been shown she can learn to construct sentences and do simple math with the right piece of technology. Along the way, I discovered I needed to teach myself what Hannah's rights to services really were. Learning about early intervention services led to reading about IDEA and then to EPSDT. I've been waiting for the Obama administration to realize the power and potential of EPSDT for the medical rights - including the right to stay at home with their families - of children with disabilities. The health reform people talk about long term care, and the disability people talk about education and employment, but nobody is talking about EPSDT. So I am.