Vote Like Your Life Depends Upon It

A free public service for a better community

Nov 01, 2024

A Good Day To Advocate for Better Healthcare

If there are subjects you’d like to see or improvements made, please let me know using the comment button below.

The dog and cat pictures are due to the extensive stress. I find if I look at them I feel a little better - AFTER TAKING ACTION!

Videos of these newsletters appear on Youtube on this channel. Let me know what you think.

Inflation Reduction Act Savings

The Department of Health and Human Services' latest report on Medicare Part D provides encouraging news for millions of Americans who rely on prescription drugs. Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), proposed by the Biden-Harris administration and passed by Congress in 2022, nearly 1.5 million Medicare beneficiaries saved close to $1 billion in out-of-pocket drug costs during the first half of 2024. This is a significant milestone in reducing the financial burden of uncovered medical expenses for America’s seniors and people with disabilities. (Health Care Uncovered)

Keep in mind that with Universal Healthcare, like the vastly improved Medicare for All Act, we save $400 billion on overhead each and every year. We also save hundreds of billions on drug costs yearly as well because we can negotiate everything.

Paid Sick Leave - On the Ballot

The coronavirus pandemic underscored the importance of paid sick leave, a benefit to help workers and their families when they fall ill. Now voters in Missouri, Nebraska, and Alaska are deciding whether employers must provide it.

Our country claims to be family friendly, but we don’t have the infrastructure in place to do it. Paid sick leave is one of those basic items. Strongly recommended.

Bonus Action

If you live in Missouri, Nebraska, or Alaska I recommend you vote for paid sick leave.

ACA Future is up to All Of Us

We all need to be able to go to the doctor when we are ill. All of us. Universal healthcare does that, but we aren’t there yet. There is Medicare, Medicaid and employer sponsored plans. Then for those of us who have none of those plans there are Affordable Care Act plans to purchase.

Americans can start signing up Friday for health care coverage offered through the Affordable Care Act marketplace for 2025, days before a presidential election that could threaten eligibility and raise costs for millions of those in the program. The future of ‘Obamacare’ has emerged as a key issue in the closing days of the presidential campaign, with a top GOP leader promising this week to dismantle the program should Republican Donald Trump win the presidency. On Monday, a key Trump ally, House Speaker Mike Johnson, declared “No Obamacare” during a Pennsylvania campaign stop, promising “massive reform” under a Trump presidency with a Republican-controlled Congress. (AP)

Extra Bonus Action

Vote this Tuesday November 5th, 2024 (or earlier) for representatives up and down the ballot who support their constituents access to healthcare. Let’s be clear - Republicans want to screw up the ACA, Democrats want to keep it. I say keep it until we get Universal Healthcare.

VOTE ACCORDINGLY UP AND DOWN THE BALLOT.

Montana Conservatives Seek to Rescind Medicaid Expansion

Conservative groups are working to undermine support for Montana’s Medicaid expansion in hopes the state will abandon the program. The rollback would be the first in the decade since the Affordable Care Act began allowing states to cover more people with low incomes.

Montana's expansion, which insures roughly 78,800 people, is set to expire next year unless the GOP-majority legislature and Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte opt to renew it. Opponents see a rare opportunity to eliminate Medicaid expansion in one of the 40 states that have approved it.

The Foundation for Government Accountability and Paragon Health Institute, out-of-state think tanks funded by conservative groups, told state lawmakers that the program’s enrollment and costs are bloated, and that the overloaded system harms access to care for the most vulnerable. Read the full KFF story.

Groups who want to cancel it are lying. 90% of the expansion cost is covered by the federal government. Moreover many existing Medicaid patients become reclassified in the expansion due to chronic illnesses and their cost to the state also plummets.

This is what happens when you “LEAVE IT UP TO THE STATES”.

Universal healthcare fixes this.

ACTION

VOTE ACCORDINGLY UP AND DOWN THE BALLOT AND MAKE SURE YOU’RE VOTING FOR PEOPLE WHO PROTECT RIGHTS

Healthcare Rights

Reproductive Rights

Civil Rights

Voting Rights

Thank you.

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RESOURCES

Find My Elected Officials

Contact State and Federal Representatives - phone and email

https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Healthcare Advocacy (Us) Website

Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare - Healthcare Advocacy Reading List

Important Healthcare Resources

League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit

Organizations to Contact

National Nurses United Medicare4All

Physicians for a National Health Program

One Payer States

Healthcare Now

Reproductive Health

NARAL - Pro Choice America

Charley. chatbot abortion resource - make sure to use a secure incognito browser if you live in a state that has banned abortion

Planned Parenthood

Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline has references about where to procure abortion medications. They also assist women in the process of self managed abortion or miscarriage by phone or text and will respond in an hour. Details and hours of operation at their website.

United State of Women Reproductive health page (bottom of the page) has important resources such as medical support, access to Telehealth, prescriptions by mail, and legal support references.

Practice careful communications - The Digital Defense Fund has a number of tips to keep texts, calls, and internet use private. Here is their site.