HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Senator Kay Hagan Unveil New Report on Rural America and Health Insurance Reform
Today, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina held a conference call to discuss a new report, More Choices, Better Coverage: Health Insurance Reform and Rural America. The report examines the health care status quo in rural communities and the importance of enacting health insurance reform. It is available online at www.HealthReform.gov.
“Americans who live in rural communities have a harder time finding the doctor they need and getting the care they deserve and their health suffers” said Sebelius. “Americans in rural communities also face some of the nation’s highest rates of obesity and high blood pressure and they struggle to get affordable health care. Reform will improve access to high quality care in rural communities and help give all Americans the stable, secure care they need.”
“People in rural North Carolina and rural America are more likely to be uninsured and have more difficulty accessing health care,” Hagan said. “Rural areas in North Carolina have a 33 percent higher mortality rate from diabetes and a 60 percent higher mortality rate from heart disease. Health care reform will improve the quality, accessibility and affordability of health care for people across rural America.
(more…)
Posts Tagged ‘HHS’
HHS Secretary Sebelius unveils report on rural America and health insurance reform
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009HHS Secretary Sebelius releases new numbers for uninsured in Washington State
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009Today, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released new numbers concerning the number of uninsured people in Washington State. The numbers come from analysis of last week’s census bureau numbers regarding the uninsured.
“These numbers only serve to further confirm a reality that far too many American families live with every day,” said Secretary Sebelius. “Our health care system has reached a breaking point. The status quo is unsustainable, and continuing to delay reform is not an option.”
Here are the newly released numbers:
• The status quo is not an option. The number of uninsured in Washington has increased from 763,000 in 2001 to 808,000 in 2008. The percent of non-elderly adults without insurance increased from 16.0% to 16.4%. And this number only considers people who are uninsured for an entire year – it does not include people in Washington who have more recently lost coverage through the recession, or who had shorter gaps in their coverage.
• Private coverage is eroding under the status quo. The percentage of people with employer-based coverage decreased from 74.3% of the population in 2001 to 69.1% in 2008.
• More workers are being left without protection from health care costs. Too many workers in Washington do not have health coverage, at 538,000 in 2008. And the proportion of workers from Washington without insurance has increased, from 15.3% in 2001 to 15.9% in 2008.
• The problem of the uninsured is a problem that crosses income brackets. The new Census numbers also drive home the fact that everyone in Washington is vulnerable to losing health insurance. An additional 28,000 people from high-income households are now uninsured.
An Interview with HHS Region X candidate Kathleen O’Connor
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009The position of Director for Region X of the Dept of Health and Human Services has yet to be filled by the Obama administration. Like many posts as yet unfilled, this one is one of the key middle tier positions that is responsible for carrying out a great deal of the actual work of an administration. Specifically, Region X includes the states of Alaska, Washington, Idaho and Oregon.
For this interview, we sit down with Kathleen O’Connor, the Executive Director of CodeBlueNow!, and one of those names bandied about as a potential appointment to the Director position. We sat down with her to get her take on how health reform is going and what real reform might look like.
HealthcareWA: You’ve been a long time observer of health care, as an analyst, journalist and now in your non-profit capacity. What do you make of the efforts at reform that have taken place this year?
O’Connor: Well, it is messier than I would have liked, but what is exciting to me is that it has been an open and broad discussion. Having watched the Clinton reform, which did not have a broad based and wide discussion, I think this is refreshing. Unfortunately, it has become an armed conflict by the extremes of both sides. From our six years at CodeBlueNow! working on the ground with the public, we know more consensus and common ground exists than we are told by the parties, the pundits and the press. What is happening is that the extremes of the right and left don’t like what will probably be proposed, so they are both trashing the options, when what the public wants is neither of those extremes, but that middle ground has not had a voice. Yet.
(more…)