Putting the health care bill into perspective
“What’s in it for me?”
That’s the central question in an article from the Associated Press’ Carla Johnson that explores how the health care bill would affect five Americans.
The people profiled include a tenuously insured student working part-time, an uninsured consultant, a business owner, an uninsured man living in a shelter for the homeless and a Florida retiree.
As Johnson points out, how the health care bill will affect people depends a great deal on their age, income, your business and your current insurance. But this is a useful vantage point for telling the stories that really matter: how policy affects real life.
Health care bill moves forward
Following the Senate vote on the health care bill, reporters have rushed to cover the latest developments. Here is just a bit of the coverage:
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Erica Warner of The Associated Press have a point-by-point comparison of the Senate and House health care bills. Werner also has an interesting look at the winners and losers in the bill, including the residents of Libby, Mont., many of whom suffer from asbestos-related illnesses from a now-closed mineral mining operation.
On The Wall Street Journal’s health blog, Jacob Goldstein reports on the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates on the Senate bill with the “public option lite” - with private plans overseen by a government agency.
Reuters’ Donna Smith offers an overview of the Senate health care bill in a Q&A format.
Scott Hensley of NPR’s Shots blog notes the weekend’s key development that led to the bill moving forward and he looks ahead to reconciliation.
In a piece that appears in USA Today, Phil Galewitz of Kaiser Health News points out that mandates, such as requiring all Americans to have health insurance, do not guarantee compliance. His article explains the mandate and the penalties for those who choose to go uninsured.
In the Los Angeles Times, Kim Geiger and James Oliphant also look at the mandate: why its in the bill, how it can cover people with expensive illnesses and “age rating.”
Plenty more coverage is emerging by the minute. Here is the bill.
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