Affordable Care Act Facts taken from Healthcare.Gov website

Starting as early as September 2010:

If a new insurance plan doesn’t pay for services you believe were covered, you have new, clear options to appeal the decision.

Effective for health plan years beginning on or after September 23, 2010

All new plans must cover certain preventive services such as mammograms and colonoscopies without charging a deductible, co-pay or coinsurance.

Funding begins in 2010

A new $15 billion Prevention and Public Health Fund will invest in proven prevention and public health programs that can help keep Americans healthy – from smoking cessation to combating obesity.

Coordinated care.  
The law calls for new investments in community health teams to manage chronic disease. This is important, because minority communities experience higher rates of illness and death for chronic diseases such as diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, and cancer.  Because infant mortality and post-birth complications are also higher in minority and low-income groups, the law includes new funds for home visits for expectant mothers and newborns. 

Ending insurance discrimination.  

Insurance discrimination will be banned, so people who have been sick can’t be excluded from coverage or charged higher premiums.  Women will no longer have to pay higher premiums because of their gender. New funding will be available to collect information on how women and racial and ethnic minorities experience the health care system, leading to improvements that will benefit these groups.

Health care providers for under served communities. 

The Affordable Care Act expands the health care workforce and increases funding for community health centers, which provide comprehensive health care for everyone no matter how much they are able to pay. Health centers serve an estimated one in three low-income people and one in four low-income minority residents.  The new resources will enable health centers to double the number of patients they serve. Combined with investments made by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the new law will support 16,000 new primary care providers.

Nurses on strike

Hospital vs. the MNA Minnesota Nursing association

Today after
Barring a last-minute agreement, the strike by about 12,000 registered nurses would be the largest in the profession's history in the U.S.


Hospital leaders have agreed that nurse staffing can be problematic — both when there are too many patients and too few.

All of the hospitals already "float" nurses to busier units, but the Allina and Children's contracts had sought to expand their ability to do that.
Obstetrics nurse Peggy Wiseman said her no vote was for her patients at St. John's Hospital, though she worries how they'll fare during a strike.
"I'm concerned about what's going to happen to our patients," she said. "I'm worried they're not going to have enough temporary nurses to take our places."
"This is like (turning around) a train."



The union believes hospitals need to budget for more than their expected bed capacity so that nurses don't get overloaded with patients and always are available for new admissions.

eMAR

National

AHRQ Study Shows Using Bar-Code Technology with eMAR Reduces Medication Administration and Transcription Errors

A new study funded by the Department of Health & Human Services' (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) indicates that using bar-code technology with an electronic medication administration record (eMAR) substantially reduces transcription and medication administration errors, as well as potential drug-related adverse events. The study is published in the May 6 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Bar-code eMAR is a combination of technologies that ensures that the correct medication is administered in the correct dose at the correct time to the correct patient. When nurses use this combination of technologies, medication orders appear electronically in a patient's chart after pharmacist approval. Alerts are sent to nurses electronically if a patient's medication is overdue.

Having bar-code eMAR technologies in place was associated with reductions in errors related to the timing of medications, such as giving a medicine at the wrong time, and non-timing medication administration, such as giving a patient the wrong dose. The study documented a 41 percent reduction in non-timing administration errors and a 51 percent reduction in potential drug-related adverse events associated with this type of error.

The findings have important implications because bar-code eMAR technology is being considered as a 2013 criterion for meaningful use of health information technology under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). http://www.ahrq.gov/news/press/pr2010/emarpr.htm

March turns 26 Days Old

Let us Rejoice!

   Now is our present. 

Everything that we have had in our lives up to this point as you're reading this has molded us into who we are right now.  
Meet all Challenges head on with knowledge, determination, committment and will. 
Spring into a Victorious triumph and stomp, cause anything that doesn't add nor multiply our daily living will be thrown in the Dump. 
Feel the Real, thru the Thump...Your heart can rip through all terror and pain, follow it and watch it move fast like a bulletTrain, We move fast enough to escape the rain. Like askin for change and get 2 quaters for a dollar, it is an unfair exchange. Are you in my Range?  They get no reception cause my bars is low, funny when thoughts flow like the time go...Some move fast, others move slow, the rest got they own tempo, for us we go wherever today Go.......

Health Care threats

"This isn't about politics. This is about people's lives. This is about people's businesses. This is about our future. ” Barack:

I admire how our President ignores all doubters and gets done what needs to get done.

Threats was the storyline for today. About 10 House Representaives who supported the bill in the final vote were victims of telephone, email, property threats, and death threats. Reports to the FBI had to be made for security. U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother received a threatening letter in the mail on the same day that someone apparently severed a gas line at the home in Ivy. U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Ivy, this afternoon called for lawmakers to condemn acts of political violence after someone apparently slashed a gas line at his brother’s house in Albemarle County. The act came a day after conservative Tea Party activists posted the house’s address on the Internet. There was also a noose faxed to House Majority Whip James Clyburn's office. So yea it's really starting to heat up. I think this may only be the beginning if conservatives refuse to intervene. With poor leadership and no positive feelings about anything, expect to hear more and more about threats and vandalism.
As I was doing my usual afternoon channel surf, I ran across Glenn Beck he was playing with his pictures comparing the Health Care bill to getting spanked by your parents (Why is he still on television?) His views on what is going on are synonomous to the those who are getting stirred up and causing the fear in some that builds to aggravation. The strategic mind tricks aren't working anymore and control in some of the minds is completely lost. After having so much control for 8 years, I think some Conservatives don't know what it's like to have to work with other people on important issues. Working to restore some sense in America will not be an easy task, given the fact that we were practically rob of our cents for at least 1 term.

But Enough with all the Non Sense, Let's talk about what's in the bill:

• This YEAR, you will now have the security of knowing that insurers cannot deny coverage to your child because of a pre-existing condition. You won’t have to live every day in fear of having your insurance taken away from you if you get sick.
• Health insurance reform will limit what you have to pay out of pocket, a protection that does not exist today
  
• Health reform will require plans to use clear and plain language on insurance forms so that you can easily understand what benefits and what doctors are covered in your plan.


• If your insurance company spends too much of your premium dollars on overhead, such as big salaries, administrative costs and marketing, they will be required to give you a rebate.

In Minnesota:

• 282,000 residents could qualify for premium tax credits to help them purchase health coverage.


• Invests in the health primary care. Approximately 276,000 people, or 5 percent of Minnesota’s population, cannot access a primary care provider due to shortages in their communities.27 Health insurance reform will expand and improve programs to increase the number of health care providers, including doctors, nurses, and dentists, especially in rural and other underserved areas.
  

And today begins with the bill going back to the House for another vote. Stay Tuned! :)

Tom Price objects...repeatedly

Republicans Gone Wild
Tom Price objects...repeatedly

Karl Rove goes after David Plouffe

Republicans Gone Wild
Karl Rove goes after David Plouffe