Friday, March 25, 2011

A Year Later-Health Reform Law Working



There is monumental rhetoric in the Right Wing Media as they lie their way into the elections of 2012.  It is so terrible that Rove and his plutocrats have crearted their own news event to use as a 'wedge issue' over the Affordable Care Act.  The Republicans are sincerely evil people.  They'll advocate an invasion into Libya, but, they won't provide for qualtiy care for America's children.

There is not sincere brevity to any of the SENSATIONALISM over the law and this testimony by a pediatrician proves it.

As a pediatrician, (click title to entry - thank you) I've seen my work transformed by the Affordable Care Act, which celebrated its first birthday on March 23 ("Health care law alters political landscape," March 24). Before the passage of health reform, many of my diagnoses felt like mixed blessings: On the one hand, I was providing answers, relief, and medical management or cure to a child in need but on the other, I was burdening this child — perhaps even a newborn — with a "pre-existing condition" that would obstruct him or her from receiving needed care in the future.

Before the ACA, insurance companies routinely dropped or refused coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Thanks to the year-old law, that abusive practice is no longer allowed. When I hear a wheeze through my stethoscope, or detect a mass in the abdomen, or recognize signs of depression in a teen-ager, I know with relief that I do not have to prescribe future desperation as I treat the crisis of the moment.
Dr. Ari Silver-Isenstadt, Laurel