- Guests:
- Dr. Robert "Bob" Letcher, Parkinson's patient targeted by Tea Partiers at rally in Ohio; activist/philosopher.
- Eamonn Fingleton, international economics journalist; best selling author of "In the Jaws of the Dragon".
- Topics:
- The real impact of health insurance reform and who's Waterloo will it be?
- Hateful treatment he received at a recent rally
- 36 states are already challenging legislation on constitutional grounds, is it unconstitutional to force people to buy things from private corporations?
- How do we stop China from continuing to eat our lunch?
- Bumper Music:
- Move Along, The All-American Rejects (video).
- Kryptonite, 3 Doors Down.
- You can leave your hat on, Randy Newman.
- Hold On Loosely, 38 Special.
- Left Outside Alone, Anastacia.
- It's My Life, The Animals.
- Everything's Magic, Angels and Airwaves.
- Speed of Sound, Coldplay.
- Grand Canyon, Dmitriy Lukyanov (you need to search for it) (with additional sounds by Jacob).
- Democracy, Leonard Cohen.
- Today's newsletter has details of today's guests and links to the major stories and alerts that Thom covered in the show, plus lots more. If you haven't signed up for the free newsletter yet, please do. If you missed today's newsletter, it is in the archive.
- Quote: "Health is worth more than learning." -- Thomas Jefferson.
- Article: The Top Ten Immediate Benefits You’ll Get When Health Care Reform Passes.
As soon as health care passes, the American people will see immediate benefits. The legislation will:
•Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
•Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
•Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
•Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;
•Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
•Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
•Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
•Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
•Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
•Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.By enacting these provisions right away, and others over time, we will be able to lower costs for everyone and give all Americans and small businesses more control over their health care choices.
