At last we can celebrate the nomination of former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as her confirmation hearing promises to seal Ms. Sebelius for the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. The position will be a challenging one and it will take strong support and commitment from each of us in various ways. Some of the policies that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will firmly and swiftly implement are: Fraud Crackdown, Cancer Research, and a government-run health insurance program. Proclaiming to be a tough enforcer, Ms. Sebelius announced “there’s a new sheriff in town, and I intend to this very, very seriously.” (See,
http://www.washingtonpst.com/wp-dyn/conten... Ms. Sebelius is speaking about the approximately 10 percent siphoned off Medicare and Medicaid fraudulently.
This siphoning translates into nearly $70 billion a year in healthcare losses to these programs. The shortfall affects every American whether he or she is insured or uninsured and the fraudulent schemes have been unrelenting ranging in schemes from operations that peddle electric wheelchairs to seniors who do not need them to prescription drug schemes. The taxpayers have been footing the costs for the uninsured; however, Kathleen Sebelius stated that “going after fraud and abuse aggressively” will stanch the losses without forcing taxpayers to cover the uninsured. This sends a strong message to the operations profiting off this fraudulent behavior and at the same time offers hope to Americans that healthcare reform really is the best way to over-haul healthcare in America!
Kathleen Sebelius also affirmed her support for cancer research. Increased funding for research is a priority so that the uninsured Americans can obtain cancer treatments that are as superior as possible based on the most current information. (See,
http://www.washingtonpst.com/wp-dyn/conten... A government-run program is a major segment of President Obama’s Healthcare Reform proposal and is a strong competitor against private healthcare insurance providers. Unlike welfare, Medicaid, or Medicare, a public health insurance program will make healthcare affordable and accessible to all Americans. The rising cost in healthcare has become the biggest challenge for the US. This is partly because it is an emotional issue that touches upon every American. On the flip side of the emotional outcry by Americans to fix the problem, the healthcare providers are fighting tooth-and-nail to continue a broken healthcare system in America for profiting leverages. The true problem in this situation is that Americans are not receiving quality healthcare. While the costs of healthcare has sky-rocketed, the quality of the healthcare that the average citizen receives is less than adequate. This results in premature deaths and a myriad of other health problems that could otherwise be prevented. According to reports by the CBO Director, Peter Orszag, the aging population of Americans is not the major reason healthcare costs for Medicare and Medicaid have increased significantly. The problem is the high cost of care that have continued to increase over the past 30 years and have doubled in that time span. At the current rate of high costs, the US can expect healthcare costs to double again by year 2035. While that may seem a long way off, understanding how healthcare costs affects the Gross Domestic Product today, America cannot sustain more increased healthcare expenditures. Shockingly, this will affect our children and grandchildren!
With the confirmation of Kathleen Sebelius, and her aggressive bipartisan leadership abilities, America will have concrete help to begin to realistically hope for healthcare reform. Under Ms. Sebelius’ guidance, the US will seriously take the steps necessary to over-haul a failed healthcare system. Contact your Senators today and tell them you support the confirmation of Kathleen Sebelius and thank them for approving her nomination. Please locate your House of Representative at
www.house.gov and send a quick e-mail and also locate your Senator at
www.senate.gov. Health Reform is not going to happen overnight. We must continue to contact our political leaders and encourage them to make the best decisions for our sake, not the providers!
For more information about Health Reform, please visit
www.HealthReform.gov and be sure to sign the Statement of Support. The cost of inaction has crippled America and it’s time to stand toe-to-toe with this healthcare beast and slay it.
Agnes B. Levine is the Founder/President of Levine-Oliver Publisher at
www.levineoliverpublisher.com. She is also the Author of the highly-anticipated, newly released book, "Cooling Well Water: A Collection of Work By An African-American Bipolar Woman" (ISBN 13-0-978-9754612-0-4) which is available for sale now on
www.levineoliverpublisher.com and
www.amazon.com
Posted By: agnes levine
Saturday, April 4th 2009 at 8:50AM
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