This should be a great day.
This morning, President Barack Obama signed into law a health care reform bill that will stop greedy insurance companies form denying coverage to sick people and women. This health reform bill means folks without a job, or those whose employers don’t provide insurance, no longer have to live in fear of losing coverage or plunging into bankruptcy because of a medical emergency.
It’s about time.
But not everyone supports high-quality, affordable health care for every American. The Star Tribune reported yesterday that Marty Seifert and Tom Emmer — the two leading candidates for the Republican endorsement for governor — want to keep Minnesotans from receiving the benefits of this bill.
That’s right. President Obama hadn’t even signed the bill and Minnesota’s right-wing, tea party Republicans were already trying to deny Minnesota families the protections from arbitrary rate hikes, insurance cancellations, and discrimination against pre-existing conditions that health care reform provides.
We can’t let the right-wing keep Minnesotans from getting the health care they need. Please take a minute to send an email to Marty Seifert, Tom Emmer, and the 66 other Republicans who want to repeal the toughest patient protections in American history and let profit-driven insurance companies decide on your care — or whether you get coverage at all.
http://allianceminnesota.org/WeNeedHealthReform
The health care reform bill will offer help for families like Ashley’s in Minneota, Minnesota who writes that both she and her husband have gone for long stretches without health insurance and are still fighting with greedy insurance companies to insure their one-year-old daughter.
"I was denied private insurance due to ‘pre-existing’ conditions. My one-year-old daughter was denied by Blue Cross because she had a urinary tract infection when she was two weeks old…"
Ashley’s state legislator, Marty Seifert, in trying to repeal federal health care reform, is supporting profit-driven insurance companies — the same companies that deny Ashley’s one-year-old coverage because of a urinary tract infection.
His Republican colleague in the legislature and fellow Republican gubernatorial candidate, Tom Emmer, is sticking up for the insurance industry instead of his unemployed constituents who struggle to afford health care coverage for their families. Take Nicole, from Delano, Minnesota, Emmer’s hometown:
"The Chrysler dealership my husband worked for closed. We lost our health care with no option for COBRA. We have two small children and I am pregnant.."
Tom Emmer’s push to stop Minnesotans from experiencing the benefits of the federal health care bill means families like Nicole’s will have to live in fear of being one injury or illness away from bankruptcy.
Send GOP legislators a message: Minnesotans need this health care reform — don’t stop it.
http://allianceminnesota.org/WeNeedHealthReform
Unlike the big insurance companies, families like Ashley’s and Nicole’s didn’t have 2,049 lobbyists or $86 million to spend on negative ads. And now that health care reform has passed, it’s clear that GOP legislators like Marty Seifert and Tom Emmer have chosen to side with the insurance companies — not their constituents.
-Denise
Denise Cardinal
Executive Director
Alliance for a Better Minnesota
Links:
1. Star Tribune, All GOP legislators to ask AG to sue over health care. http://aBetter.MN/4q
2. Health Care Stories for America: Ashley – Minneota, MN. http://aBetter.MN/4o
3. Health Care Stories for America: Nicole – Delano, MN. http://aBetter.MN/4p
