A Letter to Our Website

We recently received a note from our web site:

I am a Licensed Practical Nurse . I also believe in Universal Healthcare . It’s a sad shame when a single mom has to work 50 hours a week and the facility where I worked full-time stated My Health Insurance would be free Until I found out I had to pay 250 every to weeks to add my son to the plan BCBS offered . Most insurance companies are taking away health insurance from hard working nurses and making us pay higher copays Why?? They say our job is high risk. Sad shame What next I’ll be having a heart attack dying and go to the emergency room and the hospital will say to bad to bad you don’t have health insurance Think about it we aren’t that far away from taking place Change is needed !!!

Helen P.

The Response:

Hi Helen,

This is why we developed EMBRACE. The sad fact is that many would not even count you in their statistics, since you do have insurance for yourself! The other sad fact is that Universal health coverage means different things to different people. Many plans that are now being proposed for universal coverage aim to expand programs like Medicaid which are significantly inferior to the private insurance you have. They are concerned more with achieving coverage for everyone than giving them access to the best care. EMBRACE will allow you and your son unlimited access to basic health care. There will be no co-pays for these basic services (but may for the optional Tier 2 coverage depending on what you negotiate with the insurance company). Almost all acute hospital admissions (especially heart attacks), will be covered, with no charge to you even if you do not have Tier 2 (private insurance) coverage. In addition, the basic (Tier 1) coverage will never look at your “risk profile” and these coverages (whether Tier 1 or Tier 2) are fully portable from job to job and state to state. These next few weeks are very important, since this is when Congress will be taking up and (hopefully) drafting a healthcare reform proposal to present to the president. Please contact your Representative AND both your Senators and tell them your story and about EMBRACE. To find your Senator click here To find your House Representative click here The basic EMBRACE plan can be found on our web site: www.hpfhr.org/the_plan

Gil