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Everyone else, PLEASE Make Your Donation here.
Posted on 08/02/2013 4:23:48 AM PDT by YourAdHere
As President Obama and America move forward with full implementation of the Affordable Care Act, this nation continues to be embroiled in the fundamental struggle for human dignity that Dr. King addressed at the Lincoln Memorial 50 years ago.
Although the President did not stress this historic perspective during his seminal remarks on economic renewal at Knox College last week, he made it clear that the movement to assure affordable health care for every American is a moral, as well as economic, imperative.
The President believes, as do I, that the harsh reality of too many Americans’ dying before their time - or being crushed economically by uninsured accidents or illness - is within our ability to overcome.
Both our morality and practicality demand reform. These reforms, in turn, are a logical progression in Dr. King’s vision of an America in which everyone counts.
For decades now, this nation has experimented with “trickle-down economics.” The results of that experiment are in, and, for America’s middle class, that top-down vision has failed.
That reality, more than any other factor, is why Americans voted for President Obama and progressive members of Congress in 2008 and 2012. They voted for policies that will expand our prosperity outward from the middle class - rather than downward from most wealthy and powerful of our society.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) that a Democratic Congress passed, President Obama signed into law, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld is a core component of our progressive response to the public outcry for change. It already is making a difference in people’s lives.
During the last three years, due to the ACA, 6.6 million young adults up to age 26 have obtained insurance through their parents’ plans; 6.3 million people with Medicare have saved over $6.1 billion on their prescription drugs, and 34 million have received a free preventive service.
Notwithstanding the political hype from opponents, these are real, practical and well-deserved contributions to people’s lives. Now, our challenge is to successfully implement the next stage of health insurance reform.
On Oct. 1, less than two months from now, we will begin open enrollment in the ACA’s new Health Insurance Marketplaces. Americans who are looking for new, better or more affordable health coverage will have the opportunity to choose quality health insurance coverage from numerous private health plans.
Those who qualify will be able to sign up for expanded Medicaid coverage. Those whose income is a little higher will be able to receive sliding-scale premium tax credits to make their coverage more affordable. Small businesses will obtain help in insuring their employees.
For the public’s convenience, these Health Insurance Marketplaces will be accessible to both consumers and employers through a centralized federal website (www.HealthCare.gov). Here in Maryland, our marketplace will provide direct local access, including HealthCare Access Maryland (www.healthcareaccessmaryland.org) and Healthy Howard (www.healthyhowardmd.org).
These on-line marketplaces, along with the convenience and expanded competition among insurers that they will provide, are important practical elements in advancing our progressive vision. Another is the increased federal support to Maryland’s Federally Qualified Community Health Centers.
On July 10, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced $1.6 million in grant awards to help Maryland health centers enroll the uninsured in their new ACA health coverage options. That outreach effort will be critical to the nearly 300,000 patients served last year, one-quarter of whom were uninsured.
For those of us who believe in the vision of an America in which everyone counts, it is important that each of us know the facts about our progress toward full ACA implementation. As the President noted in his Knox College speech, there are those who are actively working to assure that the reforms fail.
Along with my Democratic colleagues, I will continue to do my part in setting the record straight, both for the general public and for small business owners who now will be able to afford health insurance for their employees. I hope and trust that we all will do the same, helping friends and family members obtain the health insurance that they so desperately need to thrive and survive.
Five decades after Dr. King cried out for jobs and freedom, our challenge to America remains the same.
We are in this life together. Every American must count.
Congressman Elijah Cummings represents (poorly) Maryland's Seventh Congressional District in the U.S. House.
OK. How?
How about an America where everyone makes a contribution?
Could Mr. Obama get a big enough loan from Communist China to send himself and his lovely family, this fraud, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Ben Jealous, Jeremiah Wright, the CBC and the rest of the racialist industry back to Africa? Because I’d support that this one time, even though it’s really not an appropriate expenditure.
From Obama’s stash; that’s how.
Excellent!
I will buy mine, and you can buy your own.
This is NOT about "affordable healthcare for all", it's about FORCING the "haves" to fund handouts to "have-nots".
If you're a "Have-Not", it's for a reason.
You can get off your ass to AFFORD what you want, or sit on your ass and suffer for your own laziness, stupidity, lack of responsibility, lack of a work ethic, and mentality that thinks the world owes you a living......
Elijah Cummings is a poster boy for term limits and gerry mandering.
Rep. Elijah Cummings - Demonic Party, libtard, idiot, stating that his vile and perverted definition of “morality” is you paying for his worthless, lazy, ignorant, parasitic constituency so they can continue to vote for dip$shits like him.
You forgot: inadvertent follower of Karl Marx.
At sometime from somewhere our National society has lost the concept of earning what a person wants. Looking back to my childhood in the 1930s I would tend to think the seed of such an attitude was started with the union movement. Note I said said ‘seed’. I believe that at the time there was a need for societal adjustment to benefit or pay ‘workers’ a fair return for their labor. WWII covered over the changes. However, since WWII the Nation has gone from ‘good seed’ to ‘weed’ and the ‘new deals’ and ‘fair deals and ‘Great Society’ and now the ‘every person’ movements result in what is going on in the Nation today. We reap what we sow.
The electronic/technical revolution infused laziness into the American culture that we can shake only with a factory to go to and build something.
It would not hurt us one bit if we were directed and induced (Kill the NEA ... they're killing our children's minds and imaginations ... ) ... to aspire to be productive.
Case in point, any financial advisor or insurance agent can and does talk to you about the products they offer.
Folks, those ain't products, they're schemes and plans to get your money.
A product is a car, a widget, (no, not the computer thing), a wire, a grommet, a radio, a TV ... etc.
Build factories, not unions .. and America will return
Preach to us !
Contribute? WHAT? to whom? based upon? Sounds like more big gov’t./socialism
How about an America where gov’t protects its Citizens Rights, and Citizens are Free to do as they wish and pay for those services they feel they should need.
An America of the Individual, banding together for fun/profit to create, innovate and learn/discover with no/limited gov’t interference.
Oh, so now socialist health care is a civil rights issue too? Like free cell phones and cable TV?
Gotcha.
I wonder how much further frauds like this can dilute the moral power of the civil rights movement before it loses any credibility it once had.
Where do they get this “We are in this life together” crap? They always throw that out as if they keep repeating it somewhow it will be true. Its like they are in persistent denial of the fact that largely through they’re own hate filled acts and speech, they’ve created an entire nation of hostile enemies.
I was born in 1926, went through the great depression, served in the Pacific in WWII and lost my only sibling and brother in that war. I don’t get the gist or intent of ‘Preach to us’. I would like to get more people, many more, to understand what a great and different kind of Nation the USA was intended to be and how we were once so united we could rise like a phoenix and successfully deal with/remove two large enemies. If this is ‘preaching’ so be it.
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