Health Reform

Times are tough enough for Californians; they're even tougher for Californians' teeth. "One-quarter of all adults and 28% of children in California have untreated dental caries [cavities]," says Len Finocchio, a senior program officer at the California Healthcare Foundation, a health advocacy group. "Our research tells us that many people in California have been avoiding routine care that might have cost about $100 for a checkup and cleaning, and then find themselves in the emergency room, where they get only an antibiotic, a bill that can average over $600 and instructions to see a dentist."

If the healthcare reform law is thrown out by theU.S. Supreme Court - as many fear could happen based on the comments of conservative justices - more than 700,000 low-income Californians could lose a once-in-a-lifetime chance to obtain affordable health insurance. At stake is what's known as a Basic Health Plan. This is a system provided for by the reform law, fully funded by the federal government, that would extend coverage to people who may not be able to afford conventional insurance policies but don't qualify for Medi-Cal.

Rahm Emanuel was agitated. With only seven weeks until Christmas, the opportunity to pass healthcare legislation seemed to be fading. The White House chief of staff feared that if the Senate left for the holiday without passing a bill, President Obama's top domestic priority would wither as lawmakers turned to other concerns next year. Democratic senators and administration officials gathered in a conference room outside Majority Leader Harry Reid's Capitol office. Emanuel wanted to know: Was there a chance the chamber could still act in time?

WASHINGTON - Before he took his campaign for the Republican nomination to the next primary battleground in Pennsylvania, Mitt Romney used the same Washington stage where President Obama had spoken a day before to accuse his likely general election rival of plans to wage a "hide-and-seek campaign" in the fall. The former Massachusetts governor, one day after winning a set of primaries that all but ensured he would be his party's nominee, used a "hot mic" incident involving the president and his Russian counterpart to cast doubt about what Obama would do if he won a second term.

The Senate has rejected a bill that would have blocked funding for implementation of President Obama’s new healthcare law. The 47-53 vote, which broke along party lines, was an expected result in the chamber, which is run by Democrats. The bill fell short of the 60 votes needed to move forward.  The Senate agreed to hold the vote as part of the compromise spending deal negotiated last week. The deal Although it had little chance of passing, Republicans insisted on the vote in order to put Democrats on record as defending the law – which has limited public support.

Mitt Romney's first day as a full-fledged presidential candidate included a must-stop for any Republican hopeful: Fox News Channel. Speaking with Sean Hannity for an interview to air Thursday night, the former Massachusetts governor repeats his pledge to repeal the national healthcare reform law that President Obama signed, even though it is modeled after one he signed in the Bay State. "If I get the chance to debate President Obama, I'm looking forward to saying, 'Thank you, Mr. President, for all the compliments you send my way -- I know what they're intended to do,' " Romney said, referring to the glee with which Democrats and White House officials cite the Massachusetts plan as a blueprint for the president's, hoping it will undermine his standing among Republicans.

With regard to the Clinton health plan, I like to hear fairy tales myself, but that doesn't mean I believe them. GEORGE G. JUMPER, Pasadena

Who says bipartisanship was completely absent from the historic vote March 21 on American access to medical care? Certainly not the White House, which released an official photograph of President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and about 40 staffers who assembled to applaud the late-night passage of the bill. Shot by White House photographer Pete Souza, the picture ran on the front pages of newspapers and websites Monday morning, including The Times and latimes.com.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was all smiles in 2006 as he marched into historic Faneuil Hall behind a fife and drum corps and ascended a giant stage festooned with a banner that proclaimed "Making History in Healthcare. " Romney was about to sign a law making his state the first in the nation to effectively guarantee universal health coverage, a landmark the governor would then call "an achievement" that "comes once in a generation. " Five years later, that achievement is still being celebrated here by doctors, hospitals, business leaders and community advocates who credit the law with ensuring that fewer than 2% of the state's residents are uninsured, compared with more than 15% nationally.

One afternoon in 1934, Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone decided to quietly help Labor Secretary Frances Perkins out of a jam. Her quandary was how to write a Social Security law that would survive scrutiny by the court's conservative bloc. Stone, a progressive, pulled her aside during a tea party at his home, glanced around to make sure he wasn't overheard, and whispered, "The taxing power of the federal government, my dear; the taxing power is sufficient for everything you want and need.

For the birds Re " Seabird rescues up sharply ," March 7 So, oil seeping naturally from the ocean floor off Santa Barbara is to blame for all these oil-soaked birds. I have a hard time believing that's all there is to it. Oil companies have drilled many a hole into the sea floor over the last 60-plus years and have sucked out many millions of barrels of crude. Surely that wouldn't have anything to do with leaks? Growing up in Long Beach and surfing Bolsa Chica in the early 1960s, I got used to cleaning tar off my feet, but it seemed that Huntington was as far south as the oil drifted back then.

The healthcare reform law passed last year requires insurers to offer, at a minimum, a set of "essential" benefits to individuals and small groups, including coverage for hospitalization, outpatient care and prescription drugs. The details of what is or is not essential were left to the Department of Health and Human Services to decide. On Friday, however, the department put out a bulletin proposing to let each state come up with its own definition. The move — which shielded the administration from a potential firestorm of criticism from patient advocates on one side and business groups on the other — was politically deft.

The Obama administration on Friday told congressional leaders that it cannot implement a new program to provide Americans with long-term care insurance, abandoning a controversial part of the new healthcare law the president signed last year. The move will not affect implementation of other parts of the sweeping healthcare law, including preparations for a major expansion of health insurance coverage starting in 2014, according to administration officials. But the decision to give up on what was once touted as a key benefit of the law marks a major retreat for the Obama administration and a vindication for critics who have voiced doubt about the promises that Democrats made as they fought to enact the law last year.

Reporting from Washington -- For more than a year, as conservative states have battled President Obama's sweeping healthcare law, California was supposed to be a model that showed the law's promise. But the state is emerging as one of the biggest headaches for the White House in its bid to help states bring millions of Americans into the healthcare system starting in 2014. Though still outpacing much of the nation, cash-strapped California is cutting its healthcare safety net more aggressively than almost any other state, despite billions of dollars in special aid from Washington.

A federal appeals court in Virginia on Thursday rejected two conservative challenges to President Obama's healthcare law, ruling that the legal dispute over the mandate to have insurance cannot be decided by judges until after 2014 when the tax penalty takes effect. The first decision overruled a Virginia judge, who was the first to declare the healthcare law unconstitutional, and it threw out the suit brought by Virginia Atty. Gen. Kenneth Cuccinelli on the grounds that he had no standing to sue in the first place.

I am curious about all this talk about health insurance. What if you are not employed (permanently disabled) and have Medicare Part A only? I cannot afford the premium for Part B, nor do I qualify for Medi-Cal. I have a 22-year-old son who no longer has any health insurance. His Medi-Cal insurance was canceled when he turned 21. What are people like us supposed to do about this mandatory health insurance law? Without a doubt, the most contentious aspect of the Affordable Care Act is its requirement that most Americans have health insurance coverage.

The Obama administration is kicking off a nationwide ad campaign urging seniors to take advantage of free preventive services such as cancer screenings made possible in Medicare by the new healthcare law. The campaign — featuring television and radio ads in English and Spanish (see video below) — comes on the heels of a new report showing that less than one in six Medicare beneficiaries have taken advantage of the new benefit since President Obama signed the law last year. The new law includes numerous provisions to encourage more preventive care, which many health experts believe is critical to controlling long-term health costs.