affordable health care

Tuesday marked day two of volunteers fanning out across the community to survey and identify the city’s most medically vulnerable homeless as part of Austin Registry Week.

Austin’s 100 Homes Campaign, led by the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, is sponsoring Registry Week, Nov. 7-9, in order to create a database identifying the most vulnerable homeless people in Austin, said Cal Streeter, who sits on ECHO’s board of directors.

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Friday, July 16th
Mohawk (912 Red River Street)
$5 ($7 for minors)

President Obama on Tuesday signed the health care overhaul into law. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives on Sunday.

At the White House, Obama said the law will enshrine a "core principle": that everyone should have access to affordable health care.

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One of the proposed changes in the health care insurance reform bills is the “employer mandate”, a requirement that employers of a certain size either provide health insurance to their employees or pay a fine.

If the employer provides insurance, it can be provided before taxes in most cases, providing a tax benefit (or, subsidy) to help the employee afford the share of premium.

If the employer doesn’t provide the insurance and pays the fine, the employees can then use the “insurance exchange” to buy their own coverage.

You can view the recently passed HR 3962, the “Affordable Health Care for America” act, at http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf (PDF file).

While there is still quite a bit of change anticipated before this bill is consolidated with the upcoming Senate effort, we can at least see the text of the current proposal.

This is pretty significant because the one thing that has always gotten in the way of universal health care is the massive cost.

But if the health insurance providers are willing to look for ways to tighten their belts, it’ll make it much more fiscally realistic.