Families need to know that, almost all Oregon children can now buy health insurance as the state's Healthy Kids insurance program started

 The legislature approved the Healthy Kids plan in 2009, funding it through a 1 percent tax on health insurance premiums. Last fall, the program's first phases offered free coverage to children from lower-income families. More than 30,000 kids out of an estimated 65,000 eligible Oregonians have enrolled in that coverage.

The final piece of the program, Healthy KidsConnect, lets children from other families buy into the plan, which covers all usual check-ups, preventive care and medical care. The insurance also covers prescription medicine, medical equipment and dental, vision and mental health, including addiction services. Only legal Oregon residents under age 19 are eligible.

Roosevelt

Ley de salud es una victoria, dijo el presidente Obama

 Agencias
WASHINGTON- Un histórico proyecto de ley de salud iba camino al escritorio del presidente Barack Obama para que lo hiciera ley, mientras el Congreso daba los últimos pasos en una lucha de casi un siglo para lograr una cobertura médica que alcance a casi toda la población.
A pasos de triunfar donde numerosos presidentes y legisladores fracasaron antes, los exultantes representantes demócratas lograron la noche del domingo 219 votos a favor ante 212 en contra, para que Obama pueda promulgar el proyecto que extiende la cobertura de salud a 32 millones de estadounidenses que no la tienen, reduce los déficits federales y prohíbe a las aseguradoras negar servicios a quienes están enfermos.

Reports from the nation’s five largest insurance companies reveal that sailed through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Insurers enjoy record-breaking profits as they cut 2.7 million people from their rolls

by Jason Rosenbaum in Profits Before People

Health Care for America Now has a new report out today on the insurance industry's profits and customer base and the statistics are shocking:
 The five largest U.S. health insurance companies sailed through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression to set new industry profit records in 2009, a feat accomplished by leaving behind 2.7 million americans who had been inprivate health plans. For customers who kept their benefits, the insurers raised rates and cost-sharing,and cut the share of premiums spent on medical care. Executives and shareholders of the five biggest for-profit health insurers, UnitedHealthGroup inc., WellPoint inc., Aetna Inc., Humana Inc., and Cigna Corp., enjoyed combined profit of $12.2 billion in 2009, up 56 percent from the previous year. It was the best year ever for Big Insurance.