Learn. Pray. Blog.

Health reform has passed and the weather is gorgeous, there are many reasons to feel blessed! But as we start pulling out the spring/summer clothes, many of us will have to come face to face with the dreaded: “winter weight.” Indeed, weight gain and obesity are related to our health care crisis. In Virginia, the statistics are disturbing:

In 2008, over 60% of Virginia’s adults were overweight or obese.

In 2007 31% of children were overweight or obese.

There are many factors that can cause these alarming statistics. Our friends at The Lutheran Blog are raising some important issues about health care, nutrition and wellness with their new “Spring into Life” series. America is struggling with an obesity epidemic and our Faiths call us to be faithful stewards of our bodies.

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“If it wasn’t for this program, I’d probably be dead,” said Ryan Hayes, a Chesapeake 17-year-old in gray Challenge sweats. Less than a year ago, he was skipping school at Western Branch High School, using drugs and alcohol and getting into trouble at home.

Virginians, already feeling the pain of the Great Recession, have more pain coming to them thanks to the Governor’s pledge to close to the budget hole exclusively on the back of low and middle income Virginians. An important school program for at-risk teens that is on the chopping block because of budget cuts:

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“The drought affecting Yunnan exceeds any from over the past millennium, according to the local department of meteorology. It is estimated that by May, one out of four people will have no drinking water.”

The climate is suffering and the result is that basic necessities like water are going to be more and more difficult to find throughout the world.  It is no wonder that the Chinese government is buying water-sourced land around the world when you read the most recent Epoch Times article.

We must get serious about reducing the impact of climate change and conserving our resources in order to have a planet to leave to our grandchildren.  We are meant to be the caretakers of God’s creation.

Gov. McDonnell just appointed a lawyer who represents Club Velvet, a strip club, to lead Virginia’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board of Commissioners. The strip club recently had its license to serve alcohol revoked and it’s appeal would go before this Board of Commissioners setting up an obvious conflict of interest for James Neal Insley.

Stacey Johnson, press secretary for McDonnell, said last night that “there is no conflict” between Insley’s past work for the LeClair Ryan law firm and future duties on the board.

No conflict of interest? The article continues:

However, Insley has been sharply critical of the department he will oversee. He accused ABC agents of going too far in an undercover investigation of Velvet and its controversial owner, Samuel J.T. Moore III, whose liquor license was revoked last month, pending appeal, on nine violations of state law.

The tacky Club Velvet next to the train station is just blocks from the Governor's Mansion

What?  Insley is also the same lawyer working to defend Club Velvet, a girly-bar in Shockoe Bottom? Gov. McDonnell must not be too concerned that his new ABC Board pick is defending a topless bar that shocked Richmonders last year by hanging a photo of the President as the “Joker.”  Or that the owner, Sam Moore, has been arrested breaking many of the laws the Governor supported when he headed the Courts Committee in the House of Delegates.

Insley has a huge conflict with his interest in a topless club under investigation.

Didn’t the whole Bob Sledd affair that resulted in Sledd being an “unpaid advisor” to the Governor mean that McDonnell would kept this from happening again?  Guess a conflict of interest is harder to define than I thought.

Sam Moore, Richmond's most notorious strip club owner.

Everyone deserves to be defended in a court of law.  I don’t fault Insley for being his lawyer.  But Moore’s connection to Insley as the new ABC Board Chair while being under investigation seems untimely and distracting.  It feels more like sandpaper than velvet.

Maybe the Governor doesn’t mind that big picture of Obama in his neighborhood.  If placing Insley on the ABC Board means that big banner might hang around a little longer it might make sense to not worry about the conflict and just see what, er….., shakes out.

There’s a lot of huffing and puffing about how the individual mandate in health insurance reform is unconstitutional. Is the individual mandate a liberal assault on the constitution? Or are these lawsuits about something else?

Senator Chuck Grassley (R – Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and twice its Chairman supported the individual mandate and said there was “bi-partisan consensus” on the individual mandate. Now his reason for opposing reform is because he disagrees with the individual mandate?

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Greenpeace launched an ad on their “Polluter Harmony” website that sounded silly but shows dumb.

Casting Bob McDonnell as a drill-centric governor is one thing, but actually creating an ad that suggests he’s gay and likes to mix it up with other drillers is just dumb.

It’s a shame because the natural gas drilling debate is a serious one that is important to have because of our long term energy needs.  Greenpeace dumbs the conversation down and uses a not-so-subtle bias that is contrary to the beliefs of most of their supporters, I would say.

Watch for yourself and tell us what YOU think.  I think Bob McDonnell is smarter than this and as his press secretary told the media, he has better hair.

Virginia small business owner Jocelyn Tice talks about how her business gets tax credits to afford health insurance. This will let her reinvest savings from lower health care costs into expanding her business and creating jobs. She doesn’t understand why Gov. McDonnell and Attorney-General Cuccinelli want to take these away from her.

Health reform provides tax credits for up to 93,400 Virginia small businesses to help make coverage more affordable.

Businesses with fewer than 50 employees will get tax credits covering up to 50% of employee premiums. And these small businesses would be exempt from any employer responsibility provisions.

Further more, small businesses offering coverage to retirees aged 55-64 would be eligible for subsidies in a new re-insurance pool that could help mitigate the financial risk for this higher cost population.

It is unfortunate that our Attorney-General Ken Cuccinelli wants to keep playing partisan games while hard working Virginians suffer in our broken health care system. We are grateful that Virginians will finally be protected from some of the worst health insurance industry abuses.

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National health reform briefly took the spotlight away from the grim budget situation our Commonwealth is in. A new study out by The Commonwealth Institute shows that the budget will likely cost Virginia 37,000 jobs and $2 billion in lost GDP.

Virginia’s lawmakers responded to this crisis with an approach that is not balanced and relies most heavily on cuts to programs such as education and health care in order to close the budget shortfall.

The approach was definitely not balanced. As people of faith we are mindful of our enduring responsibility to care for one another. As it says in the Bible:

Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 2:4-5

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Congressman Tom Perriello supported his constituents by voting in favor of health insurance reform. Below is a breakdown of how health insurance reform will improve health insurance for folks in his district:

Give tax credits for up to 15,200 small businesses to help them afford coverage.

• Businesses with fewer than 50 employees will get tax credits covering up to 50% of employee premiums.

Guarantee that 10,700 residents with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage.

• Health Insurers cannot deny children health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. A ban on the discrimination in adults will take effect in 2014.
• A temporary high-risk pool will be set up to cover adults with pre-existing conditions. Health care exchanges will replace the program in 2014.

Allow 55,000 young adults to obtain coverage on their parents’ insurance plans.

• The cut-off age for young adults to continue to be covered by their parents’ health insurance rises to the age 26.

Improve coverage for 409,000 residents with health insurance.

• Insurance companies can no longer cut someone off when he or she gets sick.
• Insurers must now reveal how much money is spent on overhead.
• Any new plan must now implement an appeals process for coverage determinations and claims.
• Non-profit Blue Cross organizations will be required to maintain a medical loss ratio — money spent on procedures over money incoming — of 85 percent or higher to take advantage of IRS tax benefits.

Improve Medicare for 130,000 beneficiaries.

• Seniors will get a rebate to fill the so-called “donut hole” in Medicare drug coverage, which severely limits prescription medication coverage expenditures over $2,700.
• As of next year, 50 percent of the donut hole will be filled.
• Medicare payment protections will be extended to small rural hospitals and other health care facilities that have a small number of Medicare patients.

Protect 1,200 families from bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs.

• New plans must cover checkups and other preventative care without co-pays. All plans will be affected by 2018.
• Lifetime caps on the amount of insurance an individual can have will be banned. Annual caps will be limited, and banned in 2014.

Last week, rest stops across Virginia re-opened — at taxpayer expense — to ensure that folks who travel our highways have a place to “rest”: to get a snack, look at a map, stretch their legs, walk their pooch, and otherwise relieve themselves. How nice.

Meanwhile, in nearly every county and city across this state elected officials and parents of school-aged children are reacting to massive cuts to education funding, making plans to layoff teachers and increase class sizes in order to balance their budgets.

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While certain politicians are determined to keep playing political games with Virginians health care, most Virginians have a lot to celebrate with the health reform bill that was passed last night. Virginians are rightfully curious about how exactly reform will benefit them?

Short answer? All Virginians benefit as MJ & Jeremy’s story illustrates. A great tool from Kaiser Health News breaks down how reform affects individuals.

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Folks in the Northern Shenandoah Vally are welcome to attend the Shenandoah University Davis Lectures at no cost on Sunday and Monday.  I will be speaking about responses to anti-semitism and racism, budgets and moral documents, and the restoration of felons rights in the context of faithful citizenship.

I am sure that questions from the audience will include an opportunity to celebrate what I hope will be the passage of the health insurance reform bill in Congress.  It should be a great time to be back in Winchester, VA and see so many friends from my old pastorate Ebenezer Christian Church.

Call your member of Congress now & ask them to support health care reform: (202) 224-3121

I received another threatening letter today from Anthem, the Virginia Interfaith Center’s health insurance provider.  I have a  policy for me, my wife, and two children.

Anthem is demanding detailed “pre-existing condition” information on my youngest daughter who is adopted so they can decide what they will and will not cover. She is 12 months old. Adopted. Since December she has seen the doctor 4 times for shots and check ups.  To date, they have not paid the doctor’s office for those visits.

We have no medical history on my daughter but they don’t seem to care.

It is illegal to deny insurance based on pre-existing conditions of an adopted child.  Does not matter.

Anthem is just trying to do just about anything to refuse covering anyone who actually uses health care. Anthem sees my daughter as a revenue center who should not become a cost center.

Congress – just get it done.

Congressman Tom Perriello’s announcement supporting health reform will help his constituents. Earlier this week I blogged about a Virginia Veteran from Charlottesville and how his family suffered from our broken system.

Health reform will help him and many many others in Virginia’s 5th congressional district by:

Below is a video of Claire from Charlottesville VA who traveled all the way to DC to lobby her elected officials on health care reform:

Call Congressman Tom Perriello’s office and thank him for supporting health care reform: (202) 225-4711

Hannah Anderson from Christiansburg VA writes movingly about health reform:

Moral principles of major world faiths consistently declare that people should not be simply left to suffer because they cannot afford a basic necessity. Just as those without money to pay for food should not be left to starve, those without health care insurance should not be made to suffer physically and financially.

Virginians in Congressman Glenn Nye’s district are hurting because of his refusal to support health reform. Several months ago we held a large “Faith & Health Reform” townhall meeting at a Synagogue in Norfolk and heard from Virginians of faith in the 2nd Congressional district. Overwhelmingly we heard that health care is a shared responsibility and must be affordable to all.

Below are some specifics of how health reform would benefit Virginians in the 2nd Congressional district:

Watch Rabbi Roz Mandelberg of Temple Ohef Sholom in Norfolk Va talk about health care as a shared responsibility and right for all:

A moving story of a Virginia Veteran and his family who struggle in our broken health care system.

Health reform will prevent discrimination based on pre-existing conditions so folks like MJ and Jeremy won’t have to suffer as much. A recent report spells out more health reform benefits for Virginians:

Under health reform, 707,000 Virginia residents will gain coverage by 2019. The path to coverage will depend on each resident’s situation: Some will enroll in coverage through their employers, while others will obtain coverage through a new marketplace, called an exchange, in which insurers must play by new rules to make sure that consumers receive quality coverage.

Today, heads of major Catholic women’s religious order in the United States representing 59,000 Catholic Sisters across America, sent a letter to Congress asking them to support health reform and firmly denying false rumors that reform has tax funded abortions:

It will invest in preventative care. It will bar insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions. It will make crucial investments in community health centers that largely serve poor women and children. And despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions. It will uphold longstanding conscience protections and it will make historic new investments – $250 million – in support of pregnant women. This is the REAL pro-life stance, and we as Catholics are all for it.

We had a previous blog post covering how health reform will save lives.

Watch a video of Catholic Health Association CEO Sr. Carol Keehan talking about how health reform is pro-life below:

There’s a great blog post on Sojourners by Rev. Dr. Richard Lowery, about how health reform can help save lives:

I write as a minister and Bible teacher to urge pro-life members of Congress to vote for health insurance reform.

A recent study estimates that 45,000 Americans die each year because they don’t have health insurance. That figure does not count the number of pregnancies that end in miscarriage or the number of children born with life-threatening conditions because the mother lacks access to prenatal care. According to the 2009 CIA World Fact Book, the United States ranks dead last among industrialized countries in infant mortality rates. We are just behind Guam, Cuba, Italy, and the Isle of Man.

Rev. Lowery makes an important point. A recent report showed that 6,000 Virginians died because of a lack of health care over the past 15 years. By 2019, without reform, we could lose another 5,600 lives. We must reform our broken system to save lives in Virginia.

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