And your state is sure to be suffering:

“Medicaid rolls are surging, by unprecedented rates in some states, as the recession tightens its grip on the economy and Americans lose their employer-sponsored health coverage along with their jobs.” In many states, Medicaid rolls grew by 5 to 10 percent in the last year, often double the growth the previous year. Congress is likely to extend Medicaid aid to states in the upcoming stimulus package.

And, as early as March, Obama will be moving forward on health care reform, according to the Politico:

The move signals Obama’s intent to keep one of the most ambitious and politically crucial campaign promises at the top of his agenda. On the campaign trail, Obama pledged to provide universal health care by the end of his first term, but the severity of the economic downturn has raised doubts about how quickly he can deliver on that promise. Obama and his point person on health care, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, have staffed up like they plan to push forward with it, lining up a roster of communications and policy strategists to assist in the effort.

I wrote last week on a Tom Daschle statement that could be taken as a signal of which way Obama wants him to go:  Read more…

Pravda:

Congress and the incoming Obama administration are contemplating profound shifts in the government's role in health insurance to try to alleviate a significant ripple effect of the damaged economy: Americans losing health coverage as they lose jobs.

As part of a sprawling $825 billion strategy to heal the economy that House Democrats laid out this week, lawmakers and transition officials envision a two-prong approach to help unemployed people retrieve health benefits. One would reshape a basic entitlement program, allowing states temporarily to sign up jobless residents for Medicaid, with the federal government for the first time paying the entire cost. The other proposal would provide unprecedented federal subsidies to help people afford coverage under COBRA, a law that allows some laid-off workers to buy health benefits that they used to get through their jobs.

So, in the Village, what the Village is proposing for people who will either get sick, or die, without health care is: Tinkering with Medicaid to bring more people in, and further subsidizing the already broken COBRA. To them, that's "profound." The contrast between two trillion for the bankers NOW NOW NOW NOW and getting help to real people who need it because the bankers wrecked the financial system couldn't be more, er, profound. (Further on in the article, WaPo's stenographers call these cosmetic changes "sharp departures," "unprecedented," laud the proposal's "boldness", claim they're "sparking debate along the ideological continuum" (i.e., the Overton Window as presently nailed firmly in place).

Oh, and HR 676 and single payer?

An Unofficial Perspective on the Fiscal Crisis at Cambridge Health Alliance

AHIP Launches New Long-Term Care Education Campaign

The centerpiece of this campaign is a new consumer-friendly website, http://www.MyLifeMyFamily.com, to provide consumers with basic information about long-term care insurance. The website provides videos that feature real-life stories from current policyholders, an interactive online quiz, and additional resources on long-term care insurance.

Means Testing, for Medicare

Shorter version of this article, the biggest items in our federal budget are entitlement programs, therefore they must be cut, therefore we need to means test Medicare, which really means turn it into Medicaid. And we should not move to single payer because it lacks transparency. At no time does the author express an interest in providing quality healthcare to all Americans.