{"id":22942,"date":"2012-06-30T06:02:29","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T06:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=22942"},"modified":"2012-06-30T06:02:29","modified_gmt":"2012-06-30T06:02:29","slug":"kilili-high-court-ruling-means-benefits-for-nmi-will-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/kilili-high-court-ruling-means-benefits-for-nmi-will-continue\/","title":{"rendered":"Kilili: High Court ruling means benefits for NMI will continue"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>WASHINGTON, D.C.-Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind.-MP) expressed relief yesterday after the U.S. Supreme Court announced it had upheld the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The result of the ruling is that the many benefits the people of the Northern Marianas are already receiving from the health care reform law, which Congress enacted in 2010, will continue.<\/div>\n<p>\u201cHealth care is a basic human need,\u201d said Sablan. \u201cAnd today&#8217;s ruling means that the people of the Northern Mariana Islands will continue to get help from the Affordable Care Act to address the health care emergency in our islands.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe worked very hard in Congress and with the Administration to make sure that territorial areas received some of the benefits of Obamacare,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a result, over $100 million in new Medicaid money is available for the CNMI. And the government has already drawn down over $8 million of that Obamacare money.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a better federal\/local match for Medicaid. It went from 50\/50 to 55\/45.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe many consumer protections apply. Insurance companies will not be able to deny coverage because of preexisting conditions, or put limits on how much you can get in a year or over a lifetime, or charge higher rates for women than for men, or take away coverage when you get sick.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeniors on Medicare got $250 checks to help with prescription drug costs in 2010. Last year, Seniors in the \u201cdonut hole\u201d started getting a 50 percent discount on their medicines, an average of $569.24 in the Marianas. And by 2020 the donut hole &#8211; the gap in Medicare coverage for drug spending between $2,800 and $4,550 &#8211; will be completely closed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause of the $608,333 start-up grant from the Affordable Care Act the Kagman Community Health Center can now open. People in Kagman are looking forward to getting dental services, prenatal, immunizations, and other primary and preventive care in just a few months, by Oct. 1, I understand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe CNMI Department of Commerce received a $1,000,000 grant to help improve regulation of insurance companies, so premiums are fair.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople who buy health insurance are going to be getting rebates by August 1, if their insurer spent more than 20 percent of premiums on salaries and other overhead instead of on health care. 363 families will be getting notice from their insurer. The average rebate in the Marianas is $782, third highest in the nation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe CNMI has received $500,000 for preventive care, and $1,500,000 for Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Programs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of these health care benefits could have been lost, if the Supreme Court had ruled against Obamacare today. Fortunately, that did not happen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do have to be concerned, however. Because the Republican leadership has said that it is still determined to repeal Obamacare in Congress. We cannot let that happen,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cWe must continue to work for even more improvements in health care for the people of the Northern Mariana Islands.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>House Republican leaders yesterday set July 11 for a vote to repeal completely the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, D.C.-Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind.-MP) expressed relief yesterday after the U.S. Supreme Court&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,55,67,139],"class_list":["post-22942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-health-2","tag-people","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}