Virginia's Public Square
Virginia's Public Square
Sometimes paying out-of-pocket for a medication at the pharmacy counter could be cheaper than using an insurance plan, but patients are unaware due to gag clauses within contracts between pharmacy benefits managers and insurance companies. However, a new federal law could ensure better transparency, allowing patients to save money on prescriptions.
With less than nine weeks before the November midterm elections, the Republican Party of Virginia has a new leader, bringing to the table over a decade of political organization experience.
“The impact to Loudoun County could cause irreparable harm to the local economy, especially the agritourism industry,” Congresswoman Barbara Comstock wrote in her letter to the Environmental Protection Agency over increased concerns surrounding the Rockwool Plant.
In Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, Republican candidate Denver Riggleman and Democratic candidate Leslie Cockburn went head-to-head in a debate last night, discussing everything from President Trump, to the economy, to laws surrounding firearms. Though, the main point during the debate centered on the state of the U.S. healthcare system and how people pay for care.
For over an hour, as reported by NBC 29, Riggleman and Cockburn sparred on the topic of healthcare. Cockburn pledged her support for a single-payer, “Medicare for All” healthcare system. In her explanation of the proposed system, the author and journalist cited Canada and Germany, two countries which operate with a single-payer system, as a prime example of the plan, with her saying that people in those countries pay half of the cost compared to the U.S. healthcare system.
During the exchange of viewpoints, the debate moderator asked Cockburn: “What if I have employer-provided heath insurance, and I like it?”
Cockburn replied: “First of all, you would, definitely, in any of these proposals, and there are several of them, you would be able to keep your employer insurance on the exchange.”
We’ve heard this one before. We all know how it turned out.
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), many people liked their insurance plan and their doctor, but they could not keep their insurance plan or their doctor…period.
Medicare for All, or M4A, a plan championed by Bernie Sanders, will cost $32.6 trillion, all paid for by taxpayer dollars.
A study conducted by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, “The Costs of a National Single-Payer Healthcare System,” found that plan would, under conservative estimates, increase federal budget commitments by the above amount during its first 10 years of full implementation, 2022 through 2031, assuming enactment in 2018. The projected increase in federal healthcare spending would equal approximately 10.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2022, rising to nearly 12.7 percent of GDP in 2031, and further thereafter.
Riggleman countered her point with a prediction that Medicare would become bankrupt by 2025, adding that people should be able to choose their own care, not the federal government.
“It’s cruel and unusual punishment to think the government can take care of everyone’s healthcare,” Riggleman said.
Facebook’s antics have cost them. People are now fed up with the tech giant, with users leaving the platform in search of sanity.
In Virginia’s first round of applications, the first wave of dispensaries will produce only CBD (cannabidiol) or THC-A (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid) oil, both said by medical professionals to have therapeutic benefits to ailing patients.
A drill may have been used to create the two millimeter-wide hole in the side of the Russian Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft connected to the ISS, leading to claims of deliberate sabotage.
The second round of federal tax cuts could be postponed until next year, after voters in high-tax states make their decisions at the ballot box in November.
Regulatory reform and old fashioned drilling as led the U.S. to decrease energy imports and grow closer to energy independence. Although refineries in the U.S. still require “heavy crude” from abroad, whereas shale drillers produce lighter grades, the import-export gap is now at a 24-year low.
President Trump’s cancellation of federal employee bonuses has gotten widespread backlash from lawmakers.