The explanation of the contradiction might lie in another polling number: 4 in 10 are not sure how the law will affect their own families. Since people don’t know the benefits of the ACA, they rely on the politically motivated right-wing generalizations about “big government” and “ObamaCare” for their opinions.

Well, Citizen Action has a solution! A new report by our research and education arm (Public Policy and Education Fund) gathers the facts on the benefits of the law for consumers and small businesses. We document both what’s already in place today, and what New Yorkers can expect in the future. Click here for the report.

I’d like to provide a few highlights from the report on the major benefits of the law that are already in place:

• 2.6 million New Yorkers did not have to pay co-payments or deductibles for preventive services in 2010.
• 4 of 5 New York small businesses are eligible for a small business tax credit to help them buy health insurance for their employees.
• 252,300 New York seniors and people with disabilities in the Medicare “doughnut hole” received a $250 rebate check to help with their prescription drug expenses in 2010.
• 191,000 New Yorkers under 26 are able eligible stay on their parents’ health plans.

Benefits of the Law In the Future

And the best is yet to come: many of the law’s protections are not in place today. Here’s a sample of what we can expect in the future:

• Up to 1.2 million uninsured New Yorkers are projected to become insured by 2014.
• The average New York household is projected to save $1,161 annually when the law is fully implemented, with lower income households saving significantly more.

The important point for politically active folks is that in order to ensure that New Yorkers realize the full benefits of the federal law, legislation is needed to create a “health insurance exchange” in our state: a marketplace for the purchasing of health insurance at a discounted price by individuals and small businesses. The establishment of a New York exchange in 2014 will benefit individuals and small businesses by ensuring they have good health insurance choices that meet their needs and helping to keep health insurance premiums more affordable.

Happily, in yesterday’s State of the State address, Governor Cuomo called for exchange legislation to be passed in the 2012 legislative session. We need to work hard in the coming weeks to make sure that the State Senate – which didn’t act on agreed to exchange legislation in its 2011 session — gets the message.

In response to the economic plan announced today, Karen Scharff, Executive Director of Citizen Action of New York said:

After several years of devastating budget cuts to schools, services, and our safety net, Governor Cuomo today responded to a strong movement of concerned New Yorkers by working with Speaker Silver to produce a new, more progressive tax system that will turn our state’s economy back in the right direction and create desperately needed jobs.

Citizen Action applauds this progress, but more needs to be done. Our 20,000 members will continue to organize for economic justice for the 99%, including working to solve the remaining state budget deficit by closing corporate tax loopholes and through other revenue raising measures, not more budget cuts. New York State’s economic problems are far from over. Corporate tax reform is the most important, and most rational, next step in creating a more fair New York.

The law was implemented in 2009 to improve the efficiency of the health insurance industry. Citizen Action of New York and the Health Care for All New York Coalition played a critical role in getting this law passed.

WellPoint’s Empire BlueCross BlueShield was ordered to refund $61.1 million, the largest rebate of the 11 companies, to policyholders. Altogether, 573,748 New Yorkers were overcharged in their premiums, according to the Governor’s office.

While this is good news for consumers and policyholders, Department of Financial Services (DFS) Superintendent Ben Lawsky says it’s simply not good enough. “While it is a positive that consumers are getting these payments, retroactive refunds are simply not good enough. It is likely that some people dropped their insurance coverage because of premium increases.”

Citizen Action agrees with the Superintendent. Last month, we wrote about another victory for consumers UnitedHealthcare agreed to make available to the public the entire rate filing that it provides to DFS to evaluate whether the insurer’s proposals to increase its rates are reasonable.

These regulations work to hold corporations accountable for their actions and are key steps in making our state and nation work for everyone, not just a small minority. By enforcing the law, the Governor has taken steps to put a stop to runaway corporate greed and profiteering at the cost of hard working individuals who are simply looking to provide basic health coverage for their families.

HCFANY recently called for the public release of health insurer rate materials in order to facilitate public input in the rate review process.  Many health insurers are opposing disclosure of these materials to the public, because they don’t want their competitors to have access to the data and because they’re obviously not thrilled with average consumers looking over their shoulders! As Citizen Action Policy Director Bob Cohen wrote last week, refusing to reveal documents that health insurers use to determine how high they set their rates is directly removing consumers from the very process that costs much of their hard earned money.

As Bob also wrote last week, Empire attorney Sean Doolan’s arguments, that releasing the documents “could cause not only confusion … to the layman policyholder” and that documents contain “esoteric … pricing concepts best understood by fellow actuaries” were red herrings. Consumer groups can and have already hired their own actuaries to represent them in health insurer rate proceedings, just like “lay” consumers participate in many other complex legal proceedings by hiring lawyers, actuaries, accountants and other professionals.  We are pleased that democracy has won over greed and the shameless search for unreasonable profits this time.

Say what?  The multi-year fight by New York health insurance consumers to stop oversight of their sky-high rates took an almost amusing turn in early October when an Albany insurance industry lobbyist argued that documents that health insurers use to determine how high they can set their rates are not available to the public.  Why?  Because we’re too dumb to use the information.  Luckily, the new state official charged with oversight over those rates, Department of Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky, isn’t buying this argument. Lawsky announced in September that a new Department policy that the detailed information submitted by health insurers to justify rate increases, including memos prepared by company actuaries will be made publicly available, as in 12 other states.

The fight sounds arcane, but it’s really about the right of the average consumers to participate meaningfully in governmental decisions that affect us, especially when it comes to basic needs like health care.  After years of double-digit rate increases by health insurers for plans purchased by individuals and small businesses, a law that Citizen Action and its allies at Health Care for All New York helped get passed in 2010 allows the Department of Financial Services (formerly the State Insurance Department) to review proposed health insurer rate increases and to reject the increase if the Department finds that the increase is not financially justified.  And, the new law explicitly states that consumers can submit formal written comments to the Department on their position on the rate increase.  Obviously, the only way consumers – and consumer organizations – can meaningfully participate in the process is if we have access to the financial documents that health insurers submitted to the Department to justify their rate proposals.  One of the main reasons company lobbyists are screaming bloody murder is because to deny consumer groups the financial data means we can’t effectively participate in the process set up by the new law.

The argument made by Empire attorney Sean Doolan that releasing the documents “could cause not only confusion … to the layman policyholder” and contains “esoteric … pricing concepts best understood by fellow actuaries” is a total red herring. Consumer groups can and have already hired their own actuaries to represent them in insurer rate proceedings, just like “lay” consumers participate in many other complex legal proceedings by hiring lawyers, actuaries, accountants and other professionals.  Releasing health insurer documents is not called confusing consumers.  It’s called democracy.

Click here for Citizen Action’s letter to the Department praising its decision, and click here for the New York Times article on the fight.

Citizen Action staff at the On May 12 protest

Citizen Action of New York is a grassroots membership organization taking on big issues that are at the center of transforming American society. We look for opportunities to accomplish big changes – not small, incremental reforms. We work to elect progressive candidates to office who are committed to these issues.

Citizen Action is also the New York State affiliate of USAction, which brings together citizen organizations from around the country to form a strong national progressive voice.

Are you fed up with the current state of affairs in our state/country?

Have you personally experience or witnessed injustice?

Do you want to bring real change to New York?

Need a good internship opportunity to build your resume while looking for full employment?

We’re looking for an individual who’s interested in New York’s political landscape, social justice, and social media. This internship is a great opportunity to get your foot in the door in state politics and to help make a New York – and country – that works for everyone.

This internship is based out of our statewide office which is located in Albany.

Why you should intern with us

For the past three decades, Washington politicians and their benefactors have broken their promises of jobs and economic relief to struggling working families. Instead, they have turned the “American Dream” of health, education and success into an American Nightmare of poverty, foreclosures and a loss of stability and dignity.

Now, they’re coming for our Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, all to pay for more tax cuts for the rich and sweetheart deals for big corporations. The upper one percent of Americans currently control over one third of the private wealth in America, and instead of paying their fair share, they now want to take the programs that we have spent our entire lives working to build. It’s our money and we’re not going to sit back and watch them take it!

Joining our staff, coalition partners, and concerned supporters were President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt and his wife Elanor Roosevelt, who oversaw the implementation of The New Deal, an economic overhaul in the 1930s that stimulated the recovery of the economy after the Great Depression and provided jobs and stability to thousands of working families. Arriving in a stately Studebaker, the elegant couple added an air of prestige and elegance to our caravan.

The Caravan commenced at Kleinhans Music Hall, a world-class venue that was made possible by Roosevelt’s New Deal. It was a fitting location to start off the procession and a testament to the ability of government to provide jobs and security instead of preying upon vulnerable working families.

Many citizens spoke about the need to restore the American Promise. Speakers included elderly people that rely upon essential services in order to pay for medication, disabled parents that rely upon the safety net in order to provide for their children, and concerned adults that have to care for their parents, among many others.

Meeting at 11 different locations across New York State, our Caravan garnered thousands of demonstrators, a myriad of press coverage (click here to read a list of articles) and supporters from different political parties (including Republicans!). America’s true majority came out to express their disbelief at the immense greed required to strip America’s social safety net.

New York’s long history of bipartisan leadership on health care got swept under the rug at the end of the legislative session when Senate Republicans blocked passage of a key step toward implementing health care reform, giving into the tea party hysteria about “Obamacare.” The losers are millions of New York families and small businesses that stand to benefit from lower health insurance costs.

The health care law gives states the key responsibility for setting up the new marketplaces — or exchanges — that will make health coverage more affordable to millions of New Yorkers who now must buy health coverage on their own or who are uninsured, and to small businesses.

In May, the Cuomo administration held hearings around the state on setting up the exchanges. Just before the end of the legislative session, Cuomo circulated a bill and two key Republican senators drafted their own proposal. The Assembly passed a bill of its own, but the Senate left without acting after the Republican majority balked.

Some of its members declared that passing a bill would be “buying into ‘Obamacare,’” in the words of Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

The Senate’s failure to move forward threatens an opportunity to make health coverage more affordable to millions of New York families and small businesses. We only need to look to Massachusetts to see the potential for reining in insurance rate increases and expanding coverage.

Three years after Massachusetts implemented a health care law that is the model for the national law, 98 percent of its residents have coverage, compared with 85 percent of New Yorkers. Individuals and small businesses can buy their coverage through an exchange that offers choices of affordable coverage and has held rate increases to only 5 percent a year, much less than the national average, where double-digit increases are common.

Massachusetts held down those increases by doing two things. First, it blocked anyone representing a financial interest in health care — including insurance companies, doctors and hospitals — from the exchange’s governance. Second, the Massachusetts exchange aggressively bargains lower rates from insurance companies while insisting on higher quality standards.

If Senate Republicans don’t agree to set up exchanges, New York will surrender its ability to shape how the law works. Instead the federal government will set up the exchange, and the state will lose more than $100 million in federal funding.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo  has demonstrated that he can effectively use his bully pulpit to pass controversial legislation. With several big issues under his belt, it’s time that the governor step out on another key issue and push the Senate Republicans to put affordable health coverage for millions of New York families and small businesses ahead of the tea party and the health insurance industry.

Richard Kirsch is a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a think tank that includes the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park. He was national campaign manager of Health Care for America Now during the legislative battle to pass reform. His book on the health reform campaign will be published in 2012.

Despite posting record profits in the past years, and paying no taxes in 2010, Verizon is still trying to give devastating cuts to employee compensation and health care. According to Verizon’s new proposed plan, which begins on August 6, employees will be subjected to massive rollbacks that will seriously compromise employees’ opportunities to provide for their family. The proposed plan doesn’t even provide coverage for emergency room treatment.

Concerned employees and supporters showed up at the Verizon building, blowing whistles in order to “wake up” Verizon and alert them that they wont lay down and take these draconian cuts.