Reading time – 2:45; Viewing time – 3:58 . . .
Healthcare is our current favorite distraction from the Russian cyber invasion of America and the possible involvement of Trump groupies, so let’s have a look at what the geniuses in Congress have proposed for the health and well being of all Americans.
It’s well established that the House and Senate attempts at delivering on the brainless “repeal and replace” mantra have little to do with healthcare delivery to Americans. Healthcare is simply the cover for an $800 billion dollar gift to already rich people. In the unlikely circumstance that you aren’t fully enraged by that, consider that part of the windfall for the wealthy is a reimbursement of taxes paid on financial transactions, money that was used to fund Medicare expansion for our poor under Obamacare.
That’s right: these plans dig a deeper hole of debt for America because the 1% need more money. I guess I missed that turn when Republicans stopped obsessing over debt. Nice to know that it doesn’t matter any more, so it’s okay to slather more cash on the rich.
Enough about the struggling wealthy. We’ll let them pull themselves up by their Gucci bootstraps and instead have a look at how the House and Senate plans will affect you.
Click me to see the 5 things to know about Mitch McConnell
If you’re poor, you’re screwed. The Congressional Budget Office”s analysis is that under the House plan 23 million more Americans will be cut out of healthcare insurance entirely, which will effectively leave them without primary healthcare; under the Senate version that number drops to an only slightly less cruel 22 million more Americans whose medical needs we’ll ignore. Either way, tens of millions of Americans will have nothing but a last ditch, begging for mercy trip to the emergency room as their primary healthcare. Those trips are always made well after medical attention is needed, so the conditions presented to emergency room staff are far worse and often irreversible. That means people who might have been cured will die.
Plus a visit to the emergency room costs more than any other way to deliver healthcare, driving our overall cost much higher. Be clear that every hospital is required to deliver healthcare to whoever shows up at their door, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. That means that the cost to care for a poor person who drags into the emergency room and receives that expensive care is passed along to all the patients who can pay, like you. That’s how slashing Medicaid will drive up your cost of healthcare.
Click me to link to the article
The Kaiser Family Foundation has crafted a nifty way to learn how the various cruel congressional plans stack up against the ACA (Obamacare). Access the comparison with the Senate plan (“BCRA”) here; link to the comparison with the House plan (“AHCA”) here. Just enter your age, income and the state in which you live. Then click on your county, review the results and decide which plan you like best. Be sure to look ahead to what these plans will cost you 10 or 20 years from now. Good chance you’ll be surprised – and not pleasantly so.
But that’s just you. Before deciding which plan to support be sure to consider the poor people who will have no place to go but the emergency room for medical care under either congressional plan. Also, don’t forget the rich people who need your financial support.
Click me to link to the article
The net of this is that both the Republicans in Congress and the president are so desperate to “get a win” that they are sucking up to the wealthy and abandoning our poor. That is to say, the win means more to them than life or death of our most vulnerable.
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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.
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4 Responses to Plans for What?
dominickpalella June 29, 2017
I thought the Republicans would be smarter than this to present a tax cut for their benefactors, and call it a healthcare bill. Apparently, their corporate financiers couldn’t talk them out of this foolish tactic. Haven’t they shown these boneheads how they can easily get smaller pieces of legislation to get their tax breaks, which will be ignored by the mainstream media and not create all this fuss with marches and protests? I blame all of this hullabaloo on obviously incompetent corporate lobbyists.
While I think that most Democrats are just complicit and quiet for their corporate supporters, those few who have some sense of honor have yet to understand our President. If they want his cooperation, and fool his child-like mind to give them support, they should be telling him their plans to erect a 200-foot high statue of him in the heart of DC. It will be inscribed: “Donald J. Trump, beloved by the American people as the greatest President in US history, surpassing all before him with his magnificent accomplishments.” http://TrueDemocracyNow.org
Joni Lindgren June 28, 2017
Since when is become acceptable for politicians to think it’s their moral duty to raise the price of premiums and deductibles by an average of $3600 on the elderly and those with limited income while they give the super wealthy and corporations a tax break of $600B?? [ed. note: It’s $800B for the wealthy] Just how many tax breaks does it take to make them happier than they were yesterday?
There is nothing logical about the “repeal and replace” by the Republicans. They had eight years to bring their own ideas to the bargaining table to make the ACA better. When passed, it was never meant to be the end result! How can the Republican politicians take health care away from 24 M people [ed. note: It’s 22 or 23 M people, depending on whether it’s the Senate or House bill] when it’s those same people who are the very ones who are paying for every politician’s health care AND salaries?? Does this make sense?? If you know that the Koch brothers are working with McConnell to craft this sinister health care bill then you know the answer!
This is a sick society and I’m not talking about those needing healthcare!!!
John Calia June 28, 2017
It’s hard for me to imagine how Republicans — who correctly criticized Democrats 8 years ago — now commit the same sins and can’t see it.
Jack Altschuler June 28, 2017
Agreed. There’s just one difference that I see.
8 years ago the Republican imperative was to oppose anything Obama supported, including the Republican’s own bills submitted the prior year if Obama agreed with them. There was no possibility of bi-partisan anything, including healthcare reform.
While there is plenty of opposition to Trump from Democrats, I have not heard or seen a blanket “deny everything Trump” attitude from them.
Mitch McConnell has excluded the Democrats from discussions on how to solve our healthcare challenges – he has even excluded many of the Republican senators. As explained in my prior post, this is exactly the kind of thing that earns Congress an 80% DISAPPROVAL rating.
And it’s what prevents true bi-partisan solutions to all of our challenges.