health care

It's beyond lunacy, but it's in the process of happening. The NC General Assembly (our esteemed legislature), under GOP domination, is about to approve legislation denying health insurance coverage to 500,000 North Carolina citizens.

Not only would NC taxpayers NOT be charged extra for this coverage, but it would bring in a half-BILLION federal dollars to the NC economy in 2014 alone. Hospitals, especially rural ones in the toughest economic status, are desperate for this help.

So: Humanitarianism, check; economic rationality, check. But not Ideologically Correct for the radical right ideologues who currently drive state policy.

Let's be blunt. Access to health care saves lives. Loss of health care costs lives. The Ryan-Romney budget would cut as many as 30 million Americans off Medicaid--which, by definition, is the health care program available to people who can't afford any other coverage. Analysis of Medicaid coverage's effectiveness in saving lives shows that this would cost about 170,000 lives a year. Put it this way: The Ryan-Romney health care cuts could result in more additional American deaths every year than we've lost in every war since WWII combined.

Shocking? Yes, but you don't have to take my word for it. Here are my sources. Crunch the numbers yourself.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/26/how-to-save...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/13/paul-ryans-...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war

Monstrously immoral? That's my opinion.

I know, I know -- what else is new? But for the love of god, I do not understand why people don't just rake these blatant hypocrites over the coals: apparently, cutting Medicaid costs is only good when it hurts poor people. If it's profiting your donors and the interests behind your favorite mega-lobbyists, well then, let the Medicaid dollars rain down. Here's an article from the NY Times explaining how the GOP hopes to give special exemptions to their doctor friends so that they can rake in the Medicaid dollars:

http://nyti.ms/w06scK

There is a lot not to like about the Affordable Care Act. As an advocate of single-payer there is no reason for me to rehash them all here. But I would like to share a personal success story of the bill.

A few months ago my wife began having severe issues. I don't know what her exact diagnosis was called (mainly because it was made throughout multiple ER visits), but it was certain that she needed some form of uterine surgery.

My wife did not have insurance. This is not because she did not want to carry insurance. It was because, while her employer provided insurance, they did not offer it to part time employees. Which she was. Even though she worked 30+ and many times forty hours per week. and of course no private insurer would touch her because now she had the dreaded preexisting condition.

So I disappeared for a full week, right in the middle of what should have been a busy writing schedule, and I have to claim some “personal days” to cover the time we missed here at the blog – but it won’t be time entirely wasted.

Instead, I’m going to jump into my own personal life for today’s story, and I’m going to do it so that we can stimulate some thinking about where we really need to go to if we ever hope to make some sense out of the crazy way we deliver health care in this country.

Since this appears to be the weekend that a lot of decisions are either going to be made about the future of our “social safety net”…or they wont; we’re entirely unsure…let’s talk about how it actually works for a lot of us – and how it could work a lot better.

As the saying goes, "You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.”

Last year Renee Ellmers ran against what she called “massive Medicare cuts” contained in the health reform law. Today Ellmers supports a radical plan to not only cut Medicare, but also end the program as we know it.

Ellmers support for ending Medicare is solidly on the wrong side of public opinion, so when asked by Christainne Ammanpour last Sunday on ABC News “This Week” Ellmers had no choice but to deny the facts and put out distortions.

Ellmers on This Week:

So Arizona Senator Jon Kyl went and did a stupid thing the other day by claiming on the floor of the Senate that 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is related to abortions, and that, by God, we need to cut that Federal funding for abortions, and we need to cut all Federal funding for Planned Parenthood—and we need to do it today.

Of course, that 90% claim was total hooey; it turns out that only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s work relates to abortions. (The Federal funding for abortions part is, too; the Hyde Amendment made such funding illegal decades ago.)

When confronted, Kyl’s office released a statement claiming the Senator’s comments were “not intended to be a factual statement”.

Sir Rev. Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, decided to have a bit of fun with Kyl, and he challenged his audience to Tweet their own “Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement” about Kyl.

I decided to compose a Tweet of my own…and then another…and before I knew it I had an entire story’s worth; that’s why, today, we’ll be taking a taking a short break from the daily grind to have a bit of fun with a man who truly deserves it: Jon Kyl.

The new state legislative Republican majority is already moving on its effort to undermine health care reform. HB 2, their first bagful of sand in the gears of health care, is laughingly mis-named the “Protect Health Care Freedom” bill.

Protect health care freedom? HB 2 would be more accurately known as the “Protect Freedom from Affordable Health Care” or perhaps “Protect Freedom to Suffer from Lack of Health Care” bill.

Please join me in telling your legislative representatives, and the media, that this is unacceptable—and why. I’ve copied my message to my own legislators below. Please write your own. We cannot stay silent.

Taxpayer-subsidized healthcare is Socialism necessary if you want to avoid bankruptcy:

“Unfortunately, being here in Washington is very expensive,” said Ellmers. “Yes we do have a salary and we do have benefits. It costs a lot of money to be here. I've signed on to the private plan, just like so many in America are on. The benefit is available to me. People need to understand out there it costs a lot money to be here in Congress.”

Yeah, I'm sure getting by on a salary of $12,250 a month is tough...

Renee Ellmers denounces maternity care coverage:

“Maternity coverage – that’s another one. … Should you have to pay for someone else’s [maternity care]? Maybe you’ve decided you’ve had your children, or maybe we have a 35-year-old female who’s had a hysterectomy. Should she have to pay maternity coverage? Maternity coverage is very costly,” Ellmers said to the paper.

That view echoes those of some congressional Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, who said at a Senate hearing last year: “I don't need maternity care and so requiring that to be in my insurance policy is something that I don't need and will make the policy more expensive.”

Off the record, Ellmers also said, "I don't have a heart, either. So, you know, me paying for cardio-vascular coverage is total bullshit."