healthcare

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

WISE, VA: A pregnant woman’s water broke as she awaited free dental care at the Wise County, VA fairgrounds on Saturday. She had stood in line in hot and muggy weather with over a thousand others to get a numbered ticket at the 12th annual Remote Area Medical (RAM) Health Expedition. According to RAM staffer, Jean Jolly, she didn’t want to leave and lose her place in line.

An ambulance standing by eventually took her to town in time to have her child in a hospital instead of an animal stall. The child might have been the first ever born at a RAM free clinic. But not without a number, joked one of RAM’s 1,700 volunteers.

Far from Washington’s "debt crisis" abstractions is another crisis, an American reality one cannot describe in words nor experience secondhand.

To no one's surprise on Blue NC, they're not even trying to hide the buying of policy anymore. The NC House Insurance Committee has taken up a controversial bill (H-115) that gives insurance companies a large role in overseeing how consumers will be able to buy "affordable" insurance coverage through a state-level “health benefits exchange” to be created under the new national health reform law.

In the final days of the 111th Congress, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health And Compensation Act, also called the "9/11 First Responders bill," finally passed. The Act will provide medical monitoring and care for those who worked on the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks, as well as for many who lived and worked nearby.

If hypocrisy was a capital crime, leaders of the Tarheel Taliban in Raleigh would have long since been hung by their necks until dead. As Bob Geary observes in the Independent this week, nowhere is their two-faced arrogance on display more than in the area of constitutional law. In the holy land of Skipstamistan, the North Carolina constitution is nothing but an afterthought on the way to imposing a Christian version of sharia law on women in the Old North State.

I have privately purchased insurance, costing me about $170 a month. I got a check-up in December. It will cost me $785 out of pocket. Worse, because the check up was in December, the $785 won't even count towards my deductible, because the deductible resets on Jan 1. I am healthy and single, make about 40k a year, and affording medical care is a challenge for me.

Great dissection of Vinson's faulty opinion by Neera Tanden, Ian Millhiser, Tony Carrk of the Center for American Progress entitled Interactive Assessment: Judge Vinson’s Affordable Care Act Decision

Judge Roger Vinson's decision striking down the Affordable Care Act is wrong on so many counts that it’s hard to begin counting. Nonetheless, we did.

CAP created an interactive graphic of Vinson's order, embedded below the fold. Yellow highlighted text is clickable for explanations of why Vinson is wrong.

Anyone taking bets on how many of the part-time Tarheel Taliban will turn down their taxpayer-funded healthcare coverage?

Despite being part-time workers, every NC legislator qualifies to receive completely free tax-payer subsidized health coverage for themselves through the NC State Health Plan. No other part-time state worker has that right. And that’s not all. NC legislators also uniquely qualify to buy into the State Health Plan at the basic rate after they leave the General Assembly. For someone who is older or has a pre-existing health condition, this is a valuable right.

In a telephone interview yesterday McIntyre answered questions about his victory over Ilario Pantano and his plans for the remainder of the year in Washington and his political aspirations.

When asked about supporting Nancy Pelosi he said:

It's time to turn the page and go into a different direction with fresh ideas, new leadership and one who unites. We need a leader who is a uniter. Clearly, Ms. Pelosi is not that person.

I wonder if he thinks Heath Shuler is that person? More below the fold....

A recent Rasmussen survey revealed that 59% of "likely voters" believe states should have the right to opt out of federal programs with which they don't agree. Such a number would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, but I wonder which way this is trending.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics...