In the last few years, you might have noticed things going on. New facilities have been built. Existing facilities have been expanded.
They are doing that because they have more money coming in. The "why do they have more money" is fairly plain: Obamacare. More people have insurance, hospitals are treating fewer people without insurance. People without insurance often don't pay or cannot pay. Or if they were solvent, a medical crisis would drive them into bankruptcy (the hospital doesn't get paid). Everyone else who could pay, whether by insurance or because they're rich, subsidized all that.
The GOP's "reform" plan is to (a) kick 22 million people off insurance and (b) give a tax cut to the rich. That's wicked perverse-- Take away from those who don't have money in order to give more money to greedy bastards who don't need more money.
Everything TrumpCare's supporters say is to obscure one salient fact: They want to deny insurance to over 20 million people in order to give more money to the rich. You know, people like Donald Trump, Martin Shkreli and Betsy DuVois-- people who are more than happy to take a few more millions and if lots of people end up dying, not their problem. Because they are heartless.
That's what TrumpCare is all about, Gentle Reader: Greed. Avarice. Fiscal gluttony. Ryan and McConell and the rest of that pack can blather all they want about the benefits of TrumpCare, but the only winners in TrumpCare are those who already have gobs of money. And, of course, the politicians that they are paying so they can have more.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
I expected you to note the number of these new facilities that would fail or close if ACA is significantly cut. Also, expect a bloodbath in nursing and PA's.
Back in the day, when I was a newbie at the local HMO I attended a class which asked us to identify the issues facing healthcare. This was before the ACA was even a spark in Mitt's fevered dreams so the only game in town was for profit insurnace companies and a few HMO's. That was a few years ago so today, the number one issue is intersectional, meaning there is so much 'scope creep' it's impossible to separate the side issues as cleanly as a person who makes charts would like.
First thing facing us obvs is climate change. How do humans continue to live in a land gone hostile? Is it possible to use the tech being developed for space travel here? I've been surfing on the You Tubes and there are kids today who are designing ways to survive the future now (If I had monies they would be totally funded but nope, that is not a possibility at the moment).
Concurrently, the USA has an aging baby boomer population; increased cases of Alzheimer patients in specific and the booming (pun intended) number of diseases which strike no matter ones lifestyle like cancer and the umbrella of dementia diagnoses are straining resources now. It's not going to get better until...
This isn't rocket science and in one form or another businesses have been identifying these issues for decades. I don't know about you all but I've done my fair share of Five Year plans to last me a lifetime. Identifying does not lead to addressing as money is the one and only thing they can think about. It's gold fever but worse because much of their wealth is electronic. One or two EMP blasts and life as we know it will suddenly change.
Sorry - Rule #2. Focus.
This blog and a few others are the only ones talking about how the Rethuglican* Health Care plan will affect real people. It's not just the healthcare 'access'. If people are not insured they will not use all those new clinics. The equipment will no longer need techs or admissions or.... The loss of all that work angers me to the point I become quiet. That is not a good place.
There is a way through all this - we are Americans after all. Children of children of children of theives, misfits, and degenerates - we know HOW TO SURVIVE. It will take work and responsible adults (no matter their chronological age) in postitions of leadership. It will take people who understand that balance in all things means just what it says. If you get it, you got it. If you don't, keep looking. It will come to you (or like me smack you in the face a couple times just to be sure the lesson sunk in).
The Constitution is the Law of the Land. It is all we need to fight this attempt at trashing all the good the USA has accomplished. Civilization requires rules. Everything has rules. To deny it is... unwise.
* B I've read your comments for a while. This is for you. I am a Republican, party of Lincoln. I chose the party because of it's values just after Eisenhower left office. Now, they are Rethuglicans: more concerned with the dollars in their pocket then the job of governing. I mean no disrespect to you but to the elected officials who are doing their level best to turn this country into a theocracy.
Grey One: You're right, I do have good skills at surviving. But like my friend Dirty Dan used to say: be careful what you get good at, because you might end up doing it a lot more than you really want.
The BCRA or AHCA or whatever horse shit they're calling it now is nothing more than a cowardly attempt at revenge and a first step towards dismantling the New Deal and the Great Society.
The damage it would cause is massive, and hits especially hard in those "disaffected" rural areas that went so strongly for president four-year-old last November.
In many of those communities, like the one where I was born, the largest employer is the hospital. And hospital jobs may not be mining or timber jobs, but they pay a living wage, and offer a lot more job satisfaction than food service or retail.
So not only will those communities be reeling under the loss of health insurance for a large percentage of the population (there are three counties in West Virginia where 48% of the population is on Medicaid) with all of the knock-on effects of degraded communities and financial ruin that accompany it, but, as Comrade Misfit pointed out, those expanded facilities won't survive the cuts, and the single best source of recession-proof living wage jobs in those communities will at the very least shrink down to pre-2008 sizes.
And lastly I'd like to address the ageing baby boom issue. A very good liberal blogger and podcaster who calls herself Blue Gal did some research on the timeframe we're facing with this financial burden, and she noted that just about the time the CBO scores are projected through right now, that wave starts to break and the mid-eighties plans for social insurance stabilization begin to kick in.
Which would, of course, leave us with a big chunk ripped out of those programs Republicans want to kill right when their justification for the hysteria around funding them tapers off and dies. That is why they are so adamant about doing it right now; they know the public hates the idea, and they probably won't get another chance before the already fraudulent idea becomes preposterous.
-Doug in Oakland
Or, you could tell the truth, and admit that it will also cut health insurance costs for the rest of us...you know, those of us who actually work for a living, make decent attempts to not make stupid choices in life , have a modicum of success....not be semi wastrels who expect others to make up for their failures and foolish choices. You know, the other 50 or 60 % of the population that doesn't waste all their money that they don't have on things they don't NEED, but rather make better life choices.
Yeah, saving them 50% or more on their health care insurance costs, that is giving the Rich a tax cut.
Plus the 20 Million is an exxageration....
But really, don't let the truth get in the way of your Socialist Meme....
B, your "exaggeration" is the number given by the congressional budget office, that same congress that is controlled by republicans. I'd think that an office like that would estimate low in order to get their plan passed.
Dale
That's the same CBO that said that THOUSANDS would die without BarryCare, right? That BarryCare would save tens of thousands of lives.... (and would SAVE us money on HealthCare.....) That CBO?
(http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445260/obamacare-no-lives-saved)
I trust the CBO not at all. They too have an agenda. If they were impartial, that'd be one thing. They aren't and haven't been for a long time. Or they are inept and stupid. Pick one. Either way, what they state cannot be trusted.
"Plus the 20 Million is an exxageration...."
Not really. In fact, the last CBO score put the number at 36 million out twenty years.
And have fun trying to get your medical bills paid with the deregulated insurance you'll have after the insurance companies have their way with it and your time comes up. And make no mistake, it will, no matter how well you believe yourself to have lived.
-Doug in Oakland
Oh, and the non-impartial CBO, led by Keith Hall who was appointed by president four-year-old and was previously head of BLS under George W. Bush?
-Doug in Oakland
I got my medical bills paid just fine before BarryCare. And at less than half the cost too.
I never saw that cost savings he promised. Nor could I keep the plan I had. They got rid of that.
But we all knew those were lies, unless of course, you were a Democrat....
B., that health plan for 50% of the cost had, I'll.bet, lifetime benefit limits, exclusions on pre-existing conditions, and a goodly number of other holes. As for your CBO distain, funny how they suck when the numbers don't lean your way, but they've been closer than anyone since 1974, and are non-partisan, no matter what you say.
Sure, but if you really get sick, you won't be so lucky under the Republcans' plan. If you can't work for a while and thus can't pay your premiums, you won't even get the shitty coverage they will be selling, and in between worrying about losing everything you have to medical debt, you'll be hoping that they didn't destroy Medicaid.
And anyone can have a catastrophic illness. Health problems are not proportional to one's sins against right-wing ideology.
-Doug in Oakland
Post a Comment