Friday, June 23, 2017
Republican Lawmakers Are Immoral, Terrible Human Beings
This isn't just a matter of health care policy, it is a moral matter. The greatest, richest country in the world is ready to bring suffering and death to its most vulnerable citizens, while at the same time enriching the wealthiest.
This is the immoral Republican plan for health care, led by the most immoral POTUS in U.S. history.
To many Republicans, really sick people, especially those who suffer the most, are a total inconvenience. The sickness of other American citizens is not their responsibility, unless of course, that same terminal illness affects them personally, then it suddenly matters. Funny how that is isn't it?
"While several Republican senators have registered disapproval that the current GOP Obamacare repeal plan would harm constituents who rely on the Medicaid expansion, there are others who would like to harm even more of their constituents, like the House Freedom Caucus member who thinks cancer patients should just go to the emergency room." --Marian Fisher
Republican lawmaker says cancer patients can go to the ER for health care
When Erin Burnett on CNN asked DeSantis was asked how he and his colleagues would address the story of Tiffany Koehler, a Donald Trump voter and cancer survivor who says she is only alive today because of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, he suggested that anyone without health insurance could still just go to the emergency room.
[skip]
This emergency room lie became a central focus of the 2012 presidential campaign when Joe Soptic told the story of his wife, who ignored the symptoms of the cancer that killed her because she could not afford to see a doctor. By the time she got to an emergency room, it was too late. Romney’s own campaign exposed that lie when they said that Soptic’s wife would have survived if she had only had access to the Obamacare-identical Romneycare.
Every day, it becomes more and more obvious that Republicans are not even trying to prevent people who rely on Obamacare from losing their insurance under their repeal plan, and DeSantis’ attitude underpins that lack of care for those people. Republicans have also again begun to use the racist language of the “welfare queen” smear, notably by Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s (R-UT) suggestion that poor people forego a “new iPhone” in favor of health insurance, and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) flat-out calling the GOP plan “welfare.”
DeSantis did his part, as well, in resurrecting Reagan-era coding by telling Burnett that Medicaid ought not be available at all to those he considers “able-bodied”
What a putz! I haven't seen very many "able-bodied" Alzheimer patients in nursing homes where many of the residents depend on Medicaid for their health care costs.
What is wrong with Republicans? Do you have to check your morality at the door in order to become a member of the GOP? It appears that is true. In order to be a card-carrying Gooper, all one needs to do is ignore facts and reality and pretend to be a compassionate Christian -- but only on Sundays, when everyone can see your hypocritical paeans to your merciful God.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
28 comments:
The bottom line for most conservatives and libertarians is 1) they do not believe they are their brother's keeper, 2) government mandated healthcare is socialism, therefore evil, 3) the ACA is unsustainable.
Rather than viewing healthcare as a right, one to be guaranteed by government, they view it as something every able bodied individual has the responsibility to secure for themselves.
250 years ago Thomas Paine was more progressive than the 21st century conservatives and libertarian lawmakers. But, these people are now swimming against the tide. It is simply a matter of time. Unfortunately there will be a great deal more unnecessary human susuffering and death before "that time" comes.
OT... Global population growth ought to be a major concern relative to human survival. Our earth is capable of sustaining only so much life. When available resources become stretched to the breaking point... Well, you get the picture.
RN
This may be difficult for you but try to stay with me. Where does it say healthcare is a right? I do agree with you that obamacare is unsustainable as is shown by less than a third of people who are eligible are enrolled. If it was so great you wouldn't have any non insured.
It is almost impossible to take away free stuff from people who the government has made their dependents and the media will make sure to only advance the bad portions.
Obamacare was and is a disaster but it will remain and those 20 million uninsured will remain uninsured while both parties say they tried. Obamacare in many states is becoming a democrats ideal system of single payer because in many states there is only one participating insurance company.
Skudrunner: "Where does it say healthcare is a right?"
I would use this as a start to where it implies a right:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
There is no way in any country anywhere for citizens to be able to pursue "Life, Liberty and Happiness if they have no access to affordable health care. If citizens are bankrupted by catastrophic accidents and illnesses, there is no life, liberty, or happiness. If they cannot afford life-saving medicine or procedures, there is no life, liberty, or happiness. And the GOP solution of ER care is inhumane and stupid.
I, therefore, offer one of our founding documents as evidence that the founding fathers understood that governments are instituted to secure certain rights -- affordable health care is essential to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
How would you, skud, argue otherwise?
skudrunner, I know it is difficult for you, as well as most of your political brethren, but, were you able to stay with Shaw's reasoned and logical argument?
Everyone has access to healthcare but no where in the constitution does it say you have to be provided healthcare. You stated Pursue not be Provided.
No hospital can deny care so everyone has access to healthcare. Our healthcare system has been broken for decades and government cannot fix it because government gets in the way of improvement.
Obamacare horrible program and does not serve the people it was designed for. There are about 30 million people who have access to obamacare yet only one thind subscribe. Is that providing healthcare for all, No. I have just read snippets of the republican proposal and it is not much better than obamacare but no worse. The one area that is better is if you don't join you will have to pay a tax. Other than that is is obamacare like but the republicans have only had eight years to come up with something better and they need 20.
It is interesting that there were protesters to the plan prior to the plan being released.
If you are for national healthcare look at the VA and imagine the government running a healthcare system for 300 million people instead of a couple of million.
skud, rights are what we as a democratic civilized people determine are rights.
You have a health insurance bill that is nothing more than a veiled tax cut paid for by the poor.
Give 'em all the Full Ayn Rand, right? Well, we tried that during the time of the robber barons.
It didn't work. We progressed and now a bunch of fringe right mooks have part of the country so brainwashed that we are destroying that progress.
Why you take pride in that destruction is beyond me.
Health Care as a right. I know it is a vital need, but I can understand a view that says even if it is a right, it is not the job of the Feds, but rather the states.
The problem is how to pay for it, administer it and make it consistent across state lines.
I see no other way to achieve those goals short of a federal system.
We tried leaving racial policies to the states and we saw how that ended up. We tried leaving marriage to the states, and we saw how that ended up.
The larger question is whether the Fed should have the power to regulate and legislate on issues that affect the entire country and demand, yes demand, a consistent one size fits all solution.
Perhaps in the early days of our republic when 100 miles was a multiday journey and there was little or no mobility within the country, the states can take of it mentality worked. But I fail to see how that works today.
Cash poor states and profit minded businesses have no interest in serving the needs or the populace if it means asking for more taxes or reducing profits and high salaries.
Maybe Ducky is right... a non profit national health care system might be best.
Skud: "Everyone has access to healthcare..."
S.K. Having "access to health care" is not the same as having health care. I have "access" to food stores, but without the ability to pay, I cannot get any food. Charities alone cannot solve the problem of people without affordable health care.
Without the ability to afford health care, what good is access? The ER is not an answer and charities alone cannot solve the problem of millions of people without affordable health care.
Skud: "but no where in the constitution does it say you have to be provided healthcare."
S.K. Nowhere in the Constitution did it say that slaves should be freed or that women should have the right to vote until we as a nation understood that to be wrong. Nowhere in the Constitution did it originally limit a president's term to 8 years, but the country changed that. As Ducky stated, rights are what "we the people" in a democratic society give to ourselves.
Skud: "You stated Pursue not be Provided."
S.K. I repeated what it says in one of our founding documents: "[Men and women} are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It says Life and Liberty are unalienable Rights. Happiness is to be pursued so long as one has Life and Liberty. There is no life or liberty when catastrophic illness kill you or impoverishes you for the rest of your life.
skudrunner: "No hospital can deny care so everyone has access to healthcare."
S.K. The ER cannot solve long-term illnesses. Anyone you know have cancer? Try going to an ER and getting a diagnosis of a life-threatening cancer, then expect the ER to set you up with 4 months of chemo, plus surgery. You don't know what you're talking about. Plus, when hospitals do provide free ER care for accidents or non-life threatening illnesses, YOU, the taxpayer, foot the bill. YOU, who balks at having to provide coverage for pregnant women would be providing coverage through your being taxed for millions and millions of dollars worth of medical treatments. The ER argument is bogus. I'm surprised you tried to pass it off as a solution and as proof that everyone has access to health care. The ER does not provide coverage for people with life-threatening diseases.
Skudrunner: "Our healthcare system has been broken for decades and government cannot fix it because government gets in the way of improvement."
S.K. Medicare, even with its problems, does a damn good job. We should have a national health plan that starts with everyone paying into it -- single payer, starting with young, healthy Americans, and there should be penalties for those who do not join.
Republican Senators have voiced disapproval... Turtle not mad, turtle disappointed. Thanks for nothing John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Lisa Murkowski and any other compassionate conservative that I forgot to mention. When the majority whip stops by their office, they don't have the integrity to state unequivocally that they will not support the bill. If and when this bill actually passes, it will hurt not only poor people and the working poor. It will have a devastating impact on millions of American women who will see their access to reproductive care axed. And once the lid blows off the pot, premiums will without any doubt rebound and explode faster and higher than ever before again pricing many more employers and private individuals out of the market, more than the CBO could even attempt to estimate.
Where is Mitt Romney to lend his weight? Where is George W. Bush, whom history has treated rather kindly in his retirement? GHWB? Where is the outcry from republican governors?
They are all cowards.
Shaw, this is the mentality that's all over the right wing:
Health Insurance! I’m convinced we were much better off without it, esp. when you consider the HUGE expense of having to cover the insurance companies and their payroll, etc. PLUS THEIR GIGANTIC PROFITS. That goes for Medicare, also. It has to be extremely costly. Everything would be a whole lot cheaper w/o it. Doctors and hospitals are not going to turn you away. Period!
Another wingnut with his/her head up his/her ass. Will every hospital and doctor in America consent to treat multiple myeloma? nonHodgekins lymphoma, breast cancer? Do these people have a brain among them. What awful awful people they and the Republican Congress are. Imagine passing off expensive health care to doctors and hospitals thinking all sick people will be treated for free, just show up at the emergency room? This is why we have Donald Trump as prsident. Because of millions of stupid people like that person voted for him!
"You stated Pursue not be Provided."
Skud,
Article I, section 8 of the U. S. Constitution grants Congress the power to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defense and general Welfare of the United States."
I'd say healthcare coverage counts as general welfare.
look at the VA and imagine the government running a healthcare system
The VA might not be the best model. The VA is true socialized medicine. The govt. owns and operates the facilities and docs, nurses and staff are govt. employees. Despite it's problems, the VA has a higher rate of satisfaction from it's customers than private ins., employer provided ins., medicare and medicaid. Source.
Socialized insurance is worth a shot. Works pretty well for the rest of the world. Medicare for all.
Craig and other commenters,
No matter how much evidence we give skud, he will never see that health care for everyone with single payer is the best answer to our country's miserable health care delivery.
And yes, Craig, we are the ONLY modern democracy that hasn't been able to provide this unalienable right to our citizens.
For a country that likes to brag to the rest of the world about how great we are, it's a disgrace that we can't provide the most basic serive to our citizens: the right to health care. Without the ability to be secure in knowing we will not lose everything we've worked for in our lives and not lose our lives themselves, how are we to enjoy Life and Liberty?
Skud and his bretheren just don't get it. Or just don't care, as long as they have the security of a good health care plan.
Well guys, both my GOP Governor and Senator opposed this, although while Gov Sandoval is a believer in the good of Obamacare, having seen over 200,000 uninsured Nevadans get covered and a huge drop in teen pregnancies, Sen Heller is seeing the political winds.
Nevada was the only state where the Dems ran the board in the last election, thanks Harry Reid, so for Heller, his only chance at reelection is to oppose this monstrosity.
All to say, there are a few sane GOP leaders...
Republicans just lost a key vote from a big player. Senator Dick Heller of Nevada will not support the bill in its current form, His dissent was like an answer to prayer. A kachink in the wall. Now others can have the courage to join him.
"It's not the answer, it's simply not the answer," Heller said. "In this form, I will not support it."
Heller is up for reelection in 2018 in a state won by Hillary Clinton in last year's presidential election. Nevada also expanded the Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and the Senate bill would phase out that expansion starting in 2020.
Heller said he can't support a bill "that takes insurance away from tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans."
The senator also said that he wants to bring down insurance premiums, which the bill doesn't do.
"There isn't anything in this bill that would lower premiums," Heller said.
GHWB is an elderly and not well very senior citizen who served this nation at many levels. He deserves our respect and thanks Flying Junior.
Which begs the question Shaw, why do you continue responding to the thick impermeable brick wall?
Shaw, the only thing that will enlighten folks like scud is cancer. It changes everyone it touches.
Seriously - someone suggested tarting cancer in the ER? Due to my late husbands cancer adventure I can say with confidence that someone is a blithering idiot.
Dear Grey One,
I know you meant to write "treating cancer in the ER" but autocorrect is a bully.
I know personally know how cancer changes everyone it touches; I've battled it more than once.
The "everyone has access to health care" that skud and the people on the right speak of is a monsterous lie they use again and again to deny people the right to affordable health care.
The modern Republicans don't want the feds to have anything to do with health care, but they have no problem with corporations making huge obscene profits off of sick and vulnerable Americans?
This is why I call the GOP lawmakers (and people who support them) immoral.
F.J.,
Senator Heller: "Heller said he can't support a bill "that takes insurance away from tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans."
The senator also said that he wants to bring down insurance premiums, which the bill doesn't do."
The dirty open secret of the current Republican Party is that they do NOT want affordable health care for Americans. They do not want the feds to run any program because SOSHALIZM! They wanted to saboage the ACA, and they did so that they could point and say it's a disaster, like the Maniac in the White House has said. So long as the minority Goopers are in charge of Congress, any sensible reform or plan for affordable health care isn't going to happen unless the majority of Americans, US, keep the pressure on them. Go read the rabid right wing blogs and news sites to see where the selfish Goopers stand on this issue. They have theirs, so screw those who don't.
But they tell you every Sunday what good Christians they are.
RN,
Skudrunner uses snark and sarcasm, but he's polite, and it's important that we hear what the righties are thinking.
Dave, there are a few sane Republicans out there, and your Senator is one of them.
As usual, the Republicans are playing dirty:
Here Is How Senate Republicans Try To Hide The Damage Of Their Repeal Bill
Kyle Griffin ✔ @kylegriffin1
American Academy of Pediatrics: "The bill fails children."
7:58 PM - 22 Jun 2017
As has been noted many times, Goopers care about fetuses, but once they're born?
Pfff!
The American Academy of Pediatrics, an organization dedicated to keeping children alive and healthy, says this bill "fails children."
Where are all those pro-life, "we love babies" Republicans on this?
Maybe the Dems should propose universal coverage if everyone under 18. Call it Pro Life Healrh Insurance Act...
We DO need to protect the most vulnerable from these clowns.
As I see it Shaw their rationale for this is simple, god created the life and god will, in his all knowing way, work his will for their life.
Sarcasm aside, it is impossible to understand their reasoning on this.
The Dirty GOP:
The 13 GOP Senators Who Wrote Secret Obamacare Repeal Bill Took $2,776,012 From Pharma, Insurance Lobbyists
There's been no swamp-draining that was promised by swampiest swamp dwellers starting with the Head Swamper, DJTrump. The Goopers were had. Good and hard.
The dirty GOP:
Republicans exempt their own insurance from their latest health care proposal
The Gooper voters were had. Good and hard.
"S.K. Medicare, even with its problems, does a damn good job."
I agree it is not a bad program but you pay for it with every paycheck and even after you start receiving benefits you pay premiums and have deductibles. In other words it is not free, medicaid is.
Wouldn't it make sense for both sides to work together and come out with something that is good for all. Instead you had to vote for obamacare before you saw it and now the dems are not willing to work things out to come out with an acceptable program.
All this noise about 20 million losing health insurance is not factual because only 12 million are enrolled. Obamacare is a disaster and is imploding so if it stays as is the current people enrolled will have nothing, who will do a victory dance when that happens. There is a solution but it will take the elected elite to work together and that is becoming impossible. How dare they think about serving the American people. When Chuckie says the republican plan was developed in secret meetings and the dems don't have enough time to review it he must have forgotten the you have to vote for it to see it.
The bit about repugs exempting themselves from their plan is no different than what the dems did. Congress does not have to follow the rules they pass because they are the elite.
Post a Comment