Posts tagged health care
Empty Rooms With so Much In Them
I had my father get sick when I was 22. And I was poor, alright. And my father had an ulcer, and it exploded and you know all these toxins get in your blood. And basically, my father died, whatever, 50 days after his ulcer. So I had a father get sick while I was poor.
My mother got sick when I was rich. And my mother, you know… I don’t really want to get into it, but my mother was sicker than my father. And my mother’s alive. My mother’s fine, OK? I remember going to the hospital to see my mother and wondering, ‘Was I in the right place?’ Like, this was a hotel. Like it had a concierge, man.
People don’t… if the average person really knew the discrepancy in the health care system, there’d be riots in the streets, OK? They would burn this motherfucker down!”
Chris Rock [video]
Bringing this back, because some people don’t seem to understand that there is a discrepancy in the quality of care among poor, middle-class, and wealthy people, NO MATTER HOW DEBILITATING THEIR RESPECTIVE DISEASES MAY BE.
(via cgdageek)
We’re told that public healthcare will lead to “rationing”… what do you call this?
(via alexandraerin)
Nobody bothers to explain that the current health care system already does lead to rationing, does it? We’re told that we’re supposed to be just fine with the horrible condition of the health care the average (uninsured) American gets because the alternatives could be much much worse…or akin to “socialism”, or “death panels”…these fearmongering tactics conveniently leave out that there are flaws in the current system that do all of the above as well.
(via invisiblelad)
(via invisiblelad)
Only in the wacky world of Mitt Romney…
Andrea Saul, Romney Spox, Gets Pilloried For Mentioning Candidate’s Most Important Achievement
But on Fox News this morning, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul went “off-script,” and amid a larger declaration about the ad being despicable and some pushback on the facts of the ad, she offered this statement in Romney’s defense: “To that point, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care.”
After that came the deluge of conservatives savaging Saul for getting lost on the road to Damascus, essentially accusing her of giving away the election.
The thing is, though, Saul’s logic in citing Romney’s creation and implementation of CommonwealthCare in Massachusetts is impeccable. Her baseline argument: If you are going to hit Romney with the Bain practices that allegedly led to this woman losing her health insurance, you surely must credit him for his legislative accomplishments, which enabled thousands of uninsured people to obtain life-saving care. That is, for the most part, pristine reasoning.
The only problem, of course, is that this wasn’t offered in 2008, when it would have been hailed as a brilliant defense. We’ve once again come face to face with the perplexing weirdness at the center of Romney’s entire presidential effort: in 2012, Romney is not allowed to run on the singular achievement of his career — Massachusetts health care — that earned him a spot in the world of GOP presidential contenders in the first place.
(via huffpostpol)
*BANGS HEAD ON TABLE*
Romney praises Israel’s universal health care system, which includes the individual mandate
Just keep it up, Mitt. We’re not laughing with you, we’re laughing at you.
(via invisiblelad)
![anticapitalist:
What happens if a state opts out of Medicaid, in one chart
If a state opts out, poor people get fucked over.
Ezra Klein describes the situation concisely:
If governors opt their states out of the health law’s Medicaid expansion — as many are now threatening to do — it’s the poorest Americans who would find themselves getting the rawest deal.
[…]
People who earn less than 100 percent of the Federal Poverty Line (about $11,170 for an individual) are ineligible for tax credits to purchase health insurance.
Basically, the poor lose the minimal health coverage they already have.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6p9n8j1dG1qfa5xpo1_500.jpg)
What happens if a state opts out of Medicaid, in one chart
If a state opts out, poor people get fucked over.
Ezra Klein describes the situation concisely:
If governors opt their states out of the health law’s Medicaid expansion — as many are now threatening to do — it’s the poorest Americans who would find themselves getting the rawest deal.[…]People who earn less than 100 percent of the Federal Poverty Line (about $11,170 for an individual) are ineligible for tax credits to purchase health insurance.
Basically, the poor lose the minimal health coverage they already have.
(via invisiblelad)
An important petition for anyone from Idaho
Subject: Gov. Otter: Honor Medicaid
Refusing to accept federal funds—free for three years and 90% free after that—to assist needy people in meeting their health care needs is plainly partisan nonsense. Sign this petition, and with enough people in Idaho behind it we may be able to convince the governor to do the right thing.
That’s why I signed a petition to The Idaho State House, The Idaho State Senate, and Governor Butch Otter, which says:
“We call on Governor Otter to honor the spirit of the Supreme Court decision on the health care act and accept the federal financial help offered.”
Will you sign this petition? Click here:
http://signon.org/sign/gov-otter-honor-medicaid?source=s.em.cp&r_by=849857
Thanks!
Obamacare” isn’t about President Obama. It’s about beginning to bring an end to the scandal of a very rich nation leaving so many of its citizens without basic health coverage. However the court rules, we need to remember why this whole fight started in the first place.
(via invisiblelad)
GOP Debate - 19 Sep 2011
Press Release from National Nurses United - Letting Uninsured Patients Die Is No Laughing Matter
Nurses Say Letting Uninsured Patients Die Is No Laughing Matter Following Abhorrent Audience Cheers at CNN-Tea Party-Republican Debate
The nation’s largest representative of registered nurses today expressed revulsion at the cheering by some audience members in the CNN-Tea Party Republican debate Monday night at the prospect of letting a sick person die just because they do not have health insurance.
Prompting the outburst was a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to Rep. Ron Paul about whether medical care should be provided to a hypothetical, uninsured 30-year-old man who lapsed into a coma, to which Paul responded, “that’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks.” When Blitzer then asked, “Are you saying that society should just let him die?” a number of audience members erupted into loud cheers of “Yeah!” and laughter.
National Nurses United said the gruesome reaction from many in the audience is a reminder of the growing collapse of civil society in America, and the need for more humane policies. One such step would be to expand Medicare to cover all Americans so that no one has to be in danger of losing their life because they are uninsured.
Nor is it an academic question. Nearly 45,000 deaths in the U.S. every year are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a study this year by Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance published by the American Journal of Public Health.
“It was stunning. My first reaction is how far have we degenerated as a society?” said NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN who said she was watching the debate.[…]
“Healthcare should be a right for everyone, not just a privilege for the few, a point nurses would debate with anyone,” said Ross.
….
Strikingly, the audience cheers came just hours before the release Tuesday morning of new Census Bureau data showing the number of uninsured Americans this year rising by another 900,000 to 49.9 million people. Concurrently the Census Bureau reported a huge leap in the poverty rate, one reason so many people are without health coverage as insurance premiums alone have doubled in nine years.
“Most people feel that when someone is hurting or down on their luck, you take care of them,” said Ross. “Many of those I’ve cared for who are in their most dire circumstances have said to me that they feel fortunate because there are some who are worse off than they are. There is still a lot of empathy and sympathy for others in this country.”
“Most of us, other than the most wealthy, are just are one illness away from bankruptcy and lack of health insurance,” said DeMoro. “Nurses do not regard lack of wealth or personal misfortune as a handicap or an excuse to withdraw needed and appropriate medical care. Nor should that ever be acceptable in a just and humane society.”
(via thepoliticalfreakshow)
Does that mean that someone’s 13-year old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back, and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser. They don’t know any different.
Michele Bachmann, 2009, warning that the Affordable Care Act (health care reform) would contain a loophole to allow grade-school kids to go on abortion field trips. (via bachmannsaidwhat)
Oh, Michele. Don’t ever change. (But please go away and stay away forever.)
(Source: politico.com, via bachmannsaidwhat)
