Category: Health

Is Single Payer a Possibility?

“My critics will say that Trump, uncharacteristically, puts too much faith in bureaucracy; a single-payer plan would generate a gigantic agency to distribute funds to doctors. I’d point out that by creating one agency we do away with hundreds of smaller ones that are hard to monitor.” —Donald Trump, The America We Deserve, 2000

My my my, apparently Trump had a right-wing epiphany over the ensuing 17 years since his 2000 position. But did he really? If Trump is nothing else he prides himself on being a winner. Irrespective of the conventional wisdom that he couldn’t win the presidency in 2016 he did. He identified the angst of millions of Americans and was able to ride that to victory.

Trump wants to win. He used conservatism and the electoral advantage the GOP has to ride to victory. He’s talked out of both sides of his mouth on multiple issues and he’s angered his own party as well as his opponents. It is clear that Trump is his own man and he doesn’t care who he pis*es off. He concern is winning and neither consistency nor ideology will he let stand in his way. He’ll do whatever he believes will make him a winner.

This also makes him a formidable adversary as well as dangerous. Why? Simply because he is a man with few, if any core values. Other than winning that is. Wish for the best but prepare for the worst. That is the position he puts us all in all the time.

Back to the opening quote. Who knows what healthcare will look like when Trump leaves office. Assuming he makes it a full term, or two. If he does it is possible that maybe the good ole US of A may actually have a civilized system that insures health care for ALL American citizens.

With Trump anybody’s guess is as good as the next. Remember, Trump likes to win. Somehow I think that may be working in the American people’s favor on this issue.

This article is an interesting read.

Republican Senate Okay With Big Cuts…

As the senate wrestles with the healthcare debacle that republicans have thrust on the country an opportunity lays in waiting. An opportunity for democratic senators and reasonable and rational republican senators to craft a bill that Americans would be comfortable with, that would control cost, AND, would not toss millions “to the dogs”.

Of course if the senate succeeded in doing this, putting America and all of its populace first (populism), the bill would need to be reconciled with the house’s “abortion” health care bill. Setting up a battle that could very well result in America going blue again in 2018 and 2020 if republicans are so foolish as to give the American people the middle finger.

If that happens America may just join the rest of the western democracies that already understand the ethical and moral issues surrounding health care and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in or modern world.

TPM … Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) signaled that the Senate may pursue similarly deep cuts.  “We’ve got to get it under control. Right now it’s out of control”  he said of Medicaid’s budget. “It’s going to be really out of control if we don’t do something.”

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Gutting Medicaid is easier said than done, even with a Republican-controlled House, Senate and White House. Twenty of the Senate’s 52 Republicans represent states that expanded Medicaid, and Republicans can only afford to lose two votes when a health care bill finally comes to the floor.

“We have a very narrow Republican majority”, noted Cruz.  We are going to have to find legislation that can command the support of 50 senators. We need senators across the ideological spectrum, senators from Medicaid expansion states and non-Medicaid expansion states to all have their concerns heard and reflected in the final bill.”

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Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) stressed the importance of  “not pulling the rug out from under people”, but floated the idea that the a more generous system of tax credits could “pick up some of these people” that lose Medicaid.

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“Our concern is that we need a softer landing to give states time to pick up the slack and continue to provide coverage”, he said (Portman).

Full TPM article BELOW THE FOLD.

Resistance To The AHCA Energizing Progressives…

What was amusing was Trump acknowledging that Australia has a better health system than the USA. Of course what he didn’t directly acknowledge is that Australia has universal healthcare coverage.

Go figure, eh?

VOX – House Republicans successfully sent Speaker Paul Ryan’s American Health Care Act to the Senate on Thursday, revealing the extent of their determination to dismantle Obamacare in the face of massive obstacles.

But in doing so, Republicans also set off a chain reaction of outrage on the other side -reinvigorating a left whose energy had recently flagged, and again demonstrating that defending Obamacare has become the central rallying cry in the post-election resurgence in activism among Democrats.

I’ve never seen anything like this. Not remotely, said David Nir, political director for the liberal fundraising/blog platform Daily Kos, about his organization smashing single-day fundraising records on Thursday amid the AHCA health vote.

Several issues animate the Democratic base right now. Liberals are furious over President Donald Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns. They have many questions about his campaign’s ties to Russia. And thousands of protesters spontaneously erupted in mass demonstrations at airports throughout the country after his Muslim ban was announced in late January.

But for the first four months of Trump’s administration, one issue above all others has proven the real catalyst fueling the left-wing anti-Trump resistance movement: health care.

It’s not just for fundraising that the health care wars have played the central role in invigorating Democrats. The evidence is also overwhelming that the AHCA unifies the Democratic Party’s feuding factions, spurs new candidates and volunteers to enter the political fray, and perhaps most importantly tanks the popularity of the Republican Party nationwide.

Could President Tiny Hands have a plan nobody knows about?

Keep reading HERE.

GOP Proves Themselves Liars Again…

Again we see the GOP president and house promising one thing and delivering another.  They are not just little inconsequential things either. They would, if enacted into law as written, dramatically affect millions of American lives. You can rest assured the effect would not at all be positive

The American Health Care Act, passed today by the US House of Representatives, is a law that fundamentally does the reverse of what its proponents are promising.

Having run a campaign during which he promised to cover everyone, protect Medicaid from cuts, and replace Affordable Care Act plans with tterrific coverage, Donald Trump is now behind a bill that cuts Medicaid, covers fewer people, and allows states to replace ACA plans with stingier coverage. Having promised repeatedly to protect patients with preexisting health conditions from insurance market price discrimination, Paul Ryan is pushing a plan that removes existing protections and replaces them with hand-wavy and inadequately funded high-risk pools. Having leveraged public discontent with high deductibles and rising premiums, Republicans are pushing a bill that will leave most patients with higher out-of-pocket costs for equivalent plans and bring back skimpy plans with even higher deductibles.

That’s all happening because the GOP is committed to rolling back the taxes that pay for the Affordable Care Act, delivering a financial windfall to high-income families even though Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin swore at his confirmation hearings that the Trump administration would not pursue tax cuts for the rich.

The bill is currently being rushed through the House at breathtaking speed with no time for a Congressional Budget Office score or for members to hear from constituents back home. Republicans are acting like their plan cannot survive even cursory scrutiny by experts or the public for the good reason that their own rhetoric strongly suggests that they do not believe the public would find this legislation acceptable if they knew what it did.

These people are unquestionably the most dishonest and despicable representatives in my entire adult lifetime. Democrats and independent must mobilize, resist, and defeat these lying as*h*les in 2018. Followed by a crushing landslide defeat of the most unqualified, unethical, dangerously ignorant man to ever occupy the Oval Office.

More from VOX.