GOP HEALTH CARE BILL OR TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH? 6/22/2017 GOP senators finally reveal their Affordable Care Act replacement, and Democrats struggle to convey their outrage over the massively unpopular bill.
Technically, I think this constitutes a war on the people (as per article 3 section 3) but I understand that some Republicans believe the arguments the Kochs are feeding them and I have to work through them at some point when I have more time. That said, what the Republicans are doing is not making the communities in America healthier and more productive but instead more susceptible to accidents and death.
Politifact: Raul Labrador's claim that no one dies from lack of health care access: Pants on Fire
A literature review
We found at least seven academic papers that detected a link between securing health insurance and a decline in mortality. In general, these papers present a stronger consensus that having insurance saves lives.
• In 2002, a panel of more than a dozen medical specialists convened by the federally chartered Institute of Medicine estimated that 18,000 Americans had died in 2000 because they were uninsured. In January 2008, Stan Dorn, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, published a paper that sought to update the IOM study with newer data. Replicating the study’s methodology, Dorn concluded that the figure should be increased to 22,000.
• A 2009 American Journal of Public Health study concluded that a lack of health insurance "is associated with as many as 44,789 deaths in the United States, more than those caused by kidney disease."
• Three studies looked at state-level expansions of Medicaid and in each case found "significant" improvements in mortality after such expansions of coverage. These include a 2012 New England Journal of Medicine study of New York, Maine, and Arizona by Harvard researchers, and a 2014 study of Massachusetts by researchers from Harvard and the Urban Institute.
• A 2014 study published by the health policy publication Health Affairs looked at states that, at the time, had declined to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. It estimated that the 25 states studied would have collectively avoided between 7,000 and 17,000 deaths.
• A 2014 study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found improved survival rates for young adults with cancer after securing insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
• A 2017 study in the journal Medical Care looked at a provision of the Affordable Care Act that allows young adults to be covered under a parent’s policy. The study found a decline in mortality among this population from diseases amenable to preventive treatment. (Mortality from trauma, such as car accidents, saw no decrease, as would be expected.)
Hannity gets caught in health care lie Good Reporting catches Fox's Sean Hannity in a lie after airing segment on the dangers of healthcare. Dr. Corey Hebert and Michael Eric Dyson discuss the facts. Duration: 5:17
Second, a look at information to provide an overview of how bad the GOP's healthcare bill is;Bernie Sanders on Health Care Bill: Thousands will Die Sen. Bernie Sanders told MSNBC that he intends to go on the road to stop the healthcare bill from going through. Duration: 3:16
CBS Evening News details the devastating effects of Medicaid cuts included in Senate health bill
STRASSMAN: In the last four years, four rural hospitals within an hours drive of here have shut down. Jackson Madison County Hospital, the major healthcare facility between Memphis and Nashville serves 17 counties.
What pundits call a "moderate" Senate health care bill will kill people
Calling the Senate bill “more moderate” than the House’s AHCA is a low bar and framing the Senate bill that way is deceptive. First of all, the House bill is nowhere close to moderate. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the AHCA would increase “the number of uninsured people relative to the number projected” under the ACA by 23 million by 2026. Additionally, under the AHCA, those with pre-existing conditions would be in jeopardy of losing coverage. At the very least, those with pre-existing conditions would face skyrocketing premiums. And those who want policies to cover essential health benefits, like maternity care and mental health and substance abuse services, are “likely to be priced out of the market,” according to NBC News. It would be hard to imagine a bill less moderate than the AHCA.
The Senate bill is largely a replica of the AHCA that also includes its own extreme measures. As NBC News reported, the Senate draft “makes deeper cuts” to Medicaid “in the long run” compared to the House bill. And according to the Center for American Progress, the Senate bill’s essential health benefit waivers would “erode or eliminate financial protections for about 27 million workers and their dependents,” including those who are in employer health care plans.
As Andy Slavitt, the former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, noted, “The Senate bill needs to be compared to current law, not the House bill.” People will die if this bill becomes law. That’s the context reporters should be using when discussing this new proposal.
After the Senate bill is released, cable news fails to offer diverse voices on health care
Once again, cable news largely failed to present diverse voices when reporting on the ongoing health care debate, missing an opportunity, yet again, to inform audiences of the personal cost millions of Americans will incur if Republicans pass their bills into law.
Over six weeks after the House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act (AHCA) on May 4, Senate Republicans finally publicly introduced their health care proposal on June 22. The Senate committee that drafted the bill was roundly criticized for its “almost-unprecedented opacity” and lack of diversity. Leading up to that introduction, cable news coverage of the bill didn’t fare much better. And when cable news did cover the bill prior to its release, the guests were almost always white men.
The day the Senate Republicans released the bill, cable news figures had an opportunity to redeem themselves. Sadly, they did not rise to the challenge:
Fox News host: Health insurance should only cover when "something catastrophic happens"Kat Timpf: "We should be paying for everyday health expenses out of pocket"
KAT TIMPF (CO-HOST): We've kind of lost sight of what insurance should even mean. It should be insurance, in case something catastrophic happens, you can't pay for that. Now you can use it for like, weight loss training or something like that. So the prices keep rising and rising higher and higher. [...] We should be paying for everyday health expenses out of pocket and the cost would be much lower. Plus the doctors would be held accountable to the patients, rather to the insurance company. Instead the idea is to use tax dollars to pay insurance companies more money and that's the conservative answer? I'm sorry but no.
Ignoring Republican sabotage, Fox & Friends uses health care insurer withdrawal to claim Obamacare failure
Fox & Friends' Jillian Mele misleadingly claimed that the decision of the nation's second largest insurer, Anthem, to pull out of Indiana and Wisconsin was "more evidence Obamacare is a prescription for failure." Mele claimed Anthem was ending its agreement because "it just can't manage the cost of sick patients signing up for Obamacare." In fact, the major reasons Anthem cited for its pullout were the "volatile" individual health insurance market and "uncertainty" about the Trump administration's stance on the Affordable Care Act. Uncertainty has also been cited as a reason for withdrawal by Aetna and Humana, two other major insurers, and there are indications that Republican obstruction to Medicaid expansion have also made insurers more inclined to exit. The misleainding claim continues Fox News' manufactured narrative that insurer withdrawals are proof of an impending "death spiral" in the law. From the June 22 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
Fox contributor praises Senate health care bill for reducing coverage "more gently"Mollie Hemingway: "If your option is that or nothing, that's actually not the worst option that you have"
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: It's an imperfect bill that comes out of an imperfect process. But when you think about what the option really is, you have a bill that gets rid of the individual mandate, gets rid of the employer mandate, that phases out Medicaid expansion, cuts taxes and a lot depends on what happens in the future but it builds a case for getting rid of Obamacare structurally over the long term. If your option is that or nothing, that's actually not the worst option that you have. At the same time, it's a bill that does a little bit more in reaching out to the moderates than the house bill did in that it does phase these things out a little more gently, provides some money upfront. So the best way to understand Mitch McConnell I think is that he picks the most conservative, politically plausible position, and that's what this bill might be.
This is not the only option there is. One could leave the Affordable Care Act alone and premiums will go up but people who can afford it will be able to get healthcare. This bill makes things worse. Apparently, after spending two trillion dollars on wars which were not funded with anything but debt (wars still covered up in the media) you would think the GOP would feel some shame about cutting taxes for the rich while throwing the rest of the American community under the bus (as per traditional GOP policies). But they don't. They throw the people under the bus and don't even use the money to pay off the debt they created and argue so much about.
GOP Rep. Burgess, Chris Hayes spar on health care bill Hayes: If you're worried about the deficit, 'why are there $600 billion in tax cuts for people who are making lots of money' in the bill? Duration: 7:06
Donald Trump’s bait and switch on health care The Senate health care bill is a repudiation of every promise the president made to the American public about his approach to the health care system. Duration: 6:01
Sen. Brian Schatz: Senate GOP bill 'extremely cruel' 'This is Paul Ryan in college sitting around a keg imagining a bill - this is that bill.' Duration: 4:35
In reversal, Trump now supports Medicaid cuts Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't yet have the votes for the health care bill that cuts Medicaid and four GOP senators haven't committed to voting yes. Neera Tanden and Adam Jentleson join Lawrence O'Donnell. Duration: 6:58
GOP threat to Medicaid threatens liberty of millions of Americans Rachel Maddow tells the history of ADAPT and the activism of disabled Americans and points out the leadership role these activists have taken in challenging the Republican plan to take Medicaid away from millions. Duration: 21:09
Mother and son: Medicaid isn't about politics, it's about lives Mike Phillips is severely physically disabled, but thanks to Medicaid, he's able to be cared for at home by his family. In a remarkable interview with Ari Melber, Mike and his mother Karen Clay explain how Medicaid cuts would literally end life as they know it. Duration: 15:50
