[Edited] Apparently Tea Party GOP Wisconsin US Senator Ron Johnson said Friday he wants to be sure that Medicaid reductions take place, and we have 50 state approaches to just how many low-income Americans remain on Medicaid before he's willing to say the Senate's 'health care' bill is punitive enough to win his support:
No need to improve on that, despite a few recessions, structural changes to the economy, de-industrialization, a housing crash, employment outsourcing, workplace health insurance minimization, etc., which all have shrunk the middle class as medical costs have gone through the roof.
But Johnson knows what Johnson wants in the Republican 'health care' bill if the approval of Obamacare with its unconscionable expansion of Medicaid - - the worst assault on Johnson's freedom in lifetime - - can finally be repealed and replaced with a right-wing, states rights measure to restore fully-restrictive pre-1965 social order.
Johnson, who spoke to about two dozen Greater Green Bay Chamber members and other invited guests, favors Medicaid reform based on giving states more control of the program and ending the Medicaid expansion allowed under Obamacare.In other words, your basic 'go-die-and-don't trouble-the-better-off-folks' approach to low-income Americans medical needs they enjoyed in the good old early Medicaid days, like back when the program started in 1965.
No need to improve on that, despite a few recessions, structural changes to the economy, de-industrialization, a housing crash, employment outsourcing, workplace health insurance minimization, etc., which all have shrunk the middle class as medical costs have gone through the roof.
But Johnson knows what Johnson wants in the Republican 'health care' bill if the approval of Obamacare with its unconscionable expansion of Medicaid - - the worst assault on Johnson's freedom in lifetime - - can finally be repealed and replaced with a right-wing, states rights measure to restore fully-restrictive pre-1965 social order.
I wish for Senator Johnson an experience of freedom that takes him to a job where he can deploy his freedom without making others' lives painful.
ReplyDelete> “... to restore the 1965’s social order.”
ReplyDeleteAn odd bit of phrasing, given that 1964-1965 was just when changes were underway, and in the latter year the social safety net was being put into place. Might you have intended to type something like “the 1950s’ social order” [note apostrophe placement]?
More than 60% of the annual medical costs, amounting to billions of dollars every year, of smoking diseases and secondhand smoke, including pediatric exposure*, is paid for by government programs like Medicaid **. Medicaid is healthcare welfare and smokers on Medicaid must do their part to be healthier, plus stop making children around them ill, by quitting.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson must immediately implement the HUD public housing smoking ban and strictly enforce it.
There is no constitutional right to smoke because the U.S. Constitution does not give special protection to smokers. The Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution does not include smokers as a protected class. Smoking is not a specially protected liberty right under the U.S. Constitution Due Process Clause and smoking is not included in the right to privacy.
*World Health Organization, Tobacco Fact sheet Updated May 2017
**Am J Prev Med. 2015 Mar;48(3):326-33.
Annual healthcare spending attributable to cigarette smoking: an update.
Xu X, et al.
James clearly said pre-1965. Also most folks on the right wing side who talk about "returning" to pre-1965 times only want to return to a few cherry-picked facets of that time. If they fully embraced returning healthcare to that time then they would need to divest almost all hospitals back to non-profit status from whence they came.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that before 1973 it was illegal in the US to profit off of health care.
ReplyDeleteThe Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 passed by Nixon changed everything.
[https://tinyurl.com/y95cf895]
"No system is perfect. Ask people in countries with universal systems and you will always hear some complaints. But you won't hear about millions of people left without access to care, or families going bankrupt because of an accident or illness, or people delaying necessary care because of the cost."
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 7/16 2:39 PM: “James clearly said pre-1965.” — James edited his post after my 7/15 comment, as he indicated in [brackets] at the start of the post.
ReplyDelete