Health Care Debate: It's Time to Get Outraged

[Qtec]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It occurred to me recently that Americans are not sufficiently outraged because they either don't hear these stories or, if they do, don't believe how commonplace they are or that anyone they know could experience the same misfortune. Or they might hear that more than 50 million Americans don't have insurance because they can't afford it or, in many cases, can't buy it even if they can afford it, but they don't stop to think that <u>real human beings make up that abstract 50 million figure.</u>

The reality is that these stories are indeed commonplace. Almost all of us -- regardless of our age, income, job or political affiliation -- are just a layoff or plant closure away from being uninsured, or a business decision beyond our control from being underinsured, or an illness away from being forced into bankruptcy and homelessness. </div></div>

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You might have heard about this first one. Even if you have it bears retelling. A few weeks ago, a man in North Carolina was arrested for robbing a bank for $1 so he could get government-provided health care in prison.

Fifty-nine-year-old Richard James Verone has a tumor in his chest and two ruptured disks, but no job or health insurance. He is one of those 50 million Americans I mentioned earlier. Verone told reporters he asked for only a dollar to show that his motives were medical, not monetary. Because of his "preexisting" medical conditions, no private insurer will have anything to do with him. He wasn't destitute enough to qualify for Medicaid, the government program for low-income Americans, or old enough to qualify for Medicare, the government program for people 65 and older.

Verone and millions of other Americans who have a history of illness are considered by private insurers to be "uninsurable." Insurance company underwriters consider them an excessive risk to profits. Even insurers that operate as nonprofits, like many Blue Cross plans, refuse to sell coverage to a third or more of Americans who apply because they've been sick in the past. Many of the people they turn down are children who were born with birth defects.

<span style='font-size: 14pt'>Shortly after Verone staged his robbery, one of the contestants in the Miss USA pageant revealed during a nationally broadcast interview that she is homeless. Why? Her sick mother could not pay both the rent and her mounting medical bills. Twenty-three-year-old Blair Griffith was evicted along with her mother and brother just weeks after she won the title of Miss Colorado.

"I didn't know what to think" when sheriff's deputies starting putting the family's belongings in garbage bags, she said. "It was shocking. And then I saw my mom on her knees crying and begging them, 'Please don't do this to me' and then looking up at me and saying, 'I'm so sorry.'"</span>

Blair's mother, a widow, lost her health insurance soon after suffering a severe heart attack. She was unable to get another policy. She and her children eventually had no choice but to join an untold number of other Americans who are homeless because they can't pay their medical bills. Many are bankrupt as well as homeless. <span style='font-size: 17pt'>Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States </span></div></div>

read it all (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/05-5)



Q




Q

[LWW]

Why hasn't "OBAMACARE" fixed this?

[Soflasnapper]

It is tied up in the courts as you know, and also hasn't been implemented yet. Other than those reasons, you mean?

[eg8r]

LOL, there is that 50 million people without life insurance. The article says even if they can afford it they cannot buy it. You know why? They don't spend their money wisely. Also, where is all the outrage over the millions left out of Obama's HC bill? With all the advantage he could ever hope for, he got what he wanted yet he still left some poor folks, with flat screen TVs, out of health insurance.

Those people who can afford to buy it but don't will have Obama to thank when he forces them with all the power of the US Government behind him. All of those that cannot afford it, well screw you to, Obama doesn't want to hear your sob story. Find a way to afford it.

eg8r

[Soflasnapper]

Are you unaware that there is a means tested subsidy for this mandated payment?

With all the advantage he could ever hope for

???

Given the GOP's turn entirely to obstructing even their own previously favored plans, he needed 60 vote in the Senate longer than a few months to get it done. But a few months was all he got. He could have hoped to have that longer.

[LWW]

Why did they lose their huge majority?

[eg8r]

He had all the votes he needed. The delay was of their own grandstanding.

eg8r

[ugotda7]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Qtec</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It occurred to me recently that Americans are not sufficiently outraged because they either don't hear these stories or, if they do, don't believe how commonplace they are or that anyone they know could experience the same misfortune. Or they might hear that more than 50 million Americans don't have insurance because they can't afford it or, in many cases, can't buy it even if they can afford it, but they don't stop to think that <u>real human beings make up that abstract 50 million figure.</u>

The reality is that these stories are indeed commonplace. Almost all of us -- regardless of our age, income, job or political affiliation -- are just a layoff or plant closure away from being uninsured, or a business decision beyond our control from being underinsured, or an illness away from being forced into bankruptcy and homelessness. </div></div>

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You might have heard about this first one. Even if you have it bears retelling. A few weeks ago, a man in North Carolina was arrested for robbing a bank for $1 so he could get government-provided health care in prison.

Fifty-nine-year-old Richard James Verone has a tumor in his chest and two ruptured disks, but no job or health insurance. He is one of those 50 million Americans I mentioned earlier. Verone told reporters he asked for only a dollar to show that his motives were medical, not monetary. Because of his "preexisting" medical conditions, no private insurer will have anything to do with him. He wasn't destitute enough to qualify for Medicaid, the government program for low-income Americans, or old enough to qualify for Medicare, the government program for people 65 and older.

Verone and millions of other Americans who have a history of illness are considered by private insurers to be "uninsurable." Insurance company underwriters consider them an excessive risk to profits. Even insurers that operate as nonprofits, like many Blue Cross plans, refuse to sell coverage to a third or more of Americans who apply because they've been sick in the past. Many of the people they turn down are children who were born with birth defects.

<span style='font-size: 14pt'>Shortly after Verone staged his robbery, one of the contestants in the Miss USA pageant revealed during a nationally broadcast interview that she is homeless. Why? Her sick mother could not pay both the rent and her mounting medical bills. Twenty-three-year-old Blair Griffith was evicted along with her mother and brother just weeks after she won the title of Miss Colorado.

"I didn't know what to think" when sheriff's deputies starting putting the family's belongings in garbage bags, she said. "It was shocking. And then I saw my mom on her knees crying and begging them, 'Please don't do this to me' and then looking up at me and saying, 'I'm so sorry.'"</span>

Blair's mother, a widow, lost her health insurance soon after suffering a severe heart attack. She was unable to get another policy. She and her children eventually had no choice but to join an untold number of other Americans who are homeless because they can't pay their medical bills. Many are bankrupt as well as homeless. <span style='font-size: 17pt'>Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States </span></div></div>

read it all (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/05-5)



Q




Q </div></div>

And your thoughts on this are..............?

[Soflasnapper]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: LWW</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Why did they lose their huge majority? </div></div>

First, they kept the Al Franken from making the super-majority until early July after he'd won the election in November, with abusive court challenges that proved meritless.

Then Ted Kennedy died not even 2 full months later, and was not available all that time. 2 weeks before he passed, he was too ill to attend his sister's funeral.

Then replacement candidate Martha Coakely decided to cruise to a coronation on name recognition as Mass. AG instead of campaigning, with Scott Brown campaigning hard and well, plus the help of some scores of millions of dollars coming his way from out of state sources.

And then remember, even WITH the 60 for about a month and a half, it included the Senator from Insurance, Lieberman. With 'allies' like that, who were representing insurance companies, there never was ever really 60 votes in the Senate for a true Democratic Party plan.

Combine that with the apparent deals O made with the pharmaceutical and insurance companies and lobbies, and we got a relative POS reform bill.

[Soflasnapper]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: eg8r</div><div class="ubbcode-body">He had all the votes he needed. The delay was of their own grandstanding.

eg8r </div></div>

He needed 60 (don't you remember the process not that long ago), and he got 60 as of July 7, with EMK dead on Aug. 25. (= 59)

[eg8r]

He had all the votes he needed to push through whatever he wanted to do. They took every last second to do just that.

eg8r

[Soflasnapper]

He had all the votes he needed to push through whatever he wanted to do. They took every last second to do just that

I just read that recently somewhere, but it still isn't true.

The Senate dithered over endless meetings with Charles Grassley and a couple other GOP senators, trying to get something, anything, they'd vote for, even just voting for cloture if they'd eventually vote no on the bill, so as NOT to need 60 votes. But they never voted for anything, so it couldn't pass until the 60th vote was there to invoke cloture and have the vote which COULD then be won with 50+1 votes, not the 60.

And then they STILL were in danger of not getting it passed, because they had to reconcile the finally passed Senate bill with the three bills the House passed. All manner of parliamentary maneuvers were considered (deem and pass, etc.), and finally they got the reconciled bill passed with under 60 votes. That was only possible because the Senate passed something, and they could only pass it if they could get the cloture vote to work.