Healthcare Boiled Over Debate

Anyone with a heartbeat has something to say on healthcare for all Americans or they damn sure as hell should have an opinion. From business owners that have seen the gross profiteering from their health care insurance providers to the employees of those same businesses that have seen their own cost rise but services cut. The only people winning are the mega structures built to provide a new home to the next generation of Robber Barons. And yet an industry that claims that they can police themselves is recording record profits while the rest of America is losing its shirt? Does that make any sense to you?

Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican bastard to industry and that is a political and historical fact. He saw a wrong, it was un-American for the times and he sure as hell fixed it. He carried his big stick and broke up the Robber Barons for a reason, they were killing the American economy. When any industry Robber Baron thinks that they are so powerful that the laws and the liberty of all Americans is no longer of their concern because they believe to have omnipotent power, then it is up to a strong President and Federal Government to protect the American people from them.

Capitalism in America is a funny business, sometimes it serves the many but often it serves the few. There is nothing wrong with any company making a profit to survive. If I were a CEO then that would be my objective one hundred and ten percent. We are talking health care though, not gas, not steel, not oil and things that could be commodity driven. Just health care is being discussed here and frankly I have to agree with Teddy Roosevelt that it is time to take out the federal government big stick and knock the sons of bitches down a notch. As the system stands now, you would have to work for your employer and forsake all of your wages twenty years from now just to see your doctor for the sniffles. Pay your soul to the company store for anything worse than that.

Reality is simple, do the math yourself. The more people without health care means that the cost to you will rise further and higher than it has in the past. People will look back kindly when co-pays only increased twenty percent per year. Health Care CEO’s will take hundred million dollar plus bonuses and wonder how they will increase their pay the next year?

Meanwhile, ten of millions of our fellow Americans will go without regular care, never see a doctor till the cost of care goes into the millions and the sun will shine the next day regardless of political opinion one way or the other. Just make sure you wear your sunglasses as you pass the conglomerate skyscraper HMO built to make sure you get your health care bill emailed, faxed, debited from your checking account, or sent to your cell phone before you even get home from your doctor.

The health care industry is broken. It isn’t the nurses and doctors that give the care fault. It’s the white shirts in a huge glass building hundreds or thousands of miles away from the table that you sit on where they ask you to roll up your sleeve or stick out your tongue. It’s not even the emergency room hospitals fault either. Most hospitals according to some reports have to waive the bills and eat the cost of caring for people without health insurance. Where do you think that cost gets passed on to? That two dollar treatment such as Aspirin or other medication of equal cost ends up costing $250 on an insurance form from the ER.

It is time for a Teddy Roosevelt big stick. Hell yes! President Obama needs to speak softly and carry a big stick when it comes to healthcare reform. Is that not one of the biggest reasons we voted to elect President Obama and a Democrat controlled Congress? I believe we have the votes to get it done so what is the problem? Just get the job done and lets move on to the next issue!

Papamoka

Grinch AKA Bush Kills Kids Health Bill… Again

Separated at birth is our current Commander in Thief and the Grinch who stole Christmas. If you took the time to compare the two it might not be as far off a thought as you think. With his hefty and mighty veto crayon he swiftly cast the medical care of 10 million kids in the “Do Not Recycle” bin out in the back of the White House today... AGAIN!

His rationalization for vetoing the bill is that it is the beginning of socialized medicine? Maybe the President has not visited an emergency room in any city in America lately. Socialized medicine is already here! It’s just the most expensive form of medical health care there is and we all pay for the poor using the Emergency Room with every payment to our HMO provider whether we like it or not.

If there ever was a clear cut example of what not to do as an American President then this guy is going to be mentioned more times than anyone else. He clearly fit’s the phrase from the movie The American President where it was said “For someone that loves America but clearly can not stand American’s”. Rough paraphrase but it fits W to a tee.

Bush vetoes children's health bill a second time
Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:02pm

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday vetoed a bill expanding a popular children's health care program for the second time, angering Democrats who are locked in a fight with the administration over the budget and spending.

Pushed by the Democratic-led Congress but also supported by many Republicans, the bill was aimed at providing health insurance to about 10 million children in low- and moderate-income families. Taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products would have been increased to pay for the aid.

Bush vetoed a version of the bill in October but Congress quickly passed another one that included some changes but not enough to satisfy the White House.

"Because the Congress has chosen to send me an essentially identical bill that has the same problems as the flawed bill I previously vetoed, I must veto this legislation too," Bush wrote in a message to the House of Representatives.

The fight between Congress and the White House over the health bill is one in a series of clashes over spending that have arisen as Bush approaches the start of his final year in office. -Reuters

One of the obvious problems with the bill is how it was to be funded and those funds discharged. There was no money in it for the “Bush Too” crew of political hacks. If Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi had linked some (more than half) of the money from the bill to be directly paid back to any oil company or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia then it might have had a chance at passing.

It is very obvious that this President does not care one iota about his own peoples health care. He does not even care about our own military wounded soldiers coming home for care in our military hospitals unless the Washington Post blasts the negligence across the front page to embarrass him. Even then he only tosses a white wash over the issue and moves on to where the money is.

Sometimes I wonder if he has CADD, that would be Conservative Attention Deficit Disorder. Federal programs that don’t send money his friends way just can not seem to hold his attention span long enough. Out comes the veto crayon and he tries his best to color within the lines but those pesky flash bulbs always make him mess up.

Back to the emergency room kids. Socialized medicine? Ridiculous!

Papamoka

Feel free to link to or steal this post...

Cross posted at Michael Lynn Jones and Bring IT ON!

*****I See My Dreams has cross posted this piece... Thx BJ!

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Got Cancer Amigo? Your Gonna Die!

Picture courtesy of AOC.gov

I’m of the strongest opinion that our nations immigration policy is not only broken but the damn thing has been in the trash bin for twenty years and nobody will tie up the damn bag and take it to the curb for pick up. George Bush’s style of governing (State side) is to push back the broken policy systems in the federal government for almost everything back onto the states. From education to immigration he has pushed back and stuffed down the throats of the states every federally mandated law but his check is never in the mail to back it up.

It will take years for our nation’s FEDERAL Government to develop an immigration policy that actually works and until they do the states will be forced fed and pay for that broken policy and that is not right. From guarding the borders to the expensive emergency room medical care of illegal immigrants, Bush isn’t paying for it so the States or private business will have too! I’m just guessing that this is the conservative in Bush trying to (wink, wink) save the peoples hard earned tax dollars.

Over at the New York Times they have the latest on Bush pretending to be a conservative by knuckling down on Chemo Medicaid payments to the hospitals that treat illegal immigrants in the emergency room with cancer. His check isn’t going to clear on this one due to a stop payment order by the President…

Rule Limits Emergency Care for Immigrants

By SARAH KERSHAW
Published: September 22, 2007

The federal government has told New York State health officials that chemotherapy, which had been covered for illegal immigrants under a government-financed program for emergency medical care, does not qualify for coverage. The decision sets the stage for a battle between the state and federal governments over how medical emergencies are defined.

The change comes amid a fierce national debate on providing medical care to immigrants, with New York State officials and critics saying this latest move is one more indication of the Bush administration’s efforts to exclude the uninsured from public health services.

Snip Si Casa

In the wake of stricter federal rules, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and 20 other states have extended full Medicaid coverage, using only state money, to some immigrants who do not qualify for federal aid. Under federal law, proof of citizenship is required for full Medicaid coverage, but not for emergency coverage.

But some states with growing immigrant populations, like Georgia and Arizona, have themselves moved to limit coverage under emergency Medicaid, leading to intense opposition from immigrant health advocates. - New York Times

I have to back up on this story for a bit but I’ll get back into it. I promise. If President Bush and the Congress had taken care of the border problem and passed legislation that made sense, then the “Trickle down” effect of illegal immigrants would not have to be pushed back on the states. Instead, we have every single state trying to stop the flow of the Rio Grande with paper towels. If President Bush and the Congress paid a little bit more attention about what is going on at home rather than trying to save the Middle East then their popularity might be higher than a rats ass.

Back to the post… I just get a thought and the fingers type.

Every single person that goes to medical school to become a doctor takes and oath. It isn’t like the one President Bush took where he can define the Constitution and twist it to see how it fits him today. Nope, doctors take an oath to always care for the patient as best they can and to save lives. It isn’t the Hypolitcal oath. I’m thinking the oath that doctors take somehow is above any oath Prescident (misspelled on purpose) Bush took as President.
Our nation has an immigration policy problem. Our Congress and our President think that the states can pay the sins of our lost federal government. They can not and should not have to.

Illegal immigration is a serious issue and as much as I am a Democrat, I want my nation and its borders secured. Stop the problem where it begins and fix the policies that will effect the people already here. There is no magic wand or enough busses to send all of the illegal immigrants back. We more or less own them as a people because our federal government refused to legislate on the issue of immigration. This failure is owned by both sides of the political aisle.

What I see as a result of this President and the Congress failure to act on immigration is the prosecution of some doctor or nurse somewhere in America for failing to perform their duties to save a human life because a green card or legal citizen document was not presented at the emergency room. For all I know it has already happened.

Papamoka

Cross posted at Bring it On!

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