The new reality in Washington is gridlock. The Tea Baggers came in with a mandate to undo health care reform legislation, but we all know that is impossible. The Democratic Senate will not go along with a massive re-write of their signature legislation. And if the Senate does agree to a few changes here and there, Obama will veto them.
That means your health is secure, right? Wrong. There are still plenty of ways that the new GOP House can kill you, because it controls the purse strings and (via phony staged “hearings”) the press.
I. The Tea Baggers Can Kill the Working Poor The Health Insurance industry was tickled pink over most parts of the health care reform package passed by the 111th Congress. However, a few things galled them. Like having to write policies for sick people, the ones who are currently uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions. And having to spend a certain amount of their premiums on actual health care. And----though the insurers will never admit it----having to write policies for the working poor, who are counting upon government subsidies to help them afford private insurance.
What is wrong with the working poor? Some of them are the 50 Somethings who have been laid off from their jobs, which were either outsourced or rewritten so that their employers could replace them with younger, cheaper
healthier workers. These hard working Americans now sling hash for minimum wage---without benefits. Too young to qualify for Medicare, they have a host of chronic medical problems like diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic bronchitis, low back problems and heart disease. Then there are the medical poor, the ones whose parents could not work full time because of health problems, the ones who never finished high school and who now work in low paying jobs that do not provide health care coverage to treat the diseases which they inherited from their parents. The health insurance industry does not want to have anything to do with either of the above groups. And they would prefer not to have to write polices for certain other chronically disadvantaged groups like African-Americans, who have a greater burden of certain diseases, like heart disease and chronic kidney disease.
The new GOP House will be able to help the health insurance industry out by withholding the funds needed to help the working poor pay their insurance premiums---which are likely to be sky high by the time most of health care reform kicks in. They will not do this by actually stepping up to the plate and saying “No health insurance premium subsidies for the working poor!” That would make them look mean and elitist. No, they will step up to the plate, kiss their rosaries and promise “No health insurance premium subsidies for insurance companies that pay for abortion. Because God told us.” (See the link under III.)
Private health insurers always offer abortion coverage, because it is cheaper than paying for obstetric and nursery care. They will not change their polices, and the ultimate effect of the GOP plan to defund abortion will actually be no subsidies for anyone.
The GOP House can insure that insurance is too expensive for lower middle class Americans afford without subsidies, by holding pesky “hearings” any time the Obama administration tries to prevent insurers from raising rates. And the GOP House will make sure that the insurance industry never ever loses it exemption from federal anti-trust laws, meaning that insurers will be able to conspire to raise rates as one in order to keep health insurance out of the reach of those who need it most.
The provision of health care reform which pissed off right wing voters the most was the mandate. The GOP House will not touch that. Oh, they may pretend to
attempt to pass legislation which eliminates the mandate. But they will do this secure in the knowledge that either the Senate or the President will block them. That is because the health insurers who bankrolled the Tea Parties just
love the thought of being able to force young, healthy middle and upper-middle class Americans to buy overpriced insurance. Outlawing the mandate will become like outlawing abortion. It will be a pie in the sky by and by promise which the GOP will make to its supporters in order to encourage them to get out and vote.
II. The Tea Baggers Can Kill People Who Have to Take Medication "Let me be clear. The president supports ... safe re-importation of drugs into this country," Axelrod told CNN's "State of the Union" program. "There's no reason why Americans should pay a premium for the pharmaceuticals that people in other countries pay less for."
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BF0DW20091220The best thing that Obama can do right now to help the chronically sick and the elderly---and make Democrats popular----is have his FDA allow drugs to be imported from other countries like Canada. That would bring health care costs for consumers down overnight. Big Pharm can not bear the thought of that happening. They price gouge American consumers so that they can sell their drugs for less in other countries. And the GOP can not bear the thought of Obama doing anything that will endear him to Americans.
If---no,
when the Obama administration allows drug imports, House GOPers will be ready with staged hearings in which they will show that foreign drugs kill. Big Pharm already has the plane tickets for the “witnesses” and it has already helped coach their testimony. We will hear from some woman in Winnipeg, who swears that she has to buy her heart medication in the U.S. “because the stuff they sell in my country almost killed me.” We will hear from a series of Americans who recount hair raising stories about how imported Viagra
almost made their dicks fall off. We will learn that foreign Nexium could not help an alcoholic from having an upper GI bleed. Their star witness will be a child in a persistent vegetative state whose parents swear it was that cough syrup they bought while they were on vacation in another country.
Big Pharm money will be fed to the press via the SuperPacs. The corporate media will demand that (dangerous) foreign drugs be banned in the U.S. The FDA will not have the funding or the manpower to refute the House findings. If Obama bows to one kind of pressure and bans the imports, he will be hated by people who have to start paying more for their drugs. If he stands firm, healthy people who do not have to pay for drugs will fear him.
http://www.aznews.us/kyl_defends_blocking_of_drug_imports.htm III. The Tea Baggers Can Kill Women This one is easy. They will deny funding to Planned Parenthood and anyone else who provides contraceptive services. They will argue that certain forms of birth control---like the IUD---are really abortion, and they will make sure that working poor women around the country have no access to Pap smears, blood pressure checks, mammograms, immunizations or any of the other preventive health services which most women’s clinics now offer.
http://stoptheabortionagenda.com/2010/10/04/national-right-to-life-commends-house-republican-pledge-to-america-to-repeal-obama-health-law-and-permanently-bar-federal-funds-for-abortion/ IV. The Tea Baggers Can Kill Anyone Who Has to Breathe Big Oil bought the New GOP House, and Big Oil plans to get its money’s worth. Republicans are already plotting “hearings” into why Americans should burn more fossil fuels. Expect the EPA to have its budget cut. Expect the (bribed) corporate media to tell us that clean air costs us jobs.
Air pollution has been proven to cause childhood pneumonia and adult heart attacks. It makes folks with asthma and chronic bronchitis even sicker than they already are. We have a whole generation of urban kids who are overweight and out of shape because they can not go outside to play---the air quality is too poor. Screw them, will be the motto of the new GOP House. Big Oil paid to get them into office and they do not plan to bite the hand that fed them.
Oh, and if you drink the water or eat the fish, prepare to die, too. The House will not let a little thing like the BP oil spill slow down off shore drilling. Nor will they fund federal efforts to step up inspections of oil rigs. Jobs first, safety last, that will be the GOP mantra.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/gop-investigate-scientific-fraud-global-warming-report/ IV. The Tea Baggers Can Kill Veterans It is going to take some balls to do this one, but there is a whole lot of corporate money at stake. Therefore, I expect to see the House attempt to slash the Veterans’ Administration’s funding, claiming that the nation’s veterans would be better served getting their care “in the private sector.” This will raise costs and make care more difficult for the nation’s veterans to obtain. However, the Tea Baggers can sweeten the deal by holding “hearings” in which selected veterans talk about their bad experiences at the VA.
If the House balks at the thought of alienating veterans, the health insurance industry will remind them that the VA is the biggest single payer, all inclusive health care program in the country. Vilifying and then crippling the VA will help the insurance industry delay the implementation of single payer health care. The GOP will weigh the relative benefits of veteran support versus more corporate money, and they will go for the cash. The 2012 elections are just around the corner.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_10/026168.php V. The Tea Baggers Can Kill Everyone With Health Insurance One of the GOP’s promises to America is “the freedom to buy health insurance across state lines”.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/247475/we-ll-take-pledge-editorsThis is like telling the chickens they are now "free" to sleep with the fox.
Why is the health insurance industry so obsessed with this? Because right now, they are regulated by state insurance boards and state medical boards. These agencies are empowered by locally elected officials to keep the public healthy. If there is a problem with an insurance company, these regulatory boards will usually try to be fair to the voters. Otherwise, elected officials suffer at the polls.
Imagine what will happen if United Health can write all the polices for California from their office in North Dakota? And all the policies for North Dakota from an office in Alabama? Suddenly, if you have a complaint with an insurer---like it won’t pay for your daughters’ liver transplant which doctors say is necessary to save her life---you will have to turn to the federal government for relief. And we know how well that will work. Basically, every American will be at the mercy of its (out of state) insurer. Like Blanche Dubois, they will have to “depend upon the kindness of strangers.”
Forewarned is fore armed. They have already tipped their hand. A united Democratic Party can stop the House...and save lives.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
