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Edited on Wed Sep-14-11 04:29 PM by McCamy Taylor
It is 2013. The Tea Party has swept into power on a tidal wave of Super Pac money. Americans were fooled by the recycled “Bread and Jobs” campaign which the GOP lifted from Adolph Hitler, 1932. Convinced that they will have bright and shiny new jobs and bright and shiny new houses and bright and shiny new kids---if only the government stops giving their hard earn tax dollars to old folks who aren’t much use for anything---they vote for the Republican candidate.
Among Congress’s first acts: repeal of the health reform legislation that they called “Obamacare”, the law that would have made it illegal for health insurers to refuse to cover those with existing medical problems. Millions of Americans who are more than willing to pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets each year to insure themselves and their families will be told “Sorry, Bud, you are told old.” They also slash funding for Medicaid, leaving states with no way to provide obstetric care and no funds to help crippled children. Pregnant women begin showing up at hospitals in premature labor with pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, infections, all of which could have been prevented with proper OB care. Their premature infants spend months in neonatal ICUs which no longer get paid, and so hospitals begin to cut back on the number of NICU beds. Eventually, there is no place for the preemies. Those that survive are left with cerebral palsy, weak lungs, weak eyes---but there is no money to provide care for them either. The Paul Ryan bill is quickly resurrected and Medicare is abolished. The nation’s elderly are given $1000/year vouchers and told to go buy private policies. However, with the demise of health reform, the elderly can not find anyone willing to write them policies for less than $10,000/year. Add together the $3000/year they used to pay with the $1000 the feds give them, and you will see that they come up $6000 short. No problem for those who are wealthy, but a real hit on those who live off their Social Security checks. Plus, the private policies have $5000 deductibles and huge coypayments. As a result, US life expectancy, which has already begun to drop for certain demographic groups (lower income women) takes a nose dive. Instead of ranking 50th among world nations in health, we hit rock bottom.
This is not science fiction. Every one of the policy changes above has been advocated by mainstream Republicans. If you were not paying attention, I will be happy to provide links upon request. But the GOP would prefer that you not ask, because they probably do not want Americans to know their real agenda, which is “Let them die, yeah!”
It is 2014, and Americans are dying.
A reaction to a medication destroyed Ryan’s liver. He needs a transplant or he will die. A donor has been found. He is a perfect candidate for the surgery. Too bad that his SCHIP program is now bankrupt. His parents will sue the manufacturer of the drug after he is dead and win a settlement, but that will not bring their son back.
Tea Party reaction: “Let him die, yeah!” SCHIP is welfare and should be abolished. Any child insured by SCHIP is a welfare scum who deserves to die. Oh, and the parents are scum for participating in “lawsuit abuse.”
Amber is 22, married and pregnant. Her husband’s job with insurance just got shipped overseas, and his new job won’t cover her “pre-existing condition.” Due to the huge salary cut, they are struggling to pay the mortgage on their home. The private obstetrician wants $3000, and that does not count the hospital bill, another $5000. Amber keeps putting off seeing the OB while she tries to raise the money. But things keep going wrong. The family’s single car breaks down and they have to get another so her husband can go to work. The pipes break, flooding their house. That has to be fixed. In her seventh month of pregnancy, Amber’s feet start swelling and she begins to get headaches. One day, she has a seizure and is rushed to the hospital where she delivers a small, premature infant. The hospital has recently closed down its NICU, because it was a money sink. While waiting for the Life Flight Helicopter, the baby dies. Amber, who has bled into her brain, dies soon afterwards.
Tea Party reaction: “Let her die. And the baby, yeah!” People who lose their insurance when their company moves overseas must not have been good workers. People who can not afford to pay cash for obstetric care have no business getting pregnant. Having a baby in this country is not a right, it is a privilege. Oh, and God wanted her and the baby to die, because she was a sinner.
William planned for the future. Too bad he did not plan on his employer of thirty years declaring bankruptcy to get out from under its pension obligations. The company was bought by another company that hired the president and all the executives but none of the existing workers. Now William has to get by on his $1500 a month Social Security. Thank God for Medicare! He would never be able to afford the visits to his cardiologist and all the tests and all the medications under a private plan. William, who does not follow politics is shocked when his Medicare is abolished. The $1000 voucher for private insurance will not even get him in the door of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which laughs at him and his heart problems. Private insurers are in the business of collecting premiums, not paying medical bills. By scrapping together some more money, he is able to buy a hospital only policy that will pay if he has another heart attack. But it does not pay towards the out patient care that will prevent the next heart attack, and his doctors tell him that if he has another MI, he will die. When the next heart attack comes, he dies before the ambulance can get him to the hospital.
Tea Part reaction: “Let him die, yeah!” Old folks like that are a drain on the economy. Providing health care for someone who is retired is like throwing money down the toilet. And the wife with early Alzheimer’s for whom William was caring? She should go die, too. Retirement is for rich folks---like insurance company executives. Everyone else needs to haul their own weight.
Jennifer left her job at a big manufacturer to start her own company. She has six employees, all women, and she can not get health insurance for them or for herself, because the private insurers do not like to write policies for young women---they get pregnant. Her COBRA has just run out, and she is still trying to find a company that will insure her, but at 50, with hypertension and a family history of breast cancer, she is considered “high risk.” When she started her business, she was counting upon health care reform to help her get insurance. But the Congressional Republicans had other ideas. Jennifer finds a breast lump. Since all her savings have gone into her new business, she can not pay cash for a biopsy. She hopes the lump will go away. It doesn’t. It starts to grow. And grow. By the time she makes up her mind to get a biopsy (even if it means a second mortgage on her house) the tumor has spread to her bones. Jennifer is forced to close her new business, just as it was finally starting to turn a profit. Her eight (she has been expanding) employees are now looking for jobs. She pays for chemotherapy out of her own pocket and lives for another two years before dying, in agony. Her house and all her possessions that she had hoped to leave for her kids have been sold to pay her medical bills, and there is still a huge outstanding debt. On the day she is buried, her daughter gets a call from a collection agency asking “How do you plan to pay your mother’s bill?”
Tea Party reaction: “Let her die, yeah!” Jennifer should have stayed with her big company. She was disloyal and she got what she deserved. Also, if she was a good Church going woman, the congregation would have pitched in and paid her medical bills for her. That slut of a daughter of hers better do what’s right and pay that debt!
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