Just How Seriously Should We Treat The Threat From Graham-Cassidy?
By Thom Hartmann A...
Just how seriously should people be treating the threat from Graham-Cassidy?
Don't believe the Republican lies.
The Graham-Cassidy bill that they're trying to force the Congress without so much as a hearing is the cruelest attempt at Obamacare repeal yet.
It's also complete repudiation of our nation's founding values.
Trumpcare 3.0 - aka the Graham-Cassidy bill - is remarkably cruel - even by Republican standards.
For starters, it phases out Obamacare's Medicaid expansion AND Medicaid as a whole -- that's right -- the entire program!
Graham-Cassidy also slashes federal healthcare funding by billions - and then turns it into block grants that states can do whatever they want with -- and I mean literally do whatever they want with.
They don't have to use that to help people pay for healthcare.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, Graham-Cassidy also allows insurers to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.
If it gets signed into law and you're a 40-year-old with a pre-existing condition - like, say, asthma - insurers could slap you with a $4,000 premium surcharge.
If you've got heart disease - that surcharge could rise as high as $18,000.
And if you've got cancer - insurers could make you pay as much as $140,000 extra.
Whatever happened to the general welfare?
Comments
#2
Jimmy Kimmel sure knows what time it is...!!!! Thanks for that deepspace.
#3
What did you expect from these rich-worshiping, profit driven, people?
To be nice to the lesser people?
They lie with kind words.
And gently kill your future, with bills they pass.
#4
This really does seem like a logical next step.For those who might not have noticed, we're 20-some years into one hell of a war on the poor. In fact, the overall life expectancy of the US poor already fell below that of every developed nation. Along with ending basic welfare aid, the Clinton wing also took the first steps to begin "reforming" Social Security, targeting the disbaled with cuts. Congress kocked off 2015 alone with virtually ending food stamps to the elderly poor and the disabled (cut from $115 per month, down to $10). Cut by cut, program by program, and austerity continues to trickle up.
#5
Thom asks: "What happened to the general welfare?"
The power of big money and greed being what it is, concentrated the general welfare to include pretty much only the top one percent. They're all doing just fine with welfare off the sweat everyone elses back. What are the odds the 99% get legislation that favors us passed? As likely as Random noise or something?
Let Crooked Donny sign his Trumpcare...make sure we attach it to him by name. This will guarantee that the Progressives win in 2018 and single-payer will closely follow. Let the Kochpublicans committ political suicide...cheer them on.
#6
Interestingly, even "progressives" since the 1990s have only stood for those who are of current use to employers. The US lost over 5 million manufacturing jobs alone since 2000, but liberals (media) somehow imagine that no one is worse off than low wage workers. I guess they have a lot of faith in our "free market" system.
Such notions as "the general welfare" and "the common good" no longer even make sense in this country.
#7
How can these corporation corrupt republicans even consider themselves HUMAN! Single handed killing millions of people for only needing medical procedures. This should be compared to Hitlers Stalag death camps. Since we are constantly at war somewhere we should be able to convict all enabling this as war criminals and apply the ultimate penalties.
#8
It's all okay if you believe the Ayn Rand tract on power of mind "Atlas Shrugged"
Sadly! A huge inhumane expose' on the subject of greed
A lot of influential people would appear to regard this tome highly
#9
So, the Sons of the Confederacy got together and cooked up O'Bigot-care to replace Obama-care. Bigotry can be the only driving force that would explain why these Johnny Rebs would to go to such extreme measures to undo everything Obama , even cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Failing over 50 times to repeal Obama-care has not quelled their manic inertia, it has only stiffened their bloodthristy resolve. Not to mention wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.
Never let it be said that the Rebs are not willing to line up as bullet stoppers for any "Just Cause" or, just because…
The question is: are they really stupid and angry enough to enact legislation that is so destined to fail and likely to bring down the whole Republiclan party?
Their need to seek revenge against the American people that imposed a black president over them has totally warped their hate-mongering brains. Their fake outrage about the insurance mandate failed to catch on as they had hoped, as evidenced by the fact that Obama-care is more popular than ever and the Congress is less popular than ever. The vast majority of Americans oppose this new legislation, as well as virtually all medical associations and even many of the insurance companies…So time to roll out O'Bigot-care.
After all, no Black man is going to tell these good ol' boys what they can do, or not do! Even if it means enacting legislation that is universally despised and has no possibility of realistically doing anything other than leading to the deaths of anyone that can't afford healthcare, which could be about anyone, and is likely to end up ballooning the deficit. That's just tough. THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN!!! Only this time it will be owned and operated by Vladimir Putin, chief puppeteer of Donald J. Trump, the man that still can't get over being humiliated by Obama at a Press Club Dinner.
#10
Watching the Ken Berns PBS special "the Viet Nam War" this evening reminded me that things don't really ever change. Here we are, retracing the exact same footsteps in Afghanistan, just a few decades later. We, the great unwashed, are simply expendable in the minds of those with the upper hand. "Let them eat cake".
This class warfare which is epitomized in the current fight over health care springs from the same roots. The "haves" will always use every device possible to maintain their position. If it means letting millions suffer to promote an uptick on the bottom line, well, heh heh, too bad they aren't more deserving.
I once tried to explain society and its workings to one of my sons by harkening back to the cave, where the knuckle dragger that could swing the heaviest club (the currency of the day) got to sleep at the back of the cave with all the most desirable females. His lieutenents, many of them smarter than him, occupied the next tier. At the entrance was the faithful patrician guard, piling logs on the fire. And if you were on the outs with the established order, you got to sleep outside with the tiger. Sometimes I wonder if anything has or ever will change.
#11
This is the result of an electorate full of baby-boomer evangelical idiots who cherish and lavish on those who perish from medical necessity due to their sins prior to the evangelical idiot because they convince themselves that their are protected from god's wrath (more like they like to feel godlike seeing others perish while their god allows them to say alive.) Udder Bull Sh*t.
#12
I have recently read Bernie Sanders' speech to Westminster College. It is incredibly inspiring and is spot-on. I strongly encourage everyone to Google that speech and read it. If Bernie's words don't motivate the reader to action, I'm at a loss to understand what would.
#13
Fock healthcare! World "leaders" trading childish insults is a much weightier matter that, ah, "Trumps" all other issues, one that should concern every swingin' dick, lily-white-ass Meerkkkan staring vacantly at Fux-head News.
Kim Jong-un dared to call our great Pussy Grabber a "gangster, a scared barking dog, and a deranged senile old lunatic." Damn, he nailed it! Not good. Not good. One up on the scoreboard!
"Dotard" (neukdari in Korean) is so much better than "rocket man," or any of the other sissified schoolyard taunts that Pussy Grabber can squeeze out of his juvenile pimple-head: "Crooked Hillary, Crazy Bernie, Goofy Elizabeth Warren, Little Marco, Lyin' Ted, Low Energy Jeb, blah, blah" ...yaaawn.
Yeah, yeah, whatever, two puss-gut mad men name-calling each other with their fat stubby fingers on the nuke buttons is more than a little frightening (Ya think?), but "dotard" (pronounced "doe-TURD" -- haha) is, man oh man, so fitting and well-deserved!
IOW, the worst dictator on the planet is obviously much smarter ("smart", in this case, certainly does not equal intelligence) than our own pathetic wannabe tyrant.
Sure, the end of the world and all that, but the truly big earth-shattering question facing humankind: Why do egomaniacal mad men with too much power sport weird hairdos, which their bathroom "mirror, mirror on the wall" tell 'em is cool? You'd think self-centered pricks worried about their self-image would be more aware that everyone laughs behind their backs?
So, why isn't our shallow worthless media splashing wall-to-wall coverage 24/7 for the entertainment of their shallow worthless audience of that most important question of our times? Inquiring minds want to know.
#14
Thanks, Wayne! Will check it out. Need a breath of real intelligence.
#15
Here's a video of Bernie Sanders' foreign policy speech to Westminster College in Missouri yesterday. (Wayne, #12 described it quite accurately -- "...incredibly inspiring and is spot-on.")
#16
I have been off of the grid for 2 weeks. What a refresher it is to get away from this administration for awhile. "Graham-Cassidy" shows what a stone cold heart that the Republicans have. Also the willingness to lie to pass their agenda. What I do not understand is the numbers that do not see that the only purpose that they have is to serve the 1%. For several years now I have been promoting Medical Tourism. Taking your vacation and medical needs to another country. Panama is an excellent example. Simple dental work can pay for your vacation. With the rates that Graham-Cassidy has in the cards it makes even more sense to abandon this countries medical services and take a vacation. It is easily Googled.
#17
Here comes the hit on medicare:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/rundown/hhs-hints-major-changes-medicar...
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Jimmy Kimmel rips the bill:
https://youtu.be/wB5Hek7Z2b8