Trump's America First Policy Is Leading America To Last Place in Healthcare
By Thom Hartmann A...
Everybody has the right to education. It's a basic right. Everybody has the right to housing. It's a basic right. Everyone has the right to food. It's a basic right.
In the United States we don't acknowledge any of those things as rights. Franklin Roosevelt tried to get them into the Constitution of the United States back in the early 1940s with his second Bill of Rights proposal, but the Republicans would have nothing to do with that. He wasn't able to get it passed or even get any serious traction for the thing. So we continue to slide into third world poverty while countries that have embraced democratic socialism become very, very successful.
So let's look at what's going on here in the United States. Paul Ryan basically just came out and said, "hey, we've got ours of the tax cuts, oh you guys, tough luck." His specific words were "We have to fix health care if we're going to get away from this debt crisis," which were tweeted out by Fox News. And you know when Paul Ryan says fix health care, what he means is chop a half a billion dollars out of Medicare so that everybody on Medicare is going to have to start paying an extra hundred bucks a month for their Medicare or is going to have to start paying a hundred dollars as a copay every time they visit a doctor or is going to have to start paying more for their drugs. And/or blow up Obamacare and do away with Medicaid. So Joan McCarter over at Daily Kos notes...
"A second grade teacher at Ikard Elementary School, 38-year-old Heather Holland, died Sunday due to complications of the flu. In addition to a classroom of second graders, Holland left behind husband Frank Holland, a 10-year-old daughter, and a 7-year-old son. Holland fell ill about a week ago and planned to pick up flu medication but felt the $116 copay was too high, her husband said."
This is from WeatherfordDemocrat.com. As Joan McCarter writes,
"She died from the flu because she needed the $116 for her kids. Which is how it should be in Paul Ryan's world. Although the adherent of Ayn Rand would probably say she should have spent the money on the medicine and let her kids fend for themselves. They're 7 and 10, they could get jobs, right?"
Meanwhile Nancy Altman writing over at Slate.com, "Republicans Are Killing Social Security One Tiny Service Cut at a Time", points out Marco Rubio just before Christmas told us that the Republicans in the House and Senate were going to go after Social Security and here's how they're doing it. Nancy writes...
"Republican politicians are making it increasingly difficult, time-consuming, and aggravating to access our earned Social Security benefits, in the hope of undermining support for the extremely popular program, and eventually ending it as we know it."
Only 7/10 of a penny goes to administration for Social Security, it's not even 1%. That's more efficient than any private sector pension or anything else. But here's what the Republicans are doing:
"Since 2010, when Republicans took back control of the House of Representatives, SSA's operating budget has been cut by 11 percent. For 2018, the Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee has proposed limiting Social Security's administrative budget even more, this time, by another $492 million - 4 percent of SSA's operating budget, on top of an already enacted 16 percent cut, after inflation, since 2010.
The increasing squeeze comes as SSA's workload continues to grow. The first members of the baby boom generation turned 65 in 2011, and about 10,000 boomers retire daily."
So what is the result of these Republican cuts so far? This is without the 482 million dollar cut that they're proposing for right now to the Social Security Administration. Just from the Republican cuts over the last five or ten years.
"More than 1 million people are awaiting hearings to determine whether they qualify for Social Security disability benefits. Currently, the wait time for a hearing is more than 600 days."
This is what the Republicans want. It takes you 600 days to even have a hearing before the Social Security folks about whether you're eligible for Social Security disability benefits.
"In just the past two years, 18,701 workers have died waiting for a disability decision."
Republicans don't care if workers die. Republicans only care when the billionaire class starts to die.
"Benefits that could have saved lives, prevented bankruptcies, and stopped the loss of homes, thus preventing homelessness."
These never were paid out because Republicans made sure that you had to wait six hundred days to even qualify for Social Security disability.
"SSA has had to close 64 district offices and more than 500 mobile field offices. Offices still open have had to reduce their hours. SSA's workforce has declined by 6 percent - with five states having lost 15 percent of their SSA employees!"
And what's the result of this?
"Hourslong lines stretching out the door have become a common feature of field offices. Hold times on SSA's 1-800 hotline have increased to the point that nearly half of callers hang up in frustration."
And people have to drive miles and miles now that they're closing these Social Security offices, just to find a Social Security office.
Meanwhile, Philip Alston, UN rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, visited the United States...
"I saw sewage-filled yards in states where governments don't consider sanitation facilities to be their responsibility, I saw people who had lost all of their teeth because adult dental care is not covered by the vast majority of programs available to the very poor."
This is the United Nations!
Comments
#2
I liked that 1944 speech by FDR you mentioned, which included, among other reasonable things:
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
And this is what the corporatists are still fighting against? (And too often winning.)
Look at the other side of the coin. All those cuts...they are justified as helping balance a budget that is being eaten alive by the military/industrial/security complex. As I've said here before, no matter how big it gets the vast Department of "Defense" will still not be able to protect an empty, hollow America from everything. And when there is nothing left to defend the national experiment ends.
#3
I wonder how Wisconsin's 1st district Koch Bros. Representative Paul Ryan would have felt had he been forced to wait a couple years to collect his Social Security benefits as a teenager? What a snake.
I still can't believe anybody in their right mind votes for Ryan or Kentucky Senate Fascist Party servant McConnell...but they do. God and Guns states!...they're not in their right minds.
#4
A Medicare for all promise will win any election , even with the corpse media blackout of its mention. Bernie knows what time it is.
#5
There arn't 'arf some evil mofo in the land of the free and home of the brave
See you in the house of God come Sunday
#6
Is the America first policy limited to the wealth class only?
"Food pails, baskets, boxes"? What's next, a prayer get well healing basket with first aid supplies maybe a few vitamins when Medicare and Obamacare have been dismantled? This is choice?. Time to bring back the Wendy's Soviet Fashion Show Ad from the 80's.
#7
The Republican Party has turned into a cult that worships money. Through sheer ruthlessness, this cult has taken over all three branches of our government. Now they stand poised to impose their agenda on the rest of us, which is killing off poor people. Poor people are a drain on profits. Therefore they have to be eliminated. And the sooner the better. They'd use gas and ovens if they thought they could get away with it.
#8
It would help a lot if you didn't have to service a 20 trillion debt. Whether it's a nation, business or family, debt service is a killer. The only solution is to simply cut every government department by 10% with the exception of healthcare, old age pensions and a few others. I am pretty sure every department could do it with no one even noticing. Business and families are forced to do it all the time and come out of just fine.
#9
Evil are those among us who would destroy democracy via the purchase of an entire political party simply to facilitate unimpeded destruction of the planet.... this just to satisfy an out of control thirst for endlesss money and power.
Yet the madness doesn't even end there. These same evil men want to strip society of all vestiges of a caring and cooperative humanity. They disguise this wickedness with words like freedom, liberty, libertarian, free market, independence, unleash prosperity, market based, free society, patriotism, God, second amendment rights, etc.
Sure there are many bad actors complicit in this Fascism.... including corpse media moguls confusing citizens with anti-american propaganda/alternative truth, and of course Wall Street banksters creating bubble economic disasters with impunity, yet the Kochs seem to be the self appointed behind the scenes king daddy Fascist Mofo's.
#10
Medicare costs about $130 per month. It covers 80% of a procedure that costs 5 times more than it would in another country. What a great plan. It also does not cover Dental, vision or hearing. Supplemental insurance for the 20% cost $200 to $300 per month. Dental, vision and hearing probably about $200 per month. I am in good health so have found an Advantage plan that works best for me. If I need major dental I plan on going to Panama. Medical Tourism is becoming popular. If I was young I would not buy insurance. Set up a healthcare fund. Plan on using medical tourism.
#11
Good to hear support for a tax deductible HSA which makes perfect makes sense for the young and healthy as opposed tot hem being forced under penalty of law to purchase obamacare. Already in place for those who are smart enough to use it. All they need at that point is exactly what we had prior to obamacare, a low cost catastrophic insurance policy specifically designed for that demographic.
Now the young and healthy are out of the pool, that leaves the old and unhealthy loose and demanding "low cost" healthcare.
Quite a pool to draw from if you are in the business.
A few among thousands,
https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/newyork/press-releases/2013/twenty-thi...
https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/financial-fraud-law/b/blog/arch...
https://nypost.com/2014/08/06/nearly-all-lirr-workers-have-disability-pa...
#12
Worth watching;
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-breakdown-of-all-the-cuts-in-trum...
And it still increases the debt by a massive amount.
#13
Prediction.
Thom will blame Reagan today.
#14
@# 12 Rick Steve
Your link proves the Federal cuts are not nearly deep enough.
What leftie/socialists miss is the brilliance in this new tax plan by shifting the accountability from the Federal government to the State governments to prioritize their own spending.
California >>>>>Colorado = lower taxes.
#15
Diane, That is your Social Security and Medicare that are being cut. You may very well die because of your ignorance. It is going from your pocket to the military and the 1%.
#18
#11. I say that the young should not buy insurance at the ridiculous rates but rather put the money into a HSA and use medical tourism as needed. It is only because good medical care is available in other countries at affordable prices. I hope that Panama and even Cuba start advertising medical tourism on TV. Need a Root Canal? Do not pay $3600. Fly to Panama RT $800, 2 nights hotel $200, Root Canal $800. Plus day on the beach. Sad that this is the country that Republicans have left us with.
https://www.health-tourism.com/medical-tourism-panama/
https://patientsbeyondborders.com/india
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/world/americas/americans-may-see-appe...
#19
Cut the executive office spending by 10%.
#20
Yes Legend. I totally agree. The Washington Post also did a thorough breakdown of all the cuts in the Republican budget. Some of which, are quite substantial! And most of the cuts are to social (safety net) programs... All these cuts, while a massive increase in spending to the military. About a 15% increase. WTF!!
In fact: in this latest budget, we will still drastically outspend..
And all this while giving away a 1.5 - 2 trillion dollar tax cut to the wealthy! Just add it to the 20 trillion dollar bill?!? Right Kend?
Fuckn insanity!!
Even my daughter, a sophomore in high school,( who just had civics) has done the math... and can see that it just doesn't add up. Yes, there are a "few" millennials who are aware.. "Chuckling"
Of course, if the GOP maintains control of our purse strings? They plan on continuing to out spend revenue ( like drunken sailors), while enacting much more massive "draconian" cuts to our social programs...
[Another reason why the midterms are so important!]
Kend#8
So, according to you..we could make 10% cuts to "almost" every government department, and not feel the loss...
Well, using that ridiculous logic, lets start right at the very top, and cut the most wasteful of all government spending by 10%... The MILITARY!!
#21
Off topic:
A non-conservative Congress might reduce the number of Justices of the Supreme Court, perhaps by name or those last appointed. Dangerous as a longer term strategy!
#22
Reynolds: The Kochbagger plan is for the states to take financial responsibility, not accountability, "laugh very loudly", LVL ... for Medicaid funding. Your Kochbagger Federal government is cutting funding for Medicaid and using words like "state accountability" to mislead gullible citizens like yourself. What this really means, which seems lost on everyone, is that local taxpayers will foot the bill via property tax increases, a regressive tax, which the wealthy love, ...far better for them than a federal progressive income tax.
#23
Roadrunner, of course the states taxpayers will have to fork over the money for what the Feds do not send the states. That is the whole point. Make the states accountable and let the population decide who they want, to run their state, some lefties/socialist who promotes free everything, or a realist that may decide to put the brakes on a choo-choo train to haul the homeless from San Francisco down to the warmer climes of LA for the winter. Who knows, some selfish individuals may even run from the high tax states like California and move to say, Colorado where they don't have to pay "their fair share", yet. Free market ya know. Seems to be working quite well in TX.
Beep Beep!
#24
If you think only about yourself - And not who's blood you shed
Only care about the rich - Not starving you left dead
With your heart as hard as stone - Your constituents will tremble
Ask why to you, they voted for - Voters never be remembered
#25
#8 - Write off the debt... simple!
It is compound usury interest based upon fiat money
Get real!
#26
Where is the good Samaritan in there?
#27
#23 - Inhuman
Bot!
#28
The US 'needs' a huge military with a budget larger than the next 6 or 7 countries combined so we can maintain our status as the world's dominant superpower, so other countries have to ask our permission to use the bathroom, or so we think. Maintenance of empire is our national interest. The so-called defense budget could be cut in half and still protect us. A government that wages unceasing war is fine with most Republicans and many Democrats, a government that actually works for it's citizens is something we can't afford. This is how empires end, with unending military adventures abroad and rot at home.
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If I have to pay a dime more for my medicare I will simple drop dead.