Rep. Steve King (R-IA) wants to ensure that no part of Obamacare is “left behind.” CREDIT: CNN.
The shameful, craven republicans aren’t even attempting to hid behind their various cowardly excuses anymore. They simply want to repeal ACA, they don’t want to replace it at all. Of course, this is hardly news to people who have been paying attention.
Last week, CNN obtained a draft Congressional Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act with a plan that would replace subsidies with smaller tax credits, allow insurance to charge senior citizens more, decimate Medicaid, and cause millions of Americans to lose their coverage altogether.
On Monday and Tuesday, however, a trio of prominent House Republicans made it clear that even this bill was not conservative enough for them. While the bill would mean the loss of health insurance for millions of Americans, they object to provisions in the bill that would help some people remain covered.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), who chairs the House Freedom Caucus (a group of a few dozen of the most conservative Republicans in Congress), announced on Monday that he could not support that proposal because included refundable tax credits to help people pay for health insurance and some tax increases. “A new Republican president signs a new entitlement and a new tax increase as his first major piece of legislation? I don’t know how you support that — do you?” he asked, adding that many members of his caucus would be willing to vote against the leaked draft.
Rep. Mark Walker, another North Carolina Republican and chair of the Republican Study Committee (a group that calls itself the “conservative caucus of House Republicans” and includes more than 170 of the 238-member GOP majority), followed suit soon after.
“The draft legislation, which was leaked last week, risks continuing major Obamacare entitlement expansions and delays any reforms,” Walker said, adding that the proposal “kicks the can down the road in the hope that a future Congress will have the political will and fiscal discipline to reduce spending that this Congress apparently lacks.” He said he would urge colleagues to oppose the proposal.
On Tuesday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), joined the pile-on. He told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that he presumed the leaked plan did not include entirely “hard facts,” but said the he wants to see only “a full, 100% repeal of Obamacare.” “I don’t want any of it left behind,” he explained, because “a free people that are the recipients of God-given liberty… have had our health taken over by the federal government.”
Think Progress has the full story, and video, if you can stand to watch the smug and stupid King.
A twisted cynical part of me is curious to see how the same people who constantly gloat about how defeated and powerless the democratic party is are gonna instantly pivot to claiming the ACA repeal being a trainwreck is all the democrats fault.
If these people tried this kind of shit in my country, they’d have a lynch mob of millions going after them; just ask our “esteemed” ex-president Fernando de la Rua who had to escape in a helicopter after wrecking the economy.
No, seriously. This is so evil that, living in a place with at least some degree of universal healthcare, I cannot wrap my head around it. How can you not consider healthcare a right? How can you envision a functional society without it? Oh yeah, I’m thinking functional in the wrong way, aren’t I?
Kreator:
I wish to fuck that would happen here. If ever a government needs to be overthrown, it’s this one.
Much as I don’t like to say it, the US needs a revolution.
Here people are outraged when healthcare doesn’t cover everything (sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong). Nobody even gives a thought about it. It’s taken as a given.
Charly:
Much as I don’t like to say it, the US needs a revolution
Looks that way.
I just hope that everyone who has a fatal condition and no healthcare for it, takes a rifle and goes to Washington to show their displeasure.
Yep.
There’s also a long and constant fight against the government for more funding for things like cancer therapy or state-funded operations (there’s a quota with extremely long lines), but all that can happen because there’s a base of healthcare in place.
Like me: Monday, I went to see my doctor because of my persistent sinus infection, and she didn’t even give me a choice about taking time off work. It was: “I’ve registered your sick leave paperwork, now here’s your perscription. Send the kids off to school, sleep all day. No work for a week.” I still feel kind of bad for thinking the medication was expensive (I paid 20 euros for a week’s worth of antibiotics plus some painkillers because we’re running out). And when the sick leave ends, I will submit the paperwork and the government will pay me for the days of work that I missed. And I can’t get fired for it, even if my sick leave extends into months and months. I can even get sick leave due to ill children, in which case the state will actually end up reimbursing me more money than I would have gotten while working that same amount of time. Why people hate on the nanny state, I don’t know.
The system has issues, especially with funding and doctors’ salaries (EMT makes barely over the minimum wage, which is less than 400 the month) and de-funding rural hospitals (this one and de-funding rural schools, I could go on), but in general? Its foundation is fucking awesome, and for the most part, it works, because I’m not afraid to be sick (I don’t like it). There’s a shitload of other external stressors, but that one isn’t.
Anyway, that’s a long story.
In the end, I would like to see how many of these high-placed politicians will lead by example and take themselves off the ACA even before they manage to repeal it. You know, put their faith in the freedom and liberty they’ve been granted by god and all that.
Give me Liberty! And Death!
rq
Sounds like here. Doctors AND employers have a duty of care. If your employer thinks you are not fit for work they have to send you home, even call a taxi if they think you’re unable to drive.
The idea of “rationed” sick days is alien to us. Of course there are problems, employers can fire you for repeated sickness, but it’s not something that happens for a common cold or something.
Same down here. Last year I tripped while I was walking to work and broke my foot. Since I was on my way to work, that counted as a work-related accident, and thus I was given sick leave until whenever the doctor decided that I was fully recuperated. I ended up on paid leave for over a month, and during that time the cost of all the medications and medical procedures that I needed were fully covered by my employer’s insurance.
Kreator:
Here, there is no way in hell that worker’s comp would ever cover that. If you don’t injure yourself at work, not covered, and it can take a long time to get coverage.
Yep, commute is covered. Just don’t make a detour.
There’s a few complicated regulations as to who has to pay what when, but basically, somebody pays.
For example, you can be barred from your job because you might pose a risk. For example my mum in law once tested positive for salmonella and even though she was not sick, she worked in a canteen and was therefore not allowed to work. Or if one of the kids had lice I wouldn’t be allowed to work in school until the household was declared lice free. There’s a system of who pays but you get your full pay for 6 weeks.
That only works when most of the population is against the current fascist ruling class. Grossly approximately, about half the US really likes the current fascist ruling class. Thus, a more “accurate” statement would be “the US needs a civil war”.
Of course, obviously a civil war is really, really shitty.
I don’t know what to do.
To put in some agreement about healthcare:
Some time ago I went to my doctor for a terrible pain. That’s a cost of tens of dollars.
(Some time earlier I went to my doctor because I had a birthmark that looked elevated and itched. Same cost then, even though they thought I was silly. )
But on this later occasion they said “Yes, that’s a boil where it hurts the most, here’s your ER slip.”
And then I went to the ER, and they said “Yes, that’s a boil where it hurts the most, this is your first dose of morphine, surgery will come as soon as possible, push the red button for more morphine.”
And then I had surgery (with some piercing-related demands, no less), with some high-class drugs, let me tell you.
And an over-night stay (no cable, though). Some more tens of dollars there. Free lunch though. Although I didn’t eat anything more that a chicken soup. Opiates, man.
(And had I been employed I would have gotten a minimum of a week of sick leave, but as it were I chose unemployment insurance over sick leave from it to minimise bureaucracy nonsense)
And then there was a check-up. Tens more of dollars.
And another bit of surgery. Tens more of dollars.
All in all, I needed another (non-emergency) meeting with a doctor that year to exceed the boundary of maximum payment. This is less than $150. It does not, however, include drug costs. That is a separate account of up to $250-ish. So I had to pay full price for my paracetamol-laced codeine.
Total cost for two surgeries, two doctor’s visits and a handful of drugs: US$160 or thereabouts.
Our right-wing parties do try to to change our system into The American One, although they try to do it through enabling private actors and cutting down on funding to the public hospitals. They wouldn’t ever dare to actually remove public healthcare, though, because even those dullards understand the threat of public opinion.