Donald Trump has decided to cut the federal subsidies that helped make the insurance premiums on the health exchanges more affordable. But the people who will be most adversely affected by this move tend to live in states that voted for Trump last year.
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Pete Dolack estimates that about $1.4 trillion dollars are siphoned out of the US health care system each year because of its private, for-profit nature, more than enough to pay for a single-payer system. How does he arrive at this figure? He calculates the average per-capita expenditure on health care for Britain, Canada, France, and Germany for the years 2011 to 2016 and arrives at $4,392 per year. For the US the figure is more than twice that at $8,924. If you take the difference and multiply that by the US population of 317 million, the excess comes out to $1.44 trillion.
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My personality is such that once I start work on solving a problem or fixing some thing, however trivial it is, I will carry it out to its conclusion, usually working on it straight with hardly a break. This is true with yard work, work around the house, writing projects, science and math problems, anything. Once I start, and as long as I believe that I can succeed and that effort and my own skills should be sufficient in arriving at a satisfactory solution, it becomes a kind of obsession and I will plug away until I see it through to the end.
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As the Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump try to round up 50 votes to pass the Graham-Cassidy health care denying bill in opposition to pretty much everyone except themselves and their most rabid supporters, they are trying to bribe those senators who are as yet reluctant to support it, such as Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski, by carving out special provisions for that state that would make it more palatable to her.
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There will be a town hall style debate on the new health care bill on Monday at 9:00pm on CNN. It will feature Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy on one side and Bernie Sanders and Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar on the other. It should be a good debate since I doubt that any senator has studied the issue of health care more than Sanders. But unfortunately I don’t get cable TV and will have to read about it later.
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It turns out that even the major players in the health industry don’t like the Graham-Cassidy bill.
Backers of the GOP Graham-Cassidy health-care bill — Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., plus President Trump via Twitter — maintain it doesn’t touch protections for those with pre-existing conditions. And Cassidy also says the legislation will cover MORE people than current law does.
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Jimmy Kimmel excoriates the senator from Louisiana who is the co-author of the so-called Graham-Cassidy health care bill that the Republicans are trying to jam through Congress with minimal debate before the September 30the deadline. Cassidy had earlier promised Kimmel and millions of others that any bill that he proposed would provide a list of protections for people but what he is actually proposing has none of them. Kimmel delivers a righteous rant on the topic, explaining clearly why this bill is so bad and why it must be defeated.
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We can expect to see a flurry of activity concerning health care within the next two weeks. The reason is that according to the arcane rules of the US Senate, changes to Obamacare that need only 50 votes to pass must not only be within certain parameters but must also be passed by September 30. After that, any changes must go through the normal process and will require 60 votes to break a filibuster and the Republicans have only 52 votes.
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One sign that Bernie Sanders’s single-payer health care plan is more substantial than earlier efforts is the quick and angry response of the parasitic health industry. They seem to be fearful that this movement might gain steam and are seeking to nip it in the bud. The major health insurance companies are already out with strong statements.
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