feckless impotent
'Death by poverty' in Idaho
Idaho is one of the red states that refused Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling in 2012 that saved the law as a whole, but further politicized Medicaid and condemned millions of people to being without health insurance—and condemned some to death. Idahoan Jenny Steinke is dead, killed by an asthma attack, but more specifically killed by the Republican party. Steinke died on September 1, the day her husband's brand new insurance from the only job either of them has had that offered benefits kicked in. Steinke had been self-treating her asthma buy getting short-acting inhalers when she could from a community health clinic, and by buying extra short-acting inhalers from friends. Because she wasn't being treated regularly for her asthma, here's what she didn't know.
“Several times a week I see people who have delayed medical care because they don’t have coverage, either Medicaid or insurance,” said Ken Krell, director of critical care at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center.“They put off being seen until it’s really dire,” he said. “It’s a very common occurrence.” […]Jenny’s inhaler was no longer working. She would’ve soon started to feel like she was suffocating, Krell said. She walked next door to a retired neighbor she was friends with, Richard Kelley, and asked him to drive her to the hospital. She knew she was having an asthma attack, Kelley said, but hadn’t initially seemed overly distressed or out of breath.
“With asthma, if you use the short-acting inhalers you get some relief,” Krell said. “But if you keep accelerating the use, the effect is shorter and shorter and eventually you become refractory to it.”
Just three minutes into their drive to the hospital, she was no longer breathing. She was put on a respirator for three days, but it wasn't enough. Too much damage had been done to her brain from the lack of oxygen during that asthma attack. She died a completely preventable death. It was, as her mother-in-law Clella Steinke said, "death by poverty."
"This is how poverty treats people, when they're up and down, back and forth, trying to make it," Clella said. "Without medical care, you don't make it very far."Except it's not poverty that killed her son's wife. Indifference to poverty is what caused this random and totally preventable death, and that indifference has names and faces attached: Republicans.
It's Idaho's Gov. Butch Otter, who has repeatedly refused to consider expanded Medicaid even after a working group he appointed to explore the program recommended it, twice.
It's every elected Republican in the state of Idaho and all of the people who voted for them.
It's Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
They killed Jenny Steinke by refusing her the simple, inexpensive luxury of getting regular treatment for her very common health condition.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/31/1440258/--Death-by-poverty-in-Idaho?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_ca mpaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29
Exactly the same murderous truth for you Texians who vote in sociopathic, hate-filled, misogynistic TX Repugs
Last edited by boutons_deux; 10-31-2015 at 08:27 PM.
Obamacare opponents are now targeting protections for preexisting conditions
a slew of recent attacks has taken aim at what one would think is the law's most sacrosanct provision. That's the protection of insurance customers with preexisting medical conditions, otherwise known as "guaranteed issue."
The Affordable Care Act forbids insurers to refuse coverage, or charge higher premiums, to anyone for medical reasons, a practice known as medical underwriting. Insurers can charge higher rates to smokers or older applicants, within limits. The act's counterbalance to guaranteed issue is its individual mandate, which aims to ensure that younger, healthy persons buy into the national health insurance pool to help cover the older, sicker buyers who don't need any outside incentive.
Protection against preexisting-condition exclusions is a core guarantee of Obamacare, and one that consistently garners the greatest public approval. In a Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll in March 2014, some 70% of respondents had a favorable view of the rule, a result that spanned political coloration -- even 69% of Republicans were in favor. (See chart below.)
Yet now the ACA's solution to the "preexisting" problem is being seen as an Obamacare problem. The conservative market-oriented Mercatus Center at George Mason Universityhas convened a group of conservative economists to address the issue, which it calls "America's thorniest healthcare challenge." Their papers, most of which are online, will be packaged into an ebook next week. More on their prescriptions in a moment.
Then there's a recent op-ed by Kathy Hoekstra, a former spokesman for the Herman Cain presidential campaign
Disallowing pricing based on preexisting conditions is like mandating that Las Vegas has to accept bets on the Super Bowl after the game is over.- Kathy Hoekstra, Detroit News op-ed writer
She continues, "disallowing pricing based on preexisting conditions is like mandating that Las Vegas has to accept bets on the Super Bowl after the game is over."
This is an utterly faulty comparison: The ACA doesn't allow anyone to wait until after a diagnosis to buy insurance, but allows purchases only during the annual open enrollment period for coverage starting the following Jan. 1. Open enrollment for 2016 has just begun. Of course, the ACA's individual mandate is designed to avoid the free-rider problem of people waiting until they're sick to buy insurance.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hilt...04-column.html
Oh, well, liberals at the universities and unions wanted Obamacare - have fun with this and the cadillac tax.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/12/mi...bamacare-cuts/
Let's recap hilariously wrong Republican predictions about Obamacare
In light of the latest GOP proclamation of Obamacare DOOOM, why don't we take a look back at a handful of their past predictions, just to remind us how wrong these people constantly are?John
Boehner, 1/6/2011:
When you step back and look at the totality of this, I don't think it's ever going to work.
Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 11/13/2013:
In the next 90 days, the Obama administration will have to declare victory and then abandon most of Obamacare. The legislation defies the laws of physics.
Bill Kristol, 11/3/2013:
Obamacare is failing and will fail. And I'm very much looking forward to being on this show [Meet the Press] with [David Axelrod] in January of 2017 when finally all of Obamacare is repealed."
Rep. Paul Broun, 10/07/2013:
America is going to be destroyed by Obamacare, so whatever deal is put together must at least reschedule the implementation of Obamacare. This law is going to destroy America and everything in America, and we need to stop it.
Glenn Beck, 11/19/2009:
This is the end of prosperity in America forever, if this passes. This is the end of America as you know it.
Tom Coburn, 10/13/2010:
There will be no insurance industry left in three years. That is by design. You’re going to make insurance unaffordable for everyone — which is what they want. Because if there’s no private insurance left, what’s left? Government-centered, government-run, single-payer health care.
Rush Limbaugh, 2/6/2014:
This is horrible for our country ... an absolute tragedy ... It breaks my heart folks to see this literal tragedy happen to this country ... Obamacare is going to cost this country two and half million jobs minimum."
John Boehner, 7/15/2012:
ObamaCare is only making our economy worse, driving up health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire.
Rand Paul, 2/20/2015:
I think that what’s going to come out of ObamaCare is worse than anybody can imagine. I think it will lead to bankruptcy in the states that are fully embracing it.
Scott Walker, 2/20/2015:
In a 2013 interview with CNBC's Larry Kudlow, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker argued that Obamacare was hampering the economic recovery."They made a promise that nobody could actually deliver on, not just in terms of the website, but on the overall policy of Obamacare, which is an abysmal failure," Walker told Kudlow, adding, "It's not only a failure for Obamacare, it is continuing to be a wet blanket on the recovery of the nation's economy."
"Firm after firm telling the White House, the administration this isn't going to work," Walker went on. "It's either one of those things where there not listening to the facts, or they're not being informed, in either case, it's troubling."
"Troubling," Kudlow chimed in, "No CEO experience whatsoever."
There are definitely two sides to our politics today, and they are "right" and "wrong." In a sane world, that whole "wrong" crowd would never have a platform or be treated seriously again.It's also amazing how resilient the law has been in the face of persistent and pervasive obstruction and resistance from the GOP, from refusing to expand Medicare Medicaid in all states, to a blizzard of legal challenges, to propagandizing its own supporters from taking advantage of the law's benefits. And yet it keeps trucking on.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/3/1443846/-Let-s-recap-hilariously-wrong-Republican-predictions-about-Obamacare
Good to see MSM finally writing about the unaffordability of this law:
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/14/new-y...t-useless.html
unaffordability is 100% due to what the insurance companies charge, not to ACA which doesn't set prices.
get back to with instances of Wall St/BigFinance/VRWC pimp CNBC es about the insurance companies overcharging decades before ACA.
For boutons - from Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-ka...b_8586192.html
"Dan is the founder and CEO of ValChoice, an insurance analytics company."
the insurance industry WROTE ACA, to enrich itself, so naturally no surprise if the insurance industry WANTS it to fail, always in their favor.
USA health care scam is just one of the many jobs that makes America ed and un able.
some if not all of the state co-ops have failed due to Repugs cutting funding, which is natural since Repugs everything the touch and everyone associated.
Bernie has the answer in universal health insurance, but he doesn't make the laws, the health care industry does.
Obamacare made 'em do it!!
More Big Pharma outrage after 2,000% overnight price hike on an infant seizure medication
In 2014, global pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt acquired Questcor Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Synacthen Depot—a drug critical to the treatment of seizures in infants. It is used to treat a rare form of epilepsy:
The price of drug prescribed to infants in Canada with a rare and potentially dangerous form of epilepsy has jumped by 2,000 per cent practically overnight, upsetting specialists and parents.
Infantile spasms, also called West syndrome, is a catastrophic and rare form of epilepsy. It's diagnosed in babies with seizures that show abnormal bursts in the brain's electrical activity on an electroencephalogram or EEG.
The price went from $35 per vial to $801 per vial, raising the six-week treatment price from $750 to $17,000.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015...n?detail=email
Repugs DEATH PANELS killing women
Maternal Mortality Down Worldwide, Except in United States
There has been a 44 percent decrease in the worldwide maternal mortality rate over the past 25 years,
the United States is one of 13 countries that saw maternal mortality rates rise during this period.
In 1990, 12 women died for every 100,000 births in the United States. Now that number is 14, meaning that the country’s maternal mortality rate is double that of Canada.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/20...ality+Check%29
capitalists unhappy with reduced wealth extraction from the diseases of the 99%
The country's largest private health insurer throws a 'tantrum' over lower profits
UnitedHealth Group, the country's largest private health insurer, has discovered that sick people tend to go to the doctor.
And that means bills to pay.
And that's bad for the company's bottom line.So UnitedHealth said Thursday that because of the "continuing deterioration" of its profits from Obamacare, it may quit offering coverage through the system by 2017.
In its next breath, UnitedHealth stressed that it "remains a strong supporter of sustainable efforts to ensure access to affordable, quality care for all Americans."
But, well, business is business. The company's concerned that it might not see the same $1.6 billion in profit that it pocketed in the third quarter.
Supporters of healthcare reform will view UnitedHealth's warning as further proof that for-profit companies shouldn't be making money off the sick.
Critics will see evidence of Obamacare's failed promise of fixing a broken healthcare system.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20151120-column.html
Another huge, wealth-sucking up that isn't caused by ACA
Report: Some Prescription Drugs Now Cost More Than Household Incomes
Prices have skyrocketed on certain drugs for complex diseases like cancer.
The average annual retail cost of certain specialty pharmaceuticals now exceeds the median U.S. household income. These drugs are used to treat complex diseases such as multiple sclerosis, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis,
They found that roughly 576,000 Americans spent more than the median household income on prescription medications in 2014—up a whopping 63% from 2013. In 2014, the last year for which data is available, median household income was $53,657. The number of patients with costs exceeding $100,000 a year nearly tripled in 2014 to 140,000. In total, the extra cost burden, according to the study, is about $52 billion annually.
Put plainly: certain life-saving drugs are rapidly getting obscenely expensive. Even though most people don't pay the full retail cost of drugs, as the Washington Post notes, the effects begin to add up:
A study this year by the pharmacy benefit company Express Scripts, for example, found that in 2014, patients whose pharmacy bills were more than $100,000 that year paid less than 2 percent of their costs—on average, $2,782 out of pocket. Insurance plans and employers shouldered the rest, although those costs are ultimately passed on to patients in the form of higher premiums.
Predictably, the makers of the drugs in question are pushing back against the study's findings. Holly Campbell, a spokesperson for the pharmaceutical trade group PhRMA, told the Washington Post that the study is flawed because it did not, "take into account the discounts and rebates that are applied to drugs through the negotiations between drug manufacturers."
A surprising two-thirds of drug spending for patients whose costs exceed $100,000 in 2014 was on medications that treat hepa is C and cancer.
You can see a comparison between how many people with certain illnesses spend more than $100,000 a year retail on specialty drugs versus those with the same ailments who do not spend this amount below:
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...sehold-incomes
In my experience, high blood pressure is very difficult to control with diet (without medication), but high blood cholesterol and diabetes (type II) respond very well to a high fat, low carb diet.
definitions matter:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...d-elusive.html
Repeal and replace that pos
1. Tort reform - loser pays ALL - that'll cut down on frivolous lawsuits
2. Sell across state lines like Geico, Progressive
3. Cheap catastrophic policies
4. All prices posted
5. HSA at birth to be funded with tax-free dollars - can be shared with anyone/invested - can be passed on to heirs - that'll discourage extending end-of-life care.
6. Use those billions wasted on website, subsidies - give blocks to states to decide/experiment how to use for pre-existing conditions, poor.
Welcome to $80 diagnostic mammograms and $80 bilateral breast ultrasounds (cash - no insurance company involved, no extra employee to handle insurance, fierce compe ion with comparison shopping).
This REALLY pisses off Repugs, racists. America is exclusively for white Europeans IMMIGRANTS.
UMD study shows that Affordable Care Act has reduced racial/ethnic health disparities
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has significantly improved insurance coverage and use of health care for African Americans and Latinos, according to a new study led by researchers in the University of Maryland School of Public Health.
"Since the ACA took effect in 2014, the rates of uninsured African Americans and Latinos were reduced by 7%, as compared to 3% for whites," explains Dr. Jie Chen, assistant professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at Maryland.
"We also found that these groups were more likely to visit a primary care doctor and receive timely health care than before the ACA coverage began."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-uss120215.php
HealthCare.gov sign-ups exceed last year's pace: officials
U.S. government health officials said on Wednesday that enrollment in 2016 individual insurance through the HealthCare.gov website is higher than it was a year ago at this time, with 1 million new customers signed up.
The officials cited the latest enrollment data as one reason for confidence in the long-term stability of HealthCare.gov, which was created under President Barack Obama's national healthcare law and sells individual insurance plans in 37 states.
Private insurers including Anthem Inc, Aetna Inc and UnitedHealth Group Inc are among the private insurers who sell plans on HealthCare.gov and who have said they are losing money on the business.
A top health official said during a conference call with reporters that the market is robust, with more than 100 insurers selling plans there.
"I would caution you not to be overly swayed by any one or a handful of companies and whether they are making money or not," said Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...ame=healthNews
boutons, this is just the admin trying to make everything look rosy. Bottom line, when the risk corridors run out, this fiasco will have to be self-sufficient - meaning the health insurance companies will have to price the policies correctly (not depend on tax payer bailout, others making profit, etc). When that happens, the premiums will be sky high - too high for people to afford. Those who are healthy will drop out and the spiral will begin. Besides the deadline for coverage to begin Jan 1 is December 15, so to me 1 million new customers is nothing to be pumping up especially as they have said that there will be no extra enrollment period this time around (they extended it last year).
It is so easy to game this system. If you know you have a problem, say you need shoulder surgery, sign up during open enrollment, go see a specialist in January, schedule operation asap, and after 6 week rehab, cancel the policy. Or sign up, see your PCP, get all your labs, colonoscopy, pap smear, mammogram, etc done in January (ALL FREE) and cancel. How do you think any insurance company could make money with patients such as these?
Young, healthy people (usually with few assets) will do the above and take their chances. Only if you have substantial assets to protect (usually older) or have serious health problems, will you continue to sign up for this or find some other way out - like I have (health sharing ministries).
Last edited by rmt; 12-09-2015 at 05:56 PM.
risk corridors? Your asshole Rubio killed them, killed insurance companies, coops participating, and will SCREW Americans with higher premiums, deductibles.
Marco Rubio Quietly Undermines Affordable Care Act
A little-noticed health care provision that Senator Marco Rubioof Florida slipped into a giant spending law last year has tangled up the Obama administration, sent tremors through health insurance markets and rattled confidence in the durability of President Obama’s signature health law.
So for all the Republican talk about dismantling the Affordable Care Act, one Republican presidential hopeful has actually done something toward achieving that goal.
Mr. Rubio’s efforts against the so-called risk corridor provision of the health law have hardly risen to the forefront of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but his plan limiting how much the government can spend to protect insurance companies against financial losses has shown the effectiveness of quiet legislative sabotage.
The risk corridors were intended to help some insurance companies if they ended up with too many new sick people on their rolls and too little cash from premiums to cover their medical bills in the first three years under the health law. But because of Mr. Rubio’s efforts, the administration says it will pay only 13 percent of what insurance companies were expecting to receive this year. The payments were supposed to help insurers cope with the risks they assumed when they decided to participate in the law’s new insurance marketplaces.
Mr. Rubio’s talking point is bumper-sticker ready. The payments, he says, are “a taxpayer-funded bailout for insurance companies.” But without them, insurers say, many consumers will face higher premiums and may have to scramble for other coverage. Already, some insurers have shut down over the unexpected shortfall.
“Risk corridors have become a political football,” said Dawn H. Bonder, the president and chief executive of Health Republic of Oregon, an insurance co-op that announced in October it would close its doors after learning that it would receive only $995,000 of the $7.9 million it had expected from the government. “We were stable, had a growing membership and could have been successful if we had received those payments. We relied on the payments in pricing our plans, but the government reneged on its promise. I am disgusted.”
Blue Cross and Blue Shield executives have warned the administration and Congress that eliminating the federal payments could have a devastating impact on insurance markets.
Twelve of the 23 nonprofit insurance cooperatives created under the law have failed, disrupting coverage for more than 700,000 people, and co-op executives like Ms. Bonder have angrily cited the sharp reduction in federal payments as a factor in their demise.
But Mr. Rubio is pressing forward, demanding a provision in the final spending bill now under negotiation that continues the current risk corridor restrictions, or even eliminates the program altogether. That enormous spending bill is being worked out as Congress slides toward a deadline of Friday, when much of the federal government’s funding runs out.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/us/politics/marco-rubio-obamacare-affordable-care-act.html
So Rubio, Regugs up ACA, up Americans, and offer NOTHING positive.
Repugs only destroy, never build, never solve problems, except for BigCorp and the 1%
Why in the world should taxpayers subsidize insurance companies? If this pos is so AFFORDABLE, it needs to stand on its own feet - meaning with policies priced right - not with backdoor taxpayer subsidies - so that the public can see what a rotten piece of legislation it is - not sugar coated with lower premiums on the back of the taxpayers. Remember it's Obama himself who shafted the insurance companies when he agreed to and signed the budget overturning the risk corridors. Just like all the democrats in congress wanting to overturn the cadillac tax after they all voted for this pos - just because all the unions are whining.
"Why in the world should taxpayers subsidize insurance companies"
only if they lose money due to too many sick people. risk corridors subsidize poor people getting care.
affordability is not under ACA's control, the predatory, wealth-sucking insurance companies and care providers set the prices.
How many times do I have to remind you about the 85/15% rule - that the insurance companies have to spend 85% on patient care? That it is the ACA MANDATED 10 essential benefits that drive up the price - that every policy has to cover birth control pills, pap smears, pediatric dental and vision, etc regardless of whether you can use the service or not. As per Jonathan Gruber, the ACA does nothing to control the cost of health care - it tries to cover more people (mostly through Medicaid).
Poor people are on Medicaid or get subsidies - nothing to do with risk corridors.
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