Showing posts with label poor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poor. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Haslam Medicaid Plan Halted in Tennessee by Koch Brothers

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Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam stalled and waffled for two years while trying to come up with a way to expand Medicaid in Tennessee without starting a Tea Party frenzy. Last year it was obvious that the ill-fated TennCare wasn't working, but he waited until after the November elections to bring up his new plan "Insure Tenn." There was even a hint of optimism in the air last week, as hospital officials, doctors, nurses, the the disabled came to Nashville to testify before the Legislature that insuring the poorest of the poor would be good for everyone.

Coalition for a Healthy Tennessee has a great webpage on Who Falls Into the Tennessee Medicaid Gap

But they were outnumbered by loonies, including a crazy lay-preacher from Dayton, Tennessee - of Scopes Monkey Trial fame - to pray against Medicaid because it's just big government trying to oppress sick people. Just embarrassing and sad.










And another group showed up - Americans For Prosperity - goons backed by the Koch Brothers, sent to remind the Tennessee GOP where it's money comes from. Thus the Insure TN plan was doomed, and never got out of committee for a vote.

From NBC News
NASHVILLE-In December, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, got the deal he wanted from the Obama administration: Tennessee would accept more than $1 billion in federal funding to expand Medicaid, as allowed for in the Affordable Care Act, but Obama aides would allow Haslam to essentially write staunchly conservative ideas into the program's rules for the state. He dubbed the reformed Medicaid program "Insure Tennessee."

But the state's chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the national conservative group whose foundation is chaired by controversial billionaire David Koch, argued Haslam was just trying to trick conservatives into implementing Obamacare in their state by giving it a new name. AFP campaigned aggressively Haslam's plans for the next six weeks, even running radio ads blasting GOP state legislators who said they might vote for it.

. . . When the legislators walked into a hearing Tuesday morning to debate the measure, they looked out from the dais to a room packed with more than 100 people wearing red "Americans for Prosperity" t-shirts. Some of the activists had traveled on an AFP-chartered bus from Knoxville, more than two hours away, to pack the hearing well in advance of its 9:00 AM start time. . . . The sea of red crowded out representatives of the Tennessee Hospital Association, one of the big advocates of the Medicaid expansion, who were left to stand in the back or unable to get into the room at all.



From MSNBC
And what did the AFP activists have to say for themselves?
“I’m skeptical of government-run programs,” said Louis Stans, a retired engineer who was part of the AFP group. Medicare, Stans said, was “better” and he had “paid into it my whole life.”
Those two sentences tell us a great deal about the state of the debate. Here’s a retiree who doesn’t like government-run programs, instead preferring a government-run program. In other words, an AFP activist traveled to the state capitol to condemn a conservative version of Medicaid expansion, because what he really wants is a socialized system like Medicare.
Levi Russell, a national spokesperson for Americans for Prosperity, told NBC News, “I would hope other governors look at Tennessee as an example.”

And just like the government-paid goons in our national Congress who keep trying to "Repeal Obamacare," the Republicans in Tennessee have no other plan for the poor except to bill the hospitals. They got nothing.

However, Gov. Haslam, to his credit, isn't dropping the subject. He mentioned coverage for the poorest citizens in his State of the State Address. This may seem like lip service, but I actually think he means it. Whether he can persuade the Tea Party to actually vote for something that will help the state is debatable. They'd rather talk about Guns and the Bible.

From the Nashville Banner
“Last week, the decision was made not to move forward with Insure Tennessee. However, that does not mean the issues around health care go away. Too many Tennesseans are still not getting health coverage they need in the right way, in the right place, at the right time,” Haslam said in his address to top lawmakers.
“Last week, I talked about coming here not just to make a point but to make a difference. It’s about looking for answers, not just having an agenda. With great power comes great responsibility. So, though the special session has ended, I hope we can find a way to work together to address those problems,” he said.
















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Monday, May 27, 2013

#GOP Rebranding Shambles ~ Backward, Racist and Cruel

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They ought to put a sign on the (Republican) National Committee doors that says ‘Closed for repairs,’ until New Year’s Day next year and spend that time going over ideas and positive agendas.
~ Retired Senator Bob Dole, R-Kansas

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Stop Hispanic Immigration ~ We Need More White Australians

From Ann Coulter, Conservative Pundit
For decades, Mexicans have been about 30 percent of all legal immigrants to the United States, while only a smidgen more than 1 percent come from Great Britain. Is that fair? Granted, their food is better, but why is it the norm is to have nearly 30 times as many Mexican as British immigrants?
We have been taking in more immigrants from Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Colombia, individually, than from England, our mother country. There are nearly twice as many immigrants from El Salvador as from Canada, and 10 times as many as from Australia.
. . . Mexicans are the largest immigrant group in America, with about 50 million Hispanics living here legally.
Marco Rubio's amnesty bill will soon make it 80 million. First, there are at least 11 million illegal immigrants, a majority from Mexico, who will be instantly legalized. Then we'll get their entire extended families under our chain migration system.
I wouldn't want that many Japanese! I wouldn't want that many Dutch (not that there are that many Dutch)! Why do we have to become a different country? Was there a vote when the country decided to turn itself into Mexico? No other country has ever just decided to turn itself into another country like this.

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Repeal Obamacare ~ Because Death is a Miracle

From ThinkProgress
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) this week said that prayers to God will ensure Obamacare’s repeal, after 37 House of Representatives attempts to do so.

I think the President will ultimately be forced to repudiate his own signature piece of legislation because the American people will demand it,” she told an evangelical radio host Tuesday. “And I think before his second term is over, we’re going to see a miracle before our eyes, I believe God is going to answer our prayers and we’ll be freed from the yoke of Obamacare.”

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Force Women to Have Ultrasounds ~ But Don't Accept the Results

Via San Antonio Express-News
At least 24 abortion-related bills were filed this session (in the Texas Legislature), some of which garnered the support of Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Three marquee proposals for anti-abortion lawmakers failed to gain traction: a bill that would have banned abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, a bill that would increase regulations for abortion facilities and a bill that would require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 50 miles.
. . . Last session — with an early boost from Perry — Republicans pushed proposals that forced women to undergo sonograms 24 hours prior to having an abortion and that slashed millions of dollars to family planning services.

Via Salon.com
At a Thursday congressional committee hearing on a proposed ban on abortion at 20 weeks in Washington, D.C., Christy Zink, a mother of two, testified how the measure would harm women who require late-term abortion care due to fetal abnormalities and other potentially fatal complications.
. . . In response to Zink’s testimony, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, expressed “sympathy” for Zink, then accused her of “ripping apart” her fetus:
Ms. Zink, having my great sympathy and empathy both. I still come back wondering, shouldn’t we wait … and see if the child can survive before we decide to rip him apart? So, these are ethical issues, they’re moral issues, they’re difficult issues, and the parents should certainly be consulted. But it just seems like, it’s a more educated decision if the child is in front of you to make those decisions.

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Contraception is Bad ~ For All Kinds of Scary Made-Up Reasons

From ThinkProgress
Republican Party of Virginia Treasurer Bob FitzSimmonds, a former aide to and “very close friend” of gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli II (R), told Virginia blogger Ben Tribbett that he is “not a big fan of contraception, frankly.”
. . . “I think there are some issues, we’re giving morning-after pills to 12-year-olds, and pretty soon I guess we’ll hand them out to babies, I don’t know.”
. . . “I believe that we don’t recognize the causal effect between the type of sex education that we’ve been giving and the spread of STDs. We focus on things like abortion, cause it’s a big pressure thing. I go into schools 15-20 times a year, I run a non-profit that goes into schools and talks to kids about sex. They’re all abortion and HIV. HIV’s kind of hard to catch. Abortion happens if you get pregnant. But we’re on the track for 50 percent of the American people to have Herpes by the time these kids are my age. And that is a profound — not only health but sociological crisis facing this country.”

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Jesus Wept ~ The Bible Tells Me to Ignore the Poor

NBC News
During contentious debate over the Farm Bill, which funds food stamps, in the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif., invoked the Book of Matthew as he noted his opposition to the cuts.
“[Jesus] says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that’s how you treat him,” Vargas, adding that Jesus specifically mentions the importance of feeding the hungry.
Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, who supports cuts to the program, had his own Bible verse from the Book of Thessalonians to quote back to Vargas: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,” he said.

From Daily Kos
Now, this would not normally be worthy of mention. Hardly a day goes by without some Republican sadist expressing fury that poor people have it so good. Devising new ways to make the peasants suffer is what makes Republicans wake up in the morning. What's fascinating about this particular case, though, is Fincher's background.
The reason this is even more egregious than the usual Republican class warfare is that Fincher himself is a poster boy for government dependency. It's not just that he's benefited here and there from some government help. That sort of low-level hypocrisy is almost to be expected from these types. But Fincher has received millions - $3.2 million as of June 2010 - in federal crop subsidies.

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Danger! ~ Lowering Grocery Tax Will Lead the Poor to Buy More Food

Via Raw Story
The Kansas state Senate on Thursday voted to cut the state sales tax on food from 6.3 percent to 4.95 percent, but Sen. Jeff Melcher (R) led opposition against the measure, arguing that it would lead to people eating more.
“It seems to me we are encouraging the behavior of purchasing food and discouraging the behavior of purchasing anything else,” Melcher reportedly told his colleagues.
. . . “It seems to me it provides a complexity in the tax code that the retailers will have to deal with,”

State Rep. Barbara Bollier (R-Mission Hills) via Huffington Post
I have no words. That's just beyond comprehension to me. We each get to think what we want to think. But this is so far out there that I can't believe someone said it. It's frightening, that's what it is.
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