When your child is born, you learn he has major congenital defects for which there are no known causes.
He needs surgeries. Long-term care. Eventually, perhaps, a transplant.
He has the surgeries, but the long-term care is still required. Medications. Your insurance pays, but even so, your savings dwindle.
Then you learn your employer-provided care has a lifetime limit, and your son, only a few years into life, has reached his limit.
Your child is no longer covered.
And your child now needs a transplant.
You could quit your job. Try to find another. Pray the new employer's group plan doesn't reject your child because of his preexisting condition--because you know you could never buy insurance for your child on the open market.
You'll do anything for your child. Beg on the street if you have to. Beg on the streets of America so your child can have a transplant and live. Without the transplant, he'll die. But the surgery will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars that you don't have.
Under the healthcare reform bill just passed in Congress and signed into law by President Obama--without a single Republican vote, it is illegal for insurers to
- impose lifetime caps on individuals;
- refuse to cover your child because of his preexisting condition; and
- drop your child because he needs a transplant.
Don't believe me? Read for yourself.
"Oh," they say, "we don't want to just defund and repeal. We want to replace." But replace with what?
Do they want to preserve the ban on lifetime caps?
Do they want to preserve the ban on dropping your child's coverage when he becomes ill?
Do they want to preserve the ban on refusing coverage for preexisting conditions?
Regarding that last one, you can be pretty sure the answer is "no."
No, check that. Not no. "Hell no."
The Tea Party and the Republican Party want you to be outraged by the idea of a smoking, drinking, Ding-Dong-stuffing fattie signing up for healthcare insurance in the ambulance on the way to the hospital to be treated for a heart attack.
It's the healthcare equivalent of the "welfare queen," the jobless woman on welfare driving her Cadillac to use her food stamps to get steaks at the grocery store--the grocery store that is, of course, in the ghetto.
Can't have healthcare queens.
So too bad for your child.
Why?
"Freedom," they say.
Before the healthcare bill was signed into law, 45,000 people died each year because of lack of coverage.
One of those people could be your child.
But, but, that's an extreme scenario!
No it isn't.
Congenital heart disease occurs in 1 of every 100 births.
Congenital defects in general occur in 3 out of every 100 births.
Shrugging and saying, "Well, that's a tough one there" just isn't good enough.
27 Comments:
No it's not extreme. It's been one of my biggest worries for 16 years as my daughter becomes an adult.
My daughter was born with multiple congenital heart defects. She had multiple surgeries and she's fine now. But the worry is still there.
Two things that put me at some ease with the passing of health reform is that 1: She can't be turned down for insurance because of her pre-existing condition and 2: I can keep her on my coverage until she's 26, when I hope she will have suitable coverage to keep a watch for possible future issues as a result of her pre-existing condition.
My cousin essentially was born with failing kidneys. Live years on dialysis, and got a transplant at 18. Lived relatively healthy since then. But it took him a decade to find a job. Sure they say he wasn't rejected due to his pre-existing condition, but that's in the back of every business's mind and it is a factor. Finally he got a city job and has health care. But should he ever get laid off, where would he be? He still has a $1000+ in meds a month to take.
It doesn't just stop at being a child. Conditions you are born with have a presumed lifetime consequence and as a nation we should be able to provide at least the basic health care to keep future and pre-existing conditions in check.
I wish I were blissfully ignorant as Tea Partiers seem to be.
Insurance is a pretty neat idea. Somebody else agrees to give you a big pot of money under certain unlikely circumstances, and you agree to pay them a much smaller amount of money regardless. You get peace of mind, and - now pay attention, because this next part is important - they make money.
The insurance company has to make money. Not making money is bad for business. A business that does not make money will often go out of business (unless it has enough political muscle to get a big pile of taxpayer money from the Democrats, but I digress).
When you tell an insurance company there is a small chance that they will be on the hook for an unlimited liability, statistically you're telling them that they are on the hook for an unlimited liability. So you're telling them they can't make money. You're telling them they will go out of business. What does everybody do for insurance then?
You don't really want insurance, though. You want somebody else to pay for your expenses, and you're willing to destroy anything that stands in your way. The insurance companies have money, and by Obama you'll take it from them and do what is right.
You say 45,000 people died last year due to lack of coverage. I bet that's not what's listed as cause of death, but let's take that number for the sake of argument. Suppose each of them could have been saved with an average of a million dollars during that year. That's a $45 billion problem, and you want to completely overturn a $2 trillion sector of the economy to fix it. You're a fool.
In essence you want to feed your own moral vanity by having the government extract money at gunpoint from me, my children and grandchildren to pay for someone else's misfortune, instead of ponying up yourself.
Cheap, cowardly bastard, having the .gov do what you are too chicken to do yourself.
Does it ever give you pause? I'm talking about the concept that a right-winger can answer NO to the question, won't you help sick children get/keep healthcare coverage? What is going on there? Are they that cold, immoral? I found a video done by Professor Haidt of U of VA, on the moral roots of conservatives and liberals, which really sheds light. Not short, but funny, interesting, and well worth a look.
Here is the link:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
Anonymous,
Interesting when someone anonymous calls someone else a cowardly bastard.
I do want to contribute to a system that will help with someone else's misfortune--mine and yours.
If you'd rather live by the law of the jungle, Somalia seems just the place for "brave" anonymous souls like yourself.
Why do insurance companies need to make money?
Oh, that's right. They're businesses. It is their business to make money.
It isn't their business to ensure that their customers are well served. In fact, it is in their best interest to ensure that they do whatever is within their power to pay out as little money as possible.
So they can, you know, make money.
And if that means limiting the amount of coverage they're willing to pay for, well, they'll do that.
And if it means canceling someone's policy because that person is high risk, well, they'll do that, too.
If it means denying someone coverage because they may have a pre-existing condition, that's something they will do, too.
The thing is that, when you're the one making the money, and you're also the one who gets to decide what you'll cover and what you won't, well, it gets very convenient to say that, hey, a lot of people in this state are getting cancer. We should drop all our policies there.
Because we're not making enough money.
Or this bunch, which has been using their coverage a lot lately. We'll just drop their policies.
We have to protect our shareholders.
And, hey, while we're at it, let's just say that this woman's broken arm was a "pre-existing condition."
Because we're a business. And the only reason a business exists, the only thing a business cares about, the only value that matters to a business is the bottom line.
All insurance companies care about is profit.
So, it's all right that we have to put our health and lives in their hands. It's perfectly fine that we have to put the health and lives and futures of our spouses and our children in their hands.
But asking the government to get involved? Expecting everyone in a country that is supposed to value each and every citizen to contribute to what is, basically, an insurance policy? Thinking that a government of the people, by the people and for the people might find it in the best interests of the country as a whole to ensure that everyone can have access to adequate health care?
Well, that's just socialism.
Conservatives care about one thing, and one thing only; securing profits from all the rest of us to enrich the already wealthiest five percent of the population. They have succeeded in convincing a generation of sheep that this is only right and proper, a generation that continually works against its own best interests in order to strengthen the increasing, almost feudal, between the wealthy and everyone else.
They have been led to believe, to completely internalize the idea that greed is good.
When the last of the barbarians have finally pillaged the last of the kingdom's castles, and the lights have finally gone out for good, I wonder how many of these conservative dupes will be standing around saying how glad they were that the strong were free to plunder the weak.
Morons.
"I do want to contribute to a system that will help with someone else's misfortune--mine and yours."
You are free to contribute as much as you want. Contribute your entire income, if you like. Make your check out to "U.S. Treasury".
Problem is, you are too selfish to do that. Your selfishness and sense of moral superiority is so boundless, you have no compunction about armed agents of the government compelling me and my children to "contribute" to your sense of smug well-being.
I don't want you to contribute anything toward my misfortune, potential or actual. I just want you to leave me the hell alone, and keep your damned hands out of my wallet.
Not so anonymous anymore,
ExNavyDoc
When the last of the leftists have finally pillaged the last of the productive citizens, and the lights have finally gone out for good, I wonder how many of these socialist dupes will be standing around saying how glad they were that the government and unions were free to plunder the taxpayer.
There, fixed it for ya.
Dear heroes: I love your brave souls. But I think you're missing the mark when it comes to courage. I want to help you. A couple tips for "Anonymous" and "bagates." First, use your real names and websites. Have confidence in your convictions.
I think the crux of your problem is the fact that you are struggling to find a cause now that they you no longer support the troops based on the executive changeover. You need a new direction. Sending white haired bigots on mass to rally against universal health care (while collecting medicare) while holding aloft bigoted slogans isn't courage. It's "All in the Family." Ever watch that show? A tip: Archie wasn't courageous. That was satire.
The fact that the Republican party is dying is actually alarming to me, as they're so much more fun to watch now that their man-child no longer has his fingers on the button.
Couple of more tips: preventing sick people from seeing a doctor isn't really that courageous. And harassing desperately poor people who sneak into the country to clean your motel room: not so courageous either. Preventing gay people who live together and raise kids from calling themselves married: nope. Stringing up IRS bean counters: nah. Flying your small plane into a building because you're pissed about taxes: not really brave, more like insane. Joining a militia and carrying a gun around in the woods on the weekends, not brave (*unless you joined the National Guard, then you're pretty fucking brave). Closing down schools so that you can cut taxes on corporations: not so brave either.
So as you amble about anonymously holding aloft the banner of courage, pragmatism and good old fashioned tough love, think a bit about your causes and find something that doesn't make you look like complete clueless assholes.
Then maybe you can slow the decline of your party a bit. Because once the sign-weidling old timers eat it, you're pretty much done.
Dave,
"Dear heroes: (blah, blah, blah; lots of mischaraterization and ad hominem snipped)"
Brevity is the soul of wit, especially when trying to communicate with sign "weidling" old-timers carrying guns 'n stuff. Our minds tend to wander, ya know. Might want to remember that for next time, skippy.
Dude mocks a typo and then makes one himself!
You guys should quit feeding the troll. Maybe he'll go crawl back under his rock. Or maybe he'll start his own blog where he can write his deep thoughts instead of skulking around on other people's sites.
He sounds so full of rage that he has to be just one more good blowup from a brain aneurysm and dirt nap anyway. I just hope he doesn't go postal before that.
Hey, I've got an excuse. I'm a sign-carrying white-haired bigoted old-timer, remember?
Or am I an ill-educated redneck bitter clinger?
Or is it product of entrenched white privilege?
Dang, I lost track.
You lefties demonize so many of your fellow Americans, I forget which group I'm supposed to belong to this week.
Guess I'll have to check with Rush for this week's marching orders...
Well, I would say you're good for some weekend comic relief, but while part of me is laughing, the other half is weeping for my country.
"...while part of me is laughing, the other half is weeping for my country."
You and me both, Bub; you and me both...
That in addition to cowardly anonymous trolling, anyway.
Chief.
BGates made good points. ExNavyDoc did too, in as much as folks do tend to be more generous with other people's money than their own.
Unfortunately perhaps, they used name calling, once each. It decreases credibility.
What about the other side, did you lot rise above? Your slurs towards conservatives: blissfully ignorant, sheep, dupes, morons, morally-tied-somehow-to-the-guy-who-crashed-plane-in-IRS-building, old-timers, complete clueless assholes, full of rage, cowardly, and of course, a source of comic relief.
Whew. You forgot that we eat puppies too.
Do you ever pause in your judgment of folks like me? Will you ever just pause and consider: the other side is not a 2-dimensional monster of limitless cruelty and stupidity?
Ah well. In the last year I've gotten used to getting called all kinds of things. And why? Because I believe that govt should be more limited than you do. And because I and many others are no longer silent about it.
Time to crawl back under my rock, I reckon.
noone,
Wait a minute, wait a minute--
YOU have gotten used to being called all kinds of things in the past year?
Did I wake up on Bizarro Earth today?
I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt, noone, since unlike the persons you named, you didn't come over to MY blog to hurl insults. But I suspect you got here by following the link from my friend Will's PJM article, and believe me I've read the comments over there, so I doubt very much that you'd be surprised at the level of invective from the other side. I've had a number of decades to get used to it myself.
To the degree that you might sincerely want to turn down the volume and actually have a discussion, well, I sympathize. I think it's possible to have heated, passionate arguments without hating the other side; I still manage to have good friends like Will with whom I strongly disagree--I wouldn't want to have friends who thought exactly like me. Unfortunately I don't see either side blinking any time soon. And I ain't the type to turn the other cheek.
Thx for empathizing. I do believe there is a better approach than "they do it and so will I."
And welcome to my Bizarro World. I return stateside last year to find auto companies nationalized and banks (only certain ones of course) decreed "too big to fail."
I find myself sifting thru a health insurance bill too voluminous and cryptic to comprehend, and I'm expected to take as faith that it is good.
I am told that if it helps sick children, then it can't possibly be bad. And when I am skeptical of the ability of social planners to repeal the law of unintended consequences?
I am called racist, full of rage, mean, stupid. A lot of TP folks are like me: quiet, not paying attention, until we can no longer ignore the govt push into central planning. Little wonder we get angry, with the stuff hurled at us in the past year.
When I saw the title "TP wants to kill your child," hyperbole or not, I did question whether you really want a constructive discussion.
You make a valid point that plenty of conservative commenters use invective too often. I cannot speak for all PJTV commenters.
We can really only speak for ourselves.
As for me, I'm hungry for dinner. I gotta go bake that puppy now. Happy blogging!
noone,
And the same to you.
The post was written on tax day, and was intended to match the hyperbole from certain elements on the right (not that I really need a special occasion).
I can certainly believe that there are plenty of folks like yourself who feel the way you do but are not racist and/or stupid. Likewise, there are those on the left whose positions are arrived at via reflection and who aren't communist America-haters.
Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that too many people make their living keeping the hostility at a fever pitch. I certainly wouldn't mind if both sides calmed down a little, but I don't see it happening any time soon.
I think it's notable that none of the supporters of conservative ideals who commented on this article had the courage of their convictions and posted under their own names.
I think that says a lot about them.
Personally, I hope that I will stand up for what I believe in under my own name. And when the conservatives come knocking down my door in the middle of the night to drag me off to the camps, I will still stand for what I believe to be true under my own name.
This started as a post about health care and ended up being a discussion of government as a whole, which isn't bad per se, but it always ends up at the tired tropes and talking points that don't mean anything.
On the healthcare front:
1. Doctors and nurses were overwhelmingly for this bill while the insurance companies were against it. I'll take the doctors, especially since the insurance companies CEOs received record bonuses this year.
2. While many pull out "has anyone read the complex bill?" I think it's beyond disingenuous. Most senators and representatives don't read the bills as they have a team of staff members who do.
Also, has anyone ever read the enormous bill that Bush signed into law that gave the richest 5% of money earners in America huge tax cuts? How about all the memos that allow US to use "enhanced interrogation" techniques? So please excuse me if that argument holds no water.
3. How those death panels turn out? It was a lie -- bold faced lie -- and that is why people have a hard time to discuss issues
4.We are not a free market -- just as communism can't work neither can't a completely free market system (we only need to look at the last financial blow to our country -- what a fiasco that continues to be) --- oh and those CEOs who put us in that mess, are still getting bonuses every year. Really? Yeah, I don't understand it either.
We have rules in our families, in our religions, in our schools, and in our business. We have dogs to keep burglars out of homes and dogs to bite intruders. Why would we say businesses don't need rules and we don't need anything to keep us safe? Yeah, doesn't make sense to me either.
5. People have choices. If they don't like their insurance, they can change. If they do, great keep it. If people like the doughnut hole in prescription information, and don't like closing it, I have a charity they can donate to (and it starts with the letter m and ends with e).
All kidding aside, people can choose to keep their taxes (side note: our top corporations and 5% of Americans actually pay very little in taxes versus us "average" folks -- go look). You can choose to keep them, but I also hope you "suffer" the consequences as my momma always told me.
I think it is fair to assume that all those who do not want to assist government hate our troops and police and firefighters -- their salaries are paid by everyone's taxes -- thus they will not call 911 or expect our troops to protect them if times of need.
I guess they don't like clean water -- as taxes pay for that -- so rivers, wells, etc. will be their new water source. Roads, keep your taxes and walk.
I guess the hate paying taxes so much, socialized government and all, they don't want the FDA to protect them from rotten food or fake meds.
I also think it is fair to assume those individuals will forego medicare and social security checks.
All this is to say that I understand there may be things you don't agree with on how your taxes are used, and I am not either. But when people start throwing around "socialism" or "fascism" (as I see in tea party's rallies) clearly the terms are not quite understood.
Good times.
Good times, good times.
Lamar, if my wordpress website NooneOfAnyImport is insufficient, well okay. I'm Linda. If I said I keep a degree of privacy so the liberals can't find me and drag me to the camps, would that be a valid argument in your opinion?
Chad, yes there was a lot of bad bills (we may not agree on which ones) under Bush. I was not paying enough attention. I take responsibility for failing in my civic duties for most of my adult life. But past failures do not nullify my current opinions and political activism.
I've heard about plenty of docs and nurses who don't like the health ins. law too. Seen em at tea party rallies. Not sure there is definitive evidence of the numbers, but I am asked to take you on your word on that point.
Why does that "you must not like roads and firefighters and stuff" argument hold so much weight to you? I want less govt, not "no gov't." I'm a conservative not an anarchist.
Surely there is a bit of bureaucracy we can thin down within this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_agencies
I mean, before we have to eliminate troops and the FDA and other perfectly necessary personnel. I'd be willing to close doors on the Women's Bureau, for a start.
It's not about hating taxes so much as hating the waste. And hating the arrogance with which these central planners think they can repeal the law of unintendend consequences. Taxes do have bad consequences as well as the good.
And yes, I am willing to forgo Social Security and/or Medicare, even though I have paid into the system, if that is what it will take to fix the debt problem. Can't yank folks off already relying on it. But I am young enough to pay into it while it is reduced, reformed or even concluded.
Arguing on whether the words socialism or fascism are appropriate would be too complex for this venue. J Goldberg's recent take is interesting:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/what-kind-of-socialist-is-barack-obama--15421?page=all
have a good evening, gentlemen
Here's what I don't get about getting rid of Social Security. Before SS was implemented, seniors were the poorest age group. Now they're the wealthiest. It'd be hard to call that waste. Do you want to return to the concept of the poorhouse?
Perhaps you want, as Bush did, to set up personal saving accounts, but I know many people whose parents' savings were severely damaged by the crash. Is it better to put your savings in the hands of these Wall St. bankers, the ones who brought the system down and paid themselves kings' ransoms while doing so?
Perhaps you're in favor of stricter regulation. Well, stricter regulation requires regulators, and they must be paid something--certainly not what they'd earn in the private sector, but something.
Few if any people would argue that there's waste in government, just as there is waste in the private sector (I've worked in both, and I've seen it). And we'd all love to cut out the waste. The problem is, to do it right costs money. A few knuckleheads think they have all the answers, cut this and cut that, but sensible people understand that to produce true efficiencies would require careful examination of agencies and bureaucracies. Trouble is, no one wants to spend the time or money to do that. So what happens? Usually either nothing, or the bloody axe swings indiscriminately, and neither produces good results.
The thing is, Linda -- if that is your real name -- is that, as a liberal, I am dedicated to protecting the rights of everyone to express themselves, freely and without consequences. I may not agree with what you say, but I would fight to the death for your right to say it.
I think that people like you, in contrast, would like nothing better than to shut up people like me, no matter what. (Yes, it's a prejudice and a broad generalization; I never claimed to be good enough to live up to my own ideals.) There may be people who claim to be liberals who would do the same sort of thing, but they're lying to themselves; they aren't liberals, just conservatives of a different stripe.
Oh Lamar. At least you admitted your prejudice against me as a conservative-minded person. I appreciate the honesty. Not being snarky or anything.
Prejudice can defined as an irrational attitude of hostility. I cannot reason with an irrational belief, so I'll not try to convince you anything more about me or my politics. Best wishes on your journey dude.
Thanks for the dialogue, Mr. Shory
Worth reading:
http://www.slate.com/id/2251669
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