On May 1, America was focussed on the Attorney General’s testimony, and rightly so. Bill Barr is a corrupt, dangerous man, protecting a compromised idiot; both need to go.
Naturally, while we were watching the center ring, we missed something. This administration tends to send in the clowns, to distract us, while pickpockets do their work.
While the main attraction at the DOJ, AG Barr, was questioned about the Mueller report, his minions were trying to gut our healthcare.
In a fifty-page filing, they detailed how they want to gut health care.
The GOP is not doing this for you, as they claim. They’re doing this for their wealthy donors, and their corporations, who don’t want to pay taxes.
If you believe this doesn’t apply to you, because you work for a company that provides healthcare, you are mistaken.
If you have young adult children, this bill will remove them from your policy, forcing them to purchase insurance through college, try to find employment with health benefits, or they’ll be left uninsured. If your children have preexisting conditions, those conditions will not be covered, and they’ll pay higher premiums.
There are many ways you could lose your excellent insurance plan: Your company could fold, they could decide not to provide insurance, you could be injured on that job with great benefits, become sick, etc. Even in those cases, unless you can return to work in a time frame determined by your company, they can drop you. I know this from personal experience. There but for the grace of God go I.
Once you lose your insurance, if you are lucky enough to be employed by another company with great benefits, without the protection of the ACA, your preexisting conditions will not be covered.
The Fifty-page bill targets:
•Pre-existing conditions
•Puts lifetime caps on coverage
•Allowing individuals to shop for insurance
•No longer assists people who can not afford coverage
•Enables insurance companies to charge women more than men for coverage
•Preventative care costs will no longer be discounted.
Senator Bob Casey, (Dem/PA), is one of several Congressional Democrats, who are fighting on behalf of the American people, but he’s up against, none other than, Attorney General Bill Barr’s DOJ, and the majority GOP Senate.
He has listed protections we will lose:
1.Ambulatory patient services (outpatient services)
2.Emergency services
3.Hospitalization
4.Maternity and newborn care
5.Mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment
6.Prescription drugs
7.Rehabilitative and habilitative services (those that help patients acquire, maintain, or improve skills necessary for daily functioning) and devices
8. Laboratory services
9. Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management
10. Pediatric services, including oral and vision care
https://www.casey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/USDOJ-brief.pdf#page=59
This Bob Casey’s Twitter thread regarding this matter.
https://twitter.com/senbobcasey/status/1124003507256856577?s=12
America’s healthcare system is broken. The problem is greed. In the case of pharmaceutical drugs, your tax dollars fund research for these drugs, but once they are developed, they are priced in a way that either the medication is not covered by insurance and priced beyond what you can pay, or the insurance companies are overcharged, which will result in higher insurance premiums for you.
Whistleblowers: Drug company bribed doctors to boost sales
“The price of the drug, best known for treating a rare infant seizure disorder, has increased almost 97,000%, from $40 a vial in 2000 to nearly $39,000 today.” ~Jake Tapper, CNN
Dying Activist Tells Congress That GoFundMe Isn’t a “Substitute” for Health Care
The story attached above is an example of that excellent insurance plan, you pay for at work, not working for you.
There is no reason we can not have Medicare for all, and if we elect a president who agrees with that ideology, there is no reason to ”ease into it.” We are the wealthiest country in the industrialized world; we can afford it. We need to return to a fair tax system and end the free ride we are currently giving to those who need it the least.
History of Tax rates in the US for top earners—
1950: 91%
1960: 91%
1970: 70%
1980: 70%
1981: 50%
1986: 28%
1990: 28%
2014: 55%
2019: 26.9%
Top earners have always had a variety of tax shelters to protect their money, regardless of the rate, but Trump’s tax plan is unprecedented. Many of the most profitable corporations in the country did not pay a dime in taxes last year. Contrary to the theory of Reaganomics and McConnell’s lie, the money saved by the wealthy does not trickle down; the rest of us pay for it in one way or another.
Profitable Giants Like Amazon Pay $0 in Corporate Taxes. Some Voters Are Sick of It.
So what can we do?
We can move to Canada.
Or, we can stay and fight.
A lot from Lydia 