More GOP Medicaid Shenanigans - A Liberal Rant

In response to an article concerning states disallowing Medicaid coverage for people who are not working.

Republicans assume that people who are unemployed or underemployed or ill or who have any number of other barriers have simply made bad choices. Only the "good" deserve health care insurance. They're all for individual responsibility (though they don't equate low wages with inability to be responsible for one's self), and have no tolerance for social responsibility. Theirs is the party of Greed and flawed morals and no compassion or empathy or sense of religious values. They think that they are being wronged when they are not allowed to discriminate, and can't see that preventing someone from harming others is not the same as harming others. Their God is unfettered capitalism. Capitalism free from regulations protecting workers, the environment, consumers, the old, the sick, the disabled, children, or even the responsibility to pay their fair share in taxes. They value working money more than worker's sweat, and they have no scruples about how they accomplish their goals. They are radical conservatives. They are disgusting, and can't smell their own hypocrisy.


States Are Quietly Pushing To Take Medicaid Away From The Unemployed

ObamaCare Dissatisfaction and the AHCA

Were you dissatisfied with the ACA and are now welcoming the GOP AHCA health care plan? I suppose you think your pre-ACA coverage was great because it was cheap. But that insurance was more like a coupon for anything other than routine doctor visits.

Insurance companies would practice denying coverage for expenses, claiming treatments were experimental, etc. They would also terminate policies of sick people they didn't want to cover because of "pre-existing" conditions which had occurred outside of the history window that they asked for on applications. People were even kicked off of insurance because they had acne treatments as teenagers!

Maybe you actually had insurance that was good, but most people did not. The most common reason for bankruptcies was unaffordable medical expenses, even with insurance. ACA had mandated benefits forcing insurance companies to actually pay for needed health care, and they had to cover you even if you had pre-existing conditions. For those who made enough to qualify, the exchanges along with subsidies finally got them the insurance they needed.

Expanded Medicaid was supposed to take care of people who made too little to qualify for the ACA insurance exchanges, but Republicans sued and got that to be optional for individual states. If you can't afford insurance, I would suspect you live in a red state that opted out of the Medicaid expansion. Go cry to those radical conservatives that have been working so hard to make sure you are not covered. Blame them, not the ACA. And look into Universal Coverage that most other western countries already enjoy, at a much cheaper price than we pay. Don't believe the GOP lies; they are not fiscal conservatives and they do not care anything for working people. Ask them also why wealthy people need "tax relief."

Common Sense Alaskan Wildlife Regulation Gutted

In response to HJR 69/SJR 18 becoming law, and which nullifies the Department of the Interior rule relating to “Non-Subsistence Take of Wildlife, and Public Participation and Closure Procedures, on National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska” (81 Fed. Reg. 52247 (August 5, 2016)):

I doubt if even one congressman actually read the text of the "rule" they voted to kill. Their bill nullifying the rule is two sentences long. The rule they killed is pages and pages of clarifications of existing regulations, tweaking of existing regulations for compliance with other laws, changes to the proposed regulations in response to thousands of comments and input from the public and from American Indian tribes and other agencies, both federal and state.

But hey, them congresspeople are against anything that sounds like it restricts their freedom to rape and pillage our environment. They must be from a different planet because they sure don't care about ours.

HJR 69/SJR 18 passed both the Senate (52 - 47) and House (225 - 193) by simple majority votes and was signed into law by President Trump on April 3, 2017, becoming Public Law No. 115-20.


Congress.gov - 115th Congress House Joint Resolution 69
Federal Register 08/05/2016-18117...