HealthCare Notes

10/31/15

Big Pharma CEO Admits It's All About Profit

Lazy Reporters Don't Think To Check Paul Ryan's Budget Math

Lazy Reporters Don't Think To Check Paul Ryan's Budget Math

"In addition to wanting to privatize both Social Security and Medicare, Ryan has indicated that he essentially wants to shut down the federal government in the sense of taking all of the money for the non-military portion of the budget."

Ben Carson Pretends He Doesn't Really Want To End Medicare

Ben Carson Pretends He Doesn't Really Want To End Medicare

"It's pretty bad when even a host on Fox isn't buying the B.S. you're shoveling. Wallace pushed and pushed Carson on where the money would come from for his program, and Carson either doesn't even understand what his own health care proposal would do, or he's just lying through his teeth."

10/30/15

Jeb! Bush has a plan for America seniors, sort of, and it isn't pretty

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/27/1440952/-Jeb-Bush-has-a-plan-for-America-seniors-sort-of-and-it-isn-t-pretty
"If you were waiting breathlessly for policy details on Social Security and Medicare from Jeb! Bush (beyond his endorsement of his brother's disastrous Social Security privatization scheme, or how much he wants to "phase out" Medicare) here you go. While it's pretty weak on actual specifics, Jeb! has released his plan to "Preserve, Protect and Reform Medicare and Social Security." In other words, how he'll privatize Social Security and phase out Medicare under the usual Republican guise of "protecting" them."

Chris Christie: Social Security Is 'Insolvent' | Fact Checked

10/29/15

Ben Carson’s Plan for Health Care is a Comically Bad Version of Socialized Medicine (Video)

Ben Carson’s Plan for Health Care is a Comically Bad Version of Socialized Medicine (Video)

"What Carson is essentially advocating for is socialized health care just a really bad version of it. What he wants to do is set up what he calls “health savings accounts” that are established the moment someone is born. The way he wants to accomplish this is by taking the money Americans are currently paying for health insurance and putting it into these HSAs established by the government. That, ladies and gentlemen, is socialized health care. But the idiotic part of his plan is that he doesn’t want these HSAs to cover catastrophic health care. For those situations he wants people to purchase their own care at what he thinks will be a heavily discounted rate considering the bulk of their health care would be provided via these HSA accounts. So, in other words, he wants Americans to pay money into a government account to cover part of their health care while still having to purchase catastrophic coverage through a private insurance company. That’s just stupid. And his plan does nothing to address those who can’t afford to pay into these accounts. But why even have the gap in coverage? If you’re going to go all-in with a form of socialized health care (which is Ben Carson’s plan) then go all in. Don’t half-ass it by not covering catastrophic occurrences. This is all about semantics. Either the government is raising taxes on Americans to cover socialized medicine (eliminating the need to pay private insurance companies monthly) or you’re creating these HSA’s that people pay into with the money they would normally pay to private insurance companies. Either way, it’s money Americans are handing over to the government to pay for health insurance. That is socialized health care. It’s just that Carson’s plan doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. While covering day-to-day health care needs is great, it’s the catastrophic events in someone’s life that tend to leave millions in mountains of debt. And don’t believe for a moment that these “catastrophic-only” policies would be cheap, either. If there’s one thing insurance companies prove time and time again, it’s that they’re going to get their money and try to screw over their policies holders whenever they can."

10/28/15

Red States Spent $2 Billion Rejecting Medicare Expansion

Red States Spent $2 Billion Rejecting Medicare Expansion

"If there's one thing you can count on from Republicans, it's that their governing principles always include finding new ways to kick poor people in their teeth as they did here: Red States Spent $2 Billion in 2015 to Screw the Poor"

Kentucky Is Obamacare’s Undeniable Success Story. This Man Is Trying To Burn It All Down.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/09/14/3698831/matt-bevin-kentucky-eliminate-health-care/
"The nation’s most unlikely Obamacare success story — a state system that has provided more than 500,000 Kentuckians with affordable health insurance — might well be ransacked by a Tea Party candidate named Matt Bevin."

10/10/15

Republican 2016 Candidate To Seniors: I’m Cutting Your Social Security, ‘Get Over It!’

http://www.occupydemocrats.com/republican-2016-candidate-to-seniors-im-cutting-your-social-security-get-over-it-4/
"John Kasich, like the rest of his GOP comrades who live to serve the corporations and the billionaires of America, want to take away that basic dignity and security from Americans who have worked hard all their lives and sever one of our nation’s most sacred social covenants. He is also basing his ideas on the false belief that this program is in trouble and that it won’t be around much longer anyway, so it may as well be cutting now. The “get over it” remark shows just how much disregard this man shows for America’s seniors.
Of course, Kasich is lying; there’s no way the Governor of a state doesn’t know what the numbers are like"

Kasich Tells Social Security Recipients To 'Get Over' Potential Cuts In Benefits

Kasich Tells Social Security Recipients To 'Get Over' Potential Cuts In Benefits

"The reduction in benefits Kasich is referring to is the actuarial projection for how long Social Security can pay 100 percent of promised benefits before running short. No one "has" to get over anything. Congress needs to get up off its butt and fix the cap for Social Security to be more realistic in today's dollars.

Don't be fooled by Kasich's faux populism. He's just like the rest of them, except he's more skilled in how to sell you that sh*t sandwich sitting on the counter."

Tea Party: We Will Wreck Economy Unless Next Speaker Agrees To Slash Social Security & Medicare

http://www.occupydemocrats.com/tea-party-we-will-wreck-economy-unless-next-speaker-agrees-to-slash-social-security-medicare/
"McCarthy realized that, even if he could get the votes needed without capitulating to demands that will effectively destroy America as we know it, he would still need to deal with the Freedom Caucus. Even someone as extreme as McCarthy realizes that he needs to step up his game on that front if he wants the Freedom Caucus to take him seriously. He needs to be ready to criminalize poverty, institute the death penalty for same-sex marriage, destroy women’s health, defund the public school system, and destroy our infrastructure to even begin to be someone these 40 extremists will deal with. No one wants that responsibility, even someone who is widely considered too stupid to become Speaker"

Reminder: Paul Ryan is a wild-eyed, right-wing nut. He’s acceptable to the insane caucus because he is one of them

Reminder: Paul Ryan is a wild-eyed, right-wing nut. He’s acceptable to the insane caucus because he is one of them

"Ryan justifies taking food from babies, pills from seniors, and money out of your wallet to give to rich people by simply assuming that if you’re not of the elite, it’s because you’re a lazy, no-good waste of space."

10/1/15

How Big Pharma Is Price-Gouging You @alternet

How Big Pharma Is Price-Gouging You @alternet

"The United States stands out among wealthy countries in that we give drug companies patent monopolies on drugs that are essential for people’s health or lives and then allows them to charge whatever they want. Every other wealthy country has some system of price controls or negotiated prices where the government limits the extent to which drug companies can exploit the monopoly it has given them. The result is that we pay roughly twice as much for our drugs as the average for other wealthy countries. This additional cost is not associated with better care; we are just paying more for the same drugs."