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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGOP Doesn't Care if You Die
now we know who the death panels are:
GOP Doesn't Care if You Die
by Steven D
Thu Feb 6th, 2014 at 01:36:32 PM EST
The Affordable Care Act offers money to expand Medicaid services in all 50 states. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled that states were not required to accept the federal funds necessary to expand Medicaid services and up to 25 states, all with Republican governors and/or Republican majority legislatures have refused these supplemental funds to increase coverage.
Now a new study by "Harvard and CUNY researchers" estimates that the failure to expand Medicaid benefits in those states will result in thousands of unnecessary deaths because millions of people will forego necessary medical treatments because they will not have acces to healthcare coverage. Coverage that would have been available to them had those GOP politicians chosen to accept the federal supplemental funding for Medicaid expansion:
The ACAs tax subsidy for insurance purchase on the Exchanges is only available to persons with incomes above 100 percent of FPL. People below this threshold in opt-out states (the so-called low-income coverage gap) will see no benefit as the law goes into effect. They may even see harm because the ACA cuts disproportionate share (DSH) funding to safety net hospitals, reducing the resources available to care for the remaining uninsured.
[...] We estimate the number of deaths attributable to the lack of Medicaid expansion in opt-out states at between 7,115 and 17,104. Medicaid expansion in opt-out states would have resulted in 712,037 fewer persons screening positive for depression and 240,700 fewer individuals suffering catastrophic medical expenditures. Medicaid expansion in these states would have resulted in 422,553 more diabetics receiving medication for their illness, 195,492 more mammograms among women age 50-64 years and 443,677 more pap smears among women age 21-64. Expansion would have resulted in an additional 658,888 women in need of mammograms gaining insurance, as well as 3.1 million women who should receive regular pap smears.
MORE:http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/2/6/133632/2388
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Republican governors are standing up for a conservative health care reform principle articulated by conservative economist Tyler Cowen.
2. A rejection of health care egalitarianism, namely a recognition that the wealthy will purchase more and better health care than the poor. Trying to equalize health care consumption hurts the poor, since most feasible policies to do this take away cash from the poor, either directly or through the operation of tax incidence. We need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor. Some of you dont like the sound of that, but we already let the wealthy enjoy all sorts of other goods most importantly status which lengthen their lives and which the poor enjoy to a much lesser degree. We shouldnt screw up our health care institutions by being determined to fight inegalitarian principles for one very select set of factors which determine health care outcomes.
http://ourfuture.org/20130108/death-panel-of-gop-governors-refusing-medicaid-expansion-grows?gclid=COf8ycbi67kCFURp7AodvisACw
leftyohiolib
(5,917 posts)CallmeJoe
(10 posts)We stand for equality of opportunity, not outcome. If you can't afford medicine, well at least you had the possibility of paying for it
#FreMarkt4life
davekriss
(4,627 posts)kairos12
(12,872 posts)subsidies for the sugar growers.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)davekriss
(4,627 posts)"2. A rejection of health care egalitarianism, namely a recognition that the wealthy will purchase more and better health care than the poor. Trying to equalize health care consumption hurts the poor, since most feasible policies to do this take away cash from the poor, either directly or through the operation of tax incidence. We need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor. Some of you dont like the sound of that, but we already let the wealthy enjoy all sorts of other goods most importantly status which lengthen their lives and which the poor enjoy to a much lesser degree. We shouldnt screw up our health care institutions by being determined to fight inegalitarian principles for one very select set of factors which determine health care outcomes."
We can elect to grant our selves rights in a truely democratic society, such as egalitarian health care. Sheese! And it does not have to take money out of the pockets of the poor, we can just resume Republican Eisenhower tax rates on the rich!
Argh! This just raised my blood pressure by ten points!