Mitch McConnell and his buddies have spent the last few weeks huddled together in secret drafting the new and improved health care bill. Aptly named Better Care Reconcilliation Act, it reconciles the rich with their money again. From my point of view this bill does one thing and one thing only…saves the smallest number of people the most amount of money! The one percent get all the tax breaks and the best care. It looks as if the middle class really get the worst part of the plan. Lower rates are coming but with higher deductibles and little, if any, prescription coverage the costs will be higher than ever. The neediest of the population will get some help but the idea is to move them to the open market by making premiums cheap enough for them to afford. Sounds great but when they can’t reach their deductible their out of pocket expenses will be even higher. 

As someone who has to buy his own insurance I certainly want lower premiums but not at the cost of lower coverage. Right now I have to pay between $800 and $1000 per month just to get decent coverage and even that has pretty high deductibles. With the new BCRA I can see my premium dropping a bit but I also see the deductible rising. Which means more out of pocket. And as a person with pre-existing conditions and a past history of cancer I see even more problems obtaining coverage. There seems to be a guarantee that companies can’t charge more for people in my category but they may offer only coverage with fewer benefits and higher out of pocket expenses. Many may not include prescription drug coverage. This may affect not only those with pre-existing conditions but also the older population that tends to needs prescription coverage more than most.

There is also a possibility that states may remove the ability to compare premiums and benefits online. In today’s world how are people going to find the right policy? Government subsidies to guarantee that the insurance companies would not be burdened by excessive losses are included in the bill! Another golden egg for the largest corporations. 

One other condition is that the bill will remove the individual mandate. Meaning that the young and healthy will delay purchasing health care. This puts less money in the pool and drives up costs because those that do have care are those who need it most. I don’t see why the insurance companies would go for this. After all they love to collect premiums and not pay benefits.

All in all the bill will cut Medicaid, especially to children, provide tax cuts to wealthiest Americans, lower benefits and raise out of pocket expenses. Once again the Republicans have shown they have no conscience, no heart and no concern for the average American. Their one and only thought is to line the pockets of the people and companies that line their pockets. 

Oh, and by the way, it looks as though the Senate and Congress may have their own health care plan. And a really good one at that!

Here’s a post I started about 5 weeks ago. A little out of date but still relevant!

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

I hear all the ranting and raving about our President’s executive orders and healthcare legislation and everything else he has done or said since he started his campaign. Let’s take a real look and maybe we can learn something.

1. Travel ban. Not a bad idea when you look at it from the U.S. point of view. If we can stop just one bad dude from entering this country to do us harm I’m all in. Now I have heard all the Muslim ban talk but just because someone is from Somalia doesn’t make them Muslim. But a Somalian can certainly be a bad dude. (Of course dude can be gender neutral).
2. Immigration reform. Great idea. Make people come in to our country legally. Why should we have to support all the ones that don’t follow the rules. After all if I wanted to immigrate to, say, Somalia do you think they would let me just walk across the border? And then if I got sick do you think I would be taken care of?
3. Marriage rights. Why should the LGBTQ community have special rights? Why should there have to be a special law just for them? I’m straight and I don’t get my own day in court.
4. Climate change, global warming. Just because you say it doesn’t make it true. Maybe we’re just going through a natural change in weather patterns
5. Cutbacks to National Parks. Look, there is still plenty of land out there that doesn’t need our protection. Just protect the areas that people go to see. I would venture a guess that at least 90% of all federally protected lands have never been seen by anyone in this country.
6. Healthcare reform. What’s wrong the rich getting richer? If premiums go down count me in. No president, senator or congressman would let someone lose their life savings or their life just because the get sick.

So that’s just a few of the wonderful things that our President has either proposed or actually signed. If it wasn’t for the insanity of everything I just wrote maybe I could believe my own words. Everything above is outrageously stupid! How could one man even come up with so many bad ideas? It’s like he opens his mouth and absurdity makes an appearance.

There are so many causes we need to fight for. It is almost impossible to keep track of them all. Pick one or as many as you can handle and take them as far as you can. There as good organizations out there fighting for our rights. Help them out. Do what you can. Let your voice be heard. You don’t have to be out in front, you can quietly support what you believe in.

America has always been a violent country. From the beginning of the caucasian invasion we have slaughtered our way to supremacy. For a society that was founded on personal freedom we certainly have found ways to limit that freedom. The relentless quest to wipe out the buffalo population, the systematic killing off of the Native American population and the eventual confinement to reservations, this is how our country began. Slavery, guns, the lawless west, we have always used violence to silence the voices, lives and souls of those we found to be different. When the white Christians came to settle this land they came to escape religious persecution. What they found was unacceptable to them. These were puritanical people. And while they wanted to practice their own religion they did not believe the savages (as they thought of the Native Americans) had the right to live their lives their way. This is how our nation was founded. All men are created equal as long as they look and act like us.

Most of the second half of the twentieth century was buried in race violence. We had our moments of peace, love and unity in the sixties but that was just a  blip on the radar.

Today we find ourselves hating everyone. Violence is on the rise throughout the country and this time is isn’t only whites versus everyone else. The tables seem to have turned. Now we fight amongst ourselves. Petty little battles over airline seats, the driver who cuts us off during the commute, not enough espresso shots in our Frappuccino. The list is endless, full of frivolous attempts to make ourselves better than the other person.

We have larger issues also. We all know what they are. But it’s these small skirmishes that alarm me. The total lack of respect for our fellow humans. This isn’t about race or religion, it’s not about class or culture. Yes we have race anger, yes we have religious anger and yes we have class and culture anger. This has been very apparent during the presidential campaign and subsequent first term of our very angry president. But this isn’t what I am talking about.

Why suddenly is there so many people being taken off planes? Is it the airlines fault for over booking the flights? Is it the passenger’s fault for not knowing the rules? I know I wouldn’t be happy if I was told to give up my seat, in fact I would be angry. Would I start a fight? I don’t think so. But in the moment maybe I would. I don’t think airline seat rage and traffic rage and coffee rage is about the incident. It’s about our sense that we are losing control over our lives.

As Jeffrey Kluger wrote in June, 2016 “Anger is a lazy person’s emotion. It’s quick, it’s binary, it’s delicious. And more and more, we’re gorging on it.”.

As we see more and more people angry, the anger becomes more and more acceptable. Then the acceptable becomes the glorified. The glorified becomes the norm. When anger is the norm common sense is lost and social mores become silenced. That’s when society is lost and the population looks to be saved. I believe we have seen the beginning and we must fight to reverse the trend.