Guess What? Grandma is Moving In. She’s Got Medical Bills. Maybe to Share. It’s Medicaid Brought to You by Kochcare.
Is kicking senior citizens out of nursing homes good politics? That’s a question GOP asking itself these days. One of many questions related to the politics of health care. Although not many are asking it since the public largely has no idea the question is being asked at all as recent polls show. With the Senate’s version of ‘Trumpcare’ finally released to the public, we’re now learning that, yes, the GOP appears to think kicking seniors out their nursing homes is good politics. Because transferring Medicaid costs to states and individuals has been a key GOP goal of Trumpcare’s congressional authors the entire time and nursing homes are paid for by Medicaid for the vast majority of people. So in addition to the many profound moral questions raised by the GOP’s health care ‘reform’ plans, a growing number of profound political questions are being raised the more we learn about Trumpcare as it takes form. Including whether or not putting nursing home coverage on a fiscal death spiral makes for good politics. Granny would probably say ‘no’, but she’s got competition.
Trumplandian Feudalism: Employ the Unemployed While Still Starving Them
Did Trump suddenly drop his oft-repeated criticism of tradition unemployment reporting and assertions that in reality its 42 percent and 94 million American adults are out of work? Well, as we’re going to see, probably not because his administration is still planning on redefining the “official” unemployment rate to be much “looser” and his claims that 42 percent if American adults are out of work are necessary to achieve a long-held GOP goal championed by House Speaker Paul Ryan: converting the US safety-net — including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — into a “work for a pittance to get a pittance of government support”-net that traps the poor in system where if you have to find full time work to get any help at all. Maybe even for the elderly. And the help you get in return for that work-requirement will keep shrinking year after year. It’s a plan that can’t happen unless almost all non-working adults are defined as “unemployed”. So, no, Trump didn’t change his mind. He just still thinks we’re all stupid (maybe).
Killing Granny: The GOP’s “One Size Fits All” Death Panel for Health Care
Change is coming to Washington DC. Mostly horrible changes. But as we’ll see in this post, there is one very significant and positive change coming as a consequence of the unified GOP control of the White House and Congress: GOP is actually going to start getting the blame it deserves for all the damage its pro-oligarch/anti-everyone-else agenda routinely inflicts upon the American people. Politics can be frustrating for a myriad of reasons, but one of the biggest sources of frustration is the cloud of perpetual obfuscation and confusion that tends to permeate the political discourse and collective understanding of what’s actually happening, why it’s happening, and who should be rewarded or blamed for it. But for the next couple of years, at a minimum, it’s going to be very clear who to blame for the damage DC is about to unleash, and it’s not just going to be Donald Trump. And when it comes to health care “reform” (privatization) that the GOP is about to impose upon the populace, that blame is about to get dangerously diffusive for state legislatures and governorships because the Health Care Austerity Hot Potato is about to get tossed in their laps over and over. Indefinitely. And since the GOP controls almost all state legislatures and governorships at the moment they won’t be able to prevent themselves from slashing these programs. So with the coming block granting of first Medicaid and then Medicare (or maybe both together), the politics of health care is about to get weird. And tragic because the GOP won’t be able to help itself with all the austerity
The GOP Pulled Off the Medicaid Bandaid. Next Up? Medicare Amputations.
When “God’s Senator”, Sam Brownback, became “God’s Governor” of Kansas back in 2010 it was clear some pretty big changes were on the way for Kansas. After all, when a GOP member of Opus Dei is your new governor, some form of austerity for the masses is probably in the cards. And following the 2012 intra-GOP “moderate” purge, austerity for Kansas has arrived in full force. As once might expect, this includes the austerity that comes with refusing to accept the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Utterly pointless, yet still painful, self-flagellation. And that’s just the beginning...
The GOP Pulls Off the Medicaid Band-Aid. Ouch.
A consequence of last years Supreme Court ruling that upheld Obamacare — but allowed states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion — is that we would see GOP state governors placed in a real dilemma: They could either accept the Medicaid expansion and receive billions of dollars for their state health care systems from the Federal government at the risk of enraging their far-right base of supporters. OR the governors could reject the Medicaid expansion, leaving millions without coverage but still being able to say they stood up to that evil socialist plot to destroy America. Decisions, decisions...
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