COVID-19 & Healthcare

Oh, SNAP! House fails to pass GOP farm bill

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Further evidence today that the Tan Man, Weeper of the House John Boehner, is the "Worst. Speaker. Ever." His comical sidekick Eric Cantor is no better.

The GOP drafted farm bill — which in actuality is about 80% funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps — failed to pass the Tea-Publican controlled House today, despite the fact that this is a Tea-Publican drafted bill with punitive cuts of $2 billion annually from the food stamps program and it permitted states to impose broad new work requirements on those who receive food stamps to punish those "takers" in the 47 percent.

And why did this happen? Because for many Tea-Publicans the measure was not punitive enough. In their dark hearts, they would like to make it a crime to be a member of the working poor.

Talking Points Memo reports, House GOP Fails To Pass Farm Bill, Welfare Cuts:

The House has rejected a five year, half-trillion-dollar farm bill
that would have cut $2 billion annually from food stamps and let states
impose broad new work requirements on those who receive them.

Those cuts weren’t deep enough for many Republicans who
objected to the cost of the nearly $80 billion-a-year program, which has
doubled in the past five years. The vote was 234-195 against the bill,
with 62 Republicans voting against it.

‘ObamaCare’ is bending the cost curve on healthcare costs

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

More good news on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (aka "ObamaCare") — it is bending the cost curve on healthcare costs, just as it was designed to do, which also bends the curve on federal deficits.

The latest good news come from the Federation of American Hospitals, which represents for-profit hospitals, and PwC’s Health Research Institute.
Both argue in new studies out today that a big chunk of the slowdown is
structural — and won’t disappear as the economy improves. Why
are health care costs rising more slowly?:

Dobson DaVanzo & Associates, in a report for the hospital group,
concludes that if present trends continue Medicare savings will be $1
trillion more in the next 10 years than the savings projected by the
Congressional Budget Office in May. The changes, Al Dobson said in an
interview, are the result of marketplace pressures and the Affordable
Care Act, which set new penalties for hospital readmissions, and
included bundled payments and other incentives for hospitals and doctors
to find ways to cut costs without hurting patients.

* * *

PwC  uses a medical cost trend–or growth rate–that measures the
changes in the cost to treat patients and is influenced by the cost of
products and services and utilization. The projection is based on
interviews with health plans, a survey of employers and other
data. They conclude that
health-care spending growth will dip to 6.5 percent next year, adding
that the slowing of health-care spending “defies historical
post-recession patterns and is likely to be sustained” even as millions
of uninsured Americans enter the health system next year.

The GOP war on women to appease the crazy base

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

TalibanRemember when the TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, proclaimed that Tea-Publicans were all about creating jobs? Yeah, still waiting.

When they are not wasting time on meaningless symbolic votes to repeal "ObamaCare" for the 39th time to give every member of their caucus a chance to vote against it, they are wasting their time on other meaningless symbolic votes to appease the crazy base, like this.

On Tuesday, House Republicans wasted the day approving the most restrictive
anti-abortion bill considered in Congress in the last decade, the unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban bill sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. U.S.
House passes bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of
pregnancy:

The House approved legislation Tuesday that would ban abortions starting at 20 weeks of pregnancy, the most sweeping abortion restriction to pass any chamber of Congress in a decade. The vote was 228 to 196.

For those of you scoring this bill, six Republicans voted against it, and six Democrats voted for it — Henry Cuellar (D-TX 28), Daniel Lipinski (D-IL 3), Jim Matheson (D-UT 4), Mike McIntyre (D-NC 7), Collin Peterson (D-MN 7), and Nick Rahall (D-WV 3) — canceling each other out.

Under the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, abortions
can be performed until the point when an individual doctor determines a
fetus’s viability, which is generally defined as up to 24 weeks of
gestation. After that point, the government can prohibit the procedure
as long as it provides sufficient safeguards for the mother’s health and
well-being.

* * *

Tuesday’s vote marks the first time Congress has voted to redefine the point where a fetus becomes viable [in a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the real reason for doing this.]

Governor Brewer signs Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration into law

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In a signing ceremony this morning, Gov. Brewer signed into law Arizona’s Medicaid restoration program:

Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law today an expansion of Arizona’s
Medicaid program under the federal health-care overhaul, brought about
through a fierce five-month legislative battle.

Brewer, standing before a riser in a Capitol conference room that
held dozens of lawmakers, hospital officials and other supporters,
thanked the bipartisan coalition of legislators who voted for the bill.

“They displayed something we don’t see a lot in politics today, and
that is courage,” the governor said. “You put people before politics and
you stood firm in the face of personal attacks.”

* * *

“An opportunity like this doesn’t come very often,” the governor said at
today’s signing ceremony. “And I hope less in the future.”

After Brewer signed the legislation into law, she sent out this tweet along with the following picture.

Screenshot from 2013-06-17 14:00:15

Let us now praise the Arizona legislature

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by David Safier I want to say this right here on dependably progressive/liberal/lefty BfA. Gov. Brewer joined together with a handful of Republicans and Democrats to do the right thing for Arizona. Brewer, it turns out, is the only Republican governor with a majority Republican legislature to pass Medicaid expansion. We can slice and dice … Read more