COVID-19 & Healthcare

What the Oregon Medicaid study said: access to healthcare is good for you

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Wingnuttia is all atwitter over an Oregon Medicaid study that they claim demonstrates that Medicaid does not improve the health of people on Medicaid. So I assume their points are to say that "Medicaid doesn't work" so "you are on your own" and if you are seriously ill perhaps you "should die and decrease the surplus population."

This is what happens when GOPropagandists — who did not read this complex research study because, really, who cares? — are paid to push simpleton bumper sticker memes about the evils of "socialized ObamaCare."

So before you get buried under a mound of bullshit from wingnuttia in the battle over Governor Brewer's Medicaid restoration/expansion plan, here are some articles to help you sort out fact from GOPropaganda.

The trouble with ‘E.Orr’ redux

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

EyeoreDuring the 2012 campaign, Ethan Orr (aka "E.Orr") fashioned himself after moderate Tucson Republicans like
former Reps. Pete Hershberger and Toni Hellon, and said he hopes to work with
the southern Arizona Democratic delegation to pass legislation that can
help the people and Tucson. The local media bought his act. Orr was elected to the House.

Rep. Orr (R-LD 9), voted in favor of HB 2455, which clarifies that local law-enforcement agencies
must sell guns they acquire in situations such as gun buy-back programs
— even where the gun owner voluntarily surrenders his or her weapon for the express purpose that their weapon be safely destroyed by law enforcement.

HB 2455 is a bill that was introduced by the gun worshipers and fetishists in direct response to Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik's gun buy-back program earlier this year. It is a bill fashioned by our "big brother" colonial overlords in the state of Maricopa to subjugate the City of Tucson and to micromanage the affairs of this charter city. "Small government" conservative is just a lie.

CAP Christian Taliban threatens Governor Brewer’s Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration plan with specious claims about abortion

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Mullah Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) have emerged as a principal opponent of Governor Jan Brewer's Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration plan. These fetus fetish anti-abortion extremists, who imagine abortion lurking in every bill in their fevered minds, have put forward specious claims that the Governor's plan will somehow "indirectly" provide funding for abortions, even though state and federal law has long prohibited such funding.

These radical extremists would rather see real live cancer patients and transplant patients in desperate need of AHCCCS healthcare coverage die, because they imagine a fictional fetus might somehow, someday be aborted. I fail to discern any "Christianity" in this position. WWJD?

The Arizona Republic reports,

Arizona abortion issue heightens Medicaid standoff:


Taliban[Gov.] Brewer’s office is preparing language, to be amended onto a separate
bill, that would ensure no federal expansion funding goes to health-care
providers that perform abortions.

The move is a response to lobbying from Cathi Herrod, president of
the Center for Arizona Policy, who says Medicaid expansion would
subsidize abortions — a claim that puts in a political vise
anti-abortion GOP lawmakers who back the governor’s proposal.

[Herrod first raised the abortion issue in late March in a letter to
Brewer, using an opinion from a Christian legal-defense organization to
argue that the draft Medicaid legislation should be amended to
disqualify the non-profit women’s health provider Planned Parenthood and
other abortion providers from receiving public money.]

“In response to some of the concerns raised by lawmakers, the
governor has been willing to revisit this issue,” Brewer spokesman
Matthew Benson said Tuesday. “It’s become clear that it would be
difficult to move forward with Medicaid restoration until some of these
legislative concerns about abortion are addressed.”

President Obama at the Planned Parenthood National Conference

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

President Obama became the first sitting president ever to address a
Planned Parenthood event this morning, speaking at the health care
group's national conference.

From the Transcript of prepared remarks (excerpt):

[O]bviously this is a special national conference, because it’s been
nearly a hundred years since the first health clinic of what later would
become Planned Parenthood opened its doors to women in Brooklyn.  And
for nearly a century now, one core principle has guided everything all
of you do — that women should be allowed to make their own decisions
about their own health.  (Applause.)  It’s a simple principle.  

So what I see in this audience, extraordinary doctors and nurses, and
advocates and staff who work tirelessly to keep the doors at health
centers all across the country going, then I'm reminded of those very
early efforts and all the strides that we've made in subsequent
decades.  And I also think about the millions of mothers and daughters
and wives and sisters, friends and neighbors who walk through those
doors every year. 

Somewhere there’s a woman who just received a new lease on life
because of a screening that you provided that helped catch her cancer in
time.  Somewhere there’s a woman who’s breathing easier today because
of the support and counseling she got at her local Planned Parenthood
health clinic.  Somewhere there’s a young woman starting a career who,
because of you, is able to decide for herself when she wants to start a
family.  (Applause.)

One in five women in this country has turned to Planned Parenthood for
health care.  One in five.  (Applause.)  And for many, Planned
Parenthood is their primary source of health care  — not just for
contraceptive care, but for lifesaving preventive care, like cancer
screenings and health counseling. 

Ask Governor Brewer to veto SB 1108

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Earlier this week I posted about Senate Bill 1108, a bill that would eliminate the requirement that foster families fully immunize their own children. When ideology endangers public health – call your state representatives. The bill passed on a 33-24 party-line vote in the Tea-Publican-controlled House, but it wasn’t enough of a margin to tack an emergency clause onto the bill that would have it take effect immediately if the governor signs it.

Today the Arizona Republic editorializes that Governor Jan Brewer should veto SB 1108. I agree. Junk science can harm foster kids:

Kill-bill-vol-1 Lawmakers were wrong to ease vaccination rules for potential foster parents.

Plain wrong.

They caved to people who believe junk science.

Arizona has a duty to protect the children who come into foster care.

Yet lawmakers passed a bill that forbids the Department of Economic Security from requiring people to immunize their own children before they become licensed as foster parents.

This reverses a smart rule that existed to protect foster children.