COVID-19 & Healthcare

Gov. Jan Brewer rolls out her Medicaid (AHCCCS) Restoration Plan

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On Tuesday, Governor Jan Brewer rolled out her long anticipated Medicaid (AHCCCS) Restoration Plan. Brewer unveils legislation to broaden Medicaid eligibility:

Gov. Jan Brewer unveiled draft legislation Tuesday
detailing her plans for expanding Medicaid, while putting a human face
on the contentious issue in hopes of convincing skeptical GOP lawmakers
whose votes she needs to get it approved.

During a rally at the state Capitol designed to kick-start
legislative debate over the governor’s proposal to broaden eligibility
under federal health-care reform, Brewer said expansion would bring in
billions of federal dollars and save the lives of people who would
otherwise be without health coverage.

“I’ve always been proud to be a member of a pro-life
party. With this legislation, we’re talking about people’s lives,” the
governor said. “I refuse to stand by and let this many people needlessly
suffer, especially when we have a solution.”

Video below the fold.

John Nichols: Don’t Let the ‘Crooks’ Roll Back Years of Progress (video)

by

JN-close106-sm72-sigby Pamela Powers Hannley

Author and historian John Nichols warned a packed house of Tucson progressives and unionists that now is not the time for complacency. Now is the time to rise up and fight against the forces of greed who are trying to rob the American people of their rights and their earned benefits.

Nichols, writer for The Nation and frequent commentator on MSNBC, held the audience in wrapped attention for 90 minutes as he carefully explained what the current Washington DC budget and debt reduction talks could mean for the American people if right wing conservatives like Congressman Paul Ryan and the Fix the Debt Coalition get their way.

The Fix the Debt Coalition is a group of 127 billionaires, "lesser millionaires", and corporate CEOs who are rolling out a $60 million advertising campaign to promote the new Simpson-Bowles Plan for debt reduction, according to Nichols. The original Simpson-Bowles Commission– dubbed the Cat Food Commission because of its cuts to senior citizen benefits– was infamously unpopular when it was proposed originally. The Simpson-Bowles redux may be even worse.  

How would the billionaires' club "fix the debt"? By reducing Social Security payments to the elderly and disabled, by raising the eligibility age for Medicare, by dramatically cutting Medicaid support for the poor, by eliminating the Affordable Care Act and changing Medicare to a voucher program for future recipients, by imposing austerity on 99%, and by [wait for it] lowering taxes on billionaires and corporations. 

"They are proposing to take from our vulnerable seniors, from our disabled– and let's be honest they're probably going to take the lunch money from the poor kids. They're going to take all that, so they can give the rich guys a tax cut," Nichols warned. More details and a video clip of Nichols' talk after the jump.


‘Roadmap for America’s Ruin’ budget 3.0 – ‘That’s not going to happen’

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Screenshot-18The GOP's alleged boy genius, Ayn Rand fanboy Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), is out today with his "Roadmap for America's Ruin" budget 3.0, which appears to be remarkably similar to the previous two iterations.

As Paul Krugman commented some time ago, The Flimflam Man – NYTimes.com:

[I]t’s the audacity of dopes. Mr. Ryan
isn’t offering fresh food for thought; he’s serving up leftovers from
the 1990s, drenched in flimflam sauce.

Well, there is something new in the Flimflam Man's plan this time: he is keeping the higher top marginal tax rates on the wealthy that President Obama got from Republicans in the fiscal cliff deal; he is, for the third time, keeping the $716 billion in future Medicare costs savings from "ObamaCare" — the very "cuts to Medicare" for which Republicans have twice run hypocritical "Mediscare" campaigns against Democrats; and he is keeping the means testing tax increases on higher income earners under "ObamaCare" while promising to repeal the health benefits provisions of "ObamaCare" for millions of Americans. Ryan Doesn’t Repeal Obamacare: Maintains Cuts And Taxes, Eliminates Benefits.

As FAUX News anchor Chris Wallace matter-of-factly told the Flimflam Man to his his face on Sunday, "that's not going to happen." Once again, this is not a serious budget from someone whom the Beltway media villagers wrongly deem to be serious — he is not.

Progressives Shut Out of Koch Brothers Medicaid Forum

by

Loft2013-03-07-2-sm72-sigby Pamela Powers Hannley

Thanks to publicity on this blog, social media, and e-mail blasts, progressives and other Democrats came to the Americans for Prosperity "public forum" on Medicaid expansion last night at The Loft Cinema. Too bad we couldn't get in.

Approximately 20 pro-healthcare reform advocates, plus six journalism students, and two bloggers were shut out of the tightly controlled forum. In addition, City Councilman Steve Kozachik was "uninvited" to participate in the panel. Although public announcements of the event in the Tucson Weekly, the Arizona Daily Star, and the Pima County GOP website didn't say that reservations were required, the only people who were admitted were those who RSVP'd to the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity e-mail blast, linked to this article.

The only two members of Progressive Democrats of American (PDA) Tucson who were admitted are both doctors. (Of course, they were not wearing PDA Healthcare Not Warfare stickers. None of us holding the banner in front of The Loft or trying to distribute Healthcare Not Warfare stickers got in.)

After the jump, read a first hand account by Dr. Eve Shapiro, head of PDA Tucson's healthcare reform issue organizing team, and more about Koz and job creation with Medicaid expansion.