Medicaid

Trump picks signal coming assault on Medicare

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Update to The coming assault on Medicare.

The egomaniacal Twitter troll Donald Trump has named Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) as his choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services, which oversees not just “ObamaCare” but the entitlement programs of Medicaid and Medicare. Price supports the privatization of Medicare into “voucher care” that House Speaker Paul Ryan is salivating to pass. Trump names Rep. Tom Price as next HHS secretary:

tompricePresident-elect Donald Trump has chosen Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), a fierce critic of the Affordable Care Act and a proponent of overhauling the nation’s entitlement programs, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Trump also named Seema Verma, a health-care consultant who was the architect of [restrictive] Medicaid changes in Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s home state of Indiana, to run a crucial section of HHS: the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

As HHS secretary, Price would be the nation’s top health official and the incoming administration’s point person for dismantling the sprawling 2010 health-care law, which Trump promised during his campaign to start dismantling on his first day in the Oval Office. The 62-year-old lawmaker, who represents a wealthy suburban Atlanta district, has played a leading role in Republican opposition to the law and has helped draft several comprehensive bills to replace it.

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Eddie Munster’s Monstrous Plan for America

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EddieMunsterTom Toles is the Washington Post‘s cartoonist, but he also writes a column. Today’s column caught my eye: Paul Ryan: Eddie from the Munsters wants to grow up to be a real monster.

Bwahahaha! I have been using Eddie Munster for Paul Ryan for years. More on Toles’ column below, but first, a word from the professor.

The GOP’s alleged boy genius, Ayn Rand fanboy Paul Ryan, “the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, ” is an intellectual fraud and The Flimflam Man. Recently Paul Krugman reiterated:

Paul Ryan is not, repeat not, a serious, honest man of principle who has tainted his brand by supporting Donald Trump. He has been an obvious fraud all along, at least to anyone who can do budget arithmetic . . . Yet he poses as an icon of fiscal probity. That is, he is, in his own way, every bit as much a fraud as The Donald.

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50th Anniversary of Medicare/Medicaid, Republicans are still trying to kill it

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There is something surreal about Biggs, et al v. Brewer, et al. (CV2013-011699 Maricopa County Superior Court), the Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion case brought by almost every Tea-Publican legislator in the Arizona legislature, being heard today in court on the 50th Anniversary of the The Social Security Amendments of 1965 creating the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion case set for hearing on July 30, 2015.

These Tea-Publican legislators are seeking to take away Medicaid (AHCCCS) health insurance coverage for an estimated 300,000 recipients (est. 463,000 Arizonans are eligible). Arizona Medicaid: eligibility, enrollment and benefits. I hope that one of the attorneys will point out the significance of today’s date to the Court.

On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signed the Social Security Amendments which established Medicare and Medicaid, promising that they would “improve a wide range of health and medical services for Americans of all ages.”

Former President Harry S. Truman was at his side in Independence, Missouri. Johnson credited Truman with “planting the seeds of compassion and duty which have today flowered into care for the sick and serenity for the fearful.”

LBJ_Medicare_Bill_Signing34896web
Medicare bill signing,Date: 7/30/65, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.

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Impressive response by Arizona Business Leaders™ to the terrible budget

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

scott walker az chamber of commercePhoto: AZ Chamber of Commerce and Industry announcement

By “impressive”, of course, I mean “pathetic”. The GOP led AZ Legislature dropped a turd of a budget in the middle of Friday night/Saturday morning that guts (among other things) university and community college funding and – because this is the cruelest session toward poor people that I’ve seen since I moved here in 1997 – cuts millions in Medicaid assistance, limits Temporary Assistance to Needy Families to an arbitrary lifetime cap of one year, and fails to fund child abuse and neglect prevention.

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Cathi Herrod, Goldwater Institute, & AZ Taxpayer PAC Spread Medicaid Lies on Twitter

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While following the ongoing #HobbyLobby Twitter storm today, I bumped into several Tweets by the Arizona Taxpayer Action Committee. (I have no idea how things like this get into my Twitter feed.) What caught my eye was that Goldwater Institute and Center for Arizona Policy documents were linked to the Tweets and former Arizona Legislator and Medicaid-expansion denier Frank Antenori (@FrankAntenori), @SonoranAlliance (Blog for Arizona’s evil right-wing twin), and @GodCountryFam reTweeted all of these.

AZTaxpayerAct2:54pm via Twitter Web Client

If you’re an Arizona legislator & voted for Medicaid expansion in 2013, you voted to allow tax $’s for abortion: blog.azpolicy.org/life/medicaid-…

Retweeted by FrankAntenori and 1 others

AZTaxpayerAct3:04pm via Twitter Web Client

If you voted for Obamacare Medicaid Expansion you voted for corporate cronyism for the healthcare industrial complex goldwaterinstitute.org/blog/medicaid-…

Retweeted by FrankAntenori and 1 others

AZTaxpayerAct3:11pm via Twitter Web Client

AZ legislators were warned against voting for Obamacare Medicaid but chose to listen to big money from the healthcare industrial complex.

Retweeted by FrankAntenori and 1 others

AZTaxpayerAct3:09pm via Twitter Web Client

AZ legislators who voted for Obamacare Medicaid Expansion voted for tax hike as high as $739 Million over 2014-2019: goldwaterinstitute.org/10-reasons-to-…

Retweeted by FrankAntenori and 1 others

Alright, they made me look…

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