Many Americans assume the new health care reform act will benefit mostly the poor and uninsured and hurt everyone else, according to polls. As Matt Yglesias wrote, “Basically, people see this as a bill that will take resources from people who have health insurance and give it to people who don’t have health insurance.” Those who still oppose the reform say that people ought to pay for their own health care.

We all believe in the virtues of hard work and self-reliance, but these days it’s a fantasy to think that anyone but the mega-wealthy will not, sooner or later, depend on help from others to pay medical bills. And that’s true no matter how hard you work, how much you love America, or how diligently you take care of yourself. The cost of medical care has so skyrocketed that breaking an arm or leg could cost as much as a new car. And if you get cancer or heart disease — which can happen even to people who live healthy lifestyles — forget about it. The disease will not only clean you out; it will leave a whopping debt for your survivors to pay.

And the truth is, we all pay for other peoples’ health care whether we know it or not. When people can’t pay their medical bills, the cost of their health care gets added to everyone else’s bills and insurance premiums. When poor people use emergency rooms as a doctor of last resort, their care is not “free.” You pay for it.

Another common fantasy about medical care is that the “free market” provides incentives for medical companies to develop innovative new drugs and treatments for disease without government subsidy. It’s true that private enterprise is very good at developing profitable health care products. But not all medical care can be made profitable.

For years, the U.S. government has been funding medical research that the big private companies don’t want to do because there is too much cost for the potential profit. This is especially true for diseases that are rare and expensive to treat. An example of a recent advance made possible by government grants include new guidelines for malignant pleural mesothelioma treatment developed by MD Anderson Cancer Center researchers. Another is a blood screening test for mesothelioma developed by thoracic surgeon Dr. Robert Taub. The health reform act provides for more dollars for such research, from which even many of the tea party protesters will benefit.

The biggest fantasy of all was that people who had insurance didn’t have to worry about health care costs. But the fact is that in recent years millions of Americans have been bankrupted by medical costs, and three-quarters of the medically bankrupt had health insurance. And yes, insurance companies even dumped hard-working, law-abiding patriots. But the health care reform act will put an end to that, and now America’s hard-working, law-abiding patriots are more financially secure, whether they like it or not.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhJ7M8o8W-Y

These white people are crazy.

I don’t know what’s taken them so long:

Days after his address was posted online by a Virginia Tea Party activist, the FBI and local law enforcement officials are investigating a “suspicious incident” at the home of Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother.

A line to the propane tank on his brother’s gas grill had been “severed,” an aide to the Democratic congressman told CNN.

[...]

Politico reported Monday that a Tea Party activist in Lynchburg, angry over Perriello’s vote in favor of health care reform legislation, had posted the address of Perriello’s brother online and encouraged other activists to “stop by” and weigh in on the bill. The activist had apparently meant to post the congressman’s home address but mistakenly published his brother’s.

Keep in mind these people aren’t using violence because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or because of the inhumane treatment of prisoners at Gitmo and Bagram, or because of the Patriot Act, or because of the creation of Homeland Security, or because of the secret meetings between Dick Cheney and his oil buddies, or because of the billions of dollars we’ve given to Blackwater, or because of the Wall Street bail outs, or because of the auto industry bail out.

No, these crazy camel cunts are using violence because of health care. HEALTH CARE!

The people in this country are fucking batshit insane. But hey, at least this will make cable news more interesting.

Update:This keeps getting better and better.

A coffin was placed in front of a Missouri Democrat’s house, another in a string of incidents against lawmakers after their vote Sunday on a health care overhaul.

Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) had a coffin placed “near his home,” a spokesman said Wednesday evening.

The coffin was from a prayer vigil, and protesters say that the coffin symbolized babies who would be aborted due to the health care law and was not a threat to Carnahan.

Update #2:How are these people any different than Al-Qaeda?

Law enforcement officials say a package with white powder was sent to Congressman Weiner’s Queens office today.
A preliminary review shows the letter in part complained about the historic health care legislation passed by Congress this week, according to the source.

Weiner’s office is on the fifth floor of a building on Kew Gardens Road in Queens. Law enforcement officials said a doctor’s office and a law office on the floor were among those evacuated as a precaution. Nine people were inside Weiner’s office at the time.
In a statement, Weiner acknowledged that his office received a suspicious envelope and said his prime concern is the safety of his staff and others in the area.

“Earlier today an envelope containing white powder and a threatening letter was delivered to my community office in Kew Gardens. The NYPD was immediately alerted and have responded appropriately by sending a Haz-Mat team,” the statement read. “Any questions related to their response should be directed to the NYPD. My first priority is the safety of my staff and neighbors, and the authorities are currently taking steps to investigate and resolve the situation.”

Cunt of the Year

This bitch is in the running for cunt of the year:

Arizona on Thursday became the first state to eliminate its Children’s Health Insurance Program when Gov. Jan Brewer signed an austere budget that will leave nearly 47,000 low-income children without coverage.

[...]

State leaders said they were left with few choices because of a $2.6 billion projected shortfall next year. But hospital officials and advocates for low-income people said they were worried that emergency rooms would be overrun by patients who had few other options for care, and that children might suffer enduring developmental problems because of inadequate medical attention.

The cuts also mean the state will forgo hundreds of millions of dollars in federal matching aid, and could lose far more if Congress passes a health bill that requires states to maintain eligibility levels for the two programs.

Ms. Brewer, a Republican, has warned that more cuts will be needed if voters do not approve a referendum in May to raise the sales tax by a penny for three years, to 6.6 cents per dollar.

[...]

The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the budget last week, based largely on a proposal from the governor that included deep cuts to both health care and education. With state revenues down a third since 2007, the $8.9 billion budget reduced spending by about $1.1 billion.

[...]

“They really are standing alone in cutting children off during the downturn,” Ms. Guyer said. “It’s going to have long-term consequences that will be there for kids long after Arizona’s budget situation gets better.”

I should have been a politician since it’s one of the easiest jobs in the world. All I would have to do is cut taxes for my Wall Street friends, collect campaign donations, and fuck over poor people when there’s a budget crisis.

And since I would be a Republican I wouldn’t getting kicked out of office because I’d campaign on my hatred of gays, abortion, and gun laws.

He sure loves sticking it to his base, doesn’t he?

A cadre of anti-abortion Democrats announced Sunday that they’ve reached an agreement with the White House to defuse the controversy over abortion in the health care bill and will now vote yes — effectively putting the Democrats over the 216-vote threshold to pass health reform by day’s end.

The announcement by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and a half-dozen colleagues came just after the White House announced 56that President Barack Obama will sign an executive order reaffirming a ban on federal funding of abortions.

The agreement appeared to clear the final hurdle for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to shepherd to passage a sweeping health reform package that is Obama’s top legislative priority — and would mark the fulfillment of a decades-long Democratic goal, to make health insurance available to nearly every American.

Asked if the agreement put passage in reach, Stupak said, “We’re well past 216, yes.”

5Stupak (D-Mich.) earlier had told Democratic leaders that he would vote for the bill after receiving assurances that Obama will issue the order and that he would be able to state his concerns about abortion funding in the bill in a colloquy on the House floor before the vote.

So why couldn’t Obama do this for Dennis Kucinich? Why couldn’t he use an executive order to create a public option? Or an executive order ridding insurance companies of their anti-trust exemption? Or an executive order allowing Alan Grayson’s “Medicare You Can Buy Into Act” into the final bill?

Two reasons.

First, Obama doesn’t give a shit about progressives. He just used their hatred of the Bush administration to get elected. He’s like the hot cheerleader who needed the nerd’s help to pass the big math exam in order to cheer in the homecoming game. Sure, she thought she was falling for the nerd because she was spending so much time with him. But after she passed the exam she realized she was the goddamn head cheerleader and that she could have anyone she wanted. So she went to the homecoming game, cheered her heart out, and then sucked off the richest kid behind the bleachers.

And second, Dennis Kucinich is a huge pussy that always does what he’s told.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_PX5L_v_7I

Who would have thought Richard Nixon would become the second most liberal president in the history of America?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOQ2GEGm3v0

Get it? I made a dick joke using Anthony Weiner’s last name.

Goddammit it, I’m fucking pathetic. But not as pathetic as the Democrats inability to use reconciliation to give us a public option.

In 1993 this man tried to kill everyone's grandmother.

Those goddamn 1993 Republicans were nothing more than socialist Nazi gangbangers who were trying to kill everyone’s grandma:

For Republicans, the idea of requiring every American to have health insurance is one of the most abhorrent provisions of the Democrats’ health overhaul bills.

“Congress has never crossed the line between regulating what people choose to do and ordering them to do it,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). “The difference between regulating and requiring is liberty.”

But Hatch’s opposition is ironic, or some would say, politically motivated. The last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, Hatch and several other senators who now oppose the so-called individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it.

[...]

One reason the individual mandate appealed to conservatives is because it called for individual responsibility to address what economists call the “free-rider effect.” That’s the fact that if a person is in an accident or comes down with a dread disease, that person is going to get medical care, and someone is going to pay for it.

“We called this responsible national health insurance,” says Pauly. “There was a kind of an ethical and moral support for the notion that people shouldn’t be allowed to free-ride on the charity of fellow citizens.

[...]

But the summary of the Republican bill from the Clinton era and the Democratic bills that passed the House and Senate over the past few months are startlingly alike.

Beyond the requirement that everyone have insurance, both call for purchasing pools and standardized insurance plans. Both call for a ban on insurers denying coverage or raising premiums because a person has been sick in the past. Both even call for increased federal research into the effectiveness of medical treatments — something else that used to have strong bipartisan support, but that Republicans have been backing away from recently.

Only in America will you find a liberal party trying to reform health care by using a 17-year-old  conservative party idea and the conservative party calling the idea the liberal party stole from them as a socialized, Marxist, government-run death camp.

When we’ve got the greatest health care in the world:

The Obama administration and state insurance officials pressured Anthem Blue Cross on Monday to justify its decision to raise rates by as much as 39 percent for thousands of outraged and frustrated California customers.

[...]

The Obama administration and Poizner’s office were prompted to act after Anthem members with individual policies – those who are not covered through employer-sponsored or group plans – were told last week that they would have to pay premiums up to 39 percent higher than their current rates. The Woodland Hills (Los Angeles County) company would not say how many people will be affected, but Anthem has as many as 800,000 individual policyholders – more than any other for-profit insurer – in the state.

[...]

“These extraordinary increases are up to 15 times faster than inflation and threaten to make health care unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of Californians, many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet in a difficult economy,” Sebelius wrote, adding that WellPoint earned $2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009 alone.

[...]

Anthem, for its part, said higher medical costs as well as a smaller pool of members to absorb the risk made raising rates necessary.

“Unfortunately, in the weak economy many people who do not have health conditions are forgoing buying insurance,” the company wrote in a statement Monday responding to Sebelius’ letter. “This leaves fewer people, often with significantly greater medical needs, in the insured pool. We regret the impact this has on our members.”

Don’t you love how Anthem blames the people who don’t buy insurance for the 39 percent premium increase? I do. And so does Obama.