Monthly Archives: March 2017

So the American Healthcare Act has finally been revealed and what a piece of work it is. For starters it will cost the average person an extra 1542.00 per year for the same care they have now. That’s right you get higher premiums, higher deductibles (cause that’s what “patient centered care” really means) and less services for your money.

The young and healthy make out the best as they are no longer asked to share the burden for the elderly or sick. The elderly and those with pre-existing conditions now go into a “high risk” pool which means exorbitant costs for their care. Furthermore, the proposed bills will:

• defund Planned Parenthood.
• eliminates private insurance coverage for abortion.
• eliminates penalties on companies that don’t insure employees.
• ends Medicaid Expansion.
• provides huge tax breaks – $346 billion over 10 years – to the wealthy.

On top of all this, Senator Charles Schumer tweeted today that there will be a cap on medicaid nursing home spending. If you have ever had a loved one in a nursing home, you know that generally their medical conditions worsen over time. My mother for example suffered from Alzheimer’s and spent her last years in a nursing home. I can’t even imagine what I would have done if she had reached some arbitrary spending amount and the nursing home called to say: “Medicaid will no longer pay for your mother’s care, please begin paying 12,000.00 a month or come take her.”

The idea that people may soon be facing this as a reality is horrifying to me. I used to work in a nursing home, so I know the amount of serious medical care the residents are receiving on a daily basis. Most of these people can’t just simply move back in with the kids, many of them are stroke victims, others are on dialysis, or they suffer from dementia. These people need 24/7 care, most of them worked all of their lives and made their contributions to society. Many of them are parents or grandparents, and as a society, we are responsible for their well being.

These two bills that make up the “American Healthcare Act” truly show the heartlessness and greed of the GOP. For a change, this goes way beyond Trump. He’ll rubber stamp anything they put in front of him, but this nightmare is mainly Paul Ryan’s creation.

I only hope the Democrats develop  a real spine and actually block these bills by any means possible. I will not be satisfied with a “well we voted against it” shrug “what can you do” attitude. They need to shut down Congress and the Senate if necessary to keep these nightmarish bills from becoming reality.