Are health care reform opponents now trying to refight the Civil War?
“If Obamacare passes, that free insurance card that's in people's pockets is going to be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the war between the states, the great War of Yankee Aggression,” Rep. Paul Broun said during a speech Thursday night on the House floor.
(The video can’t be embedded. Go to Media Matters to watch it.)
The Internets, as one might image, are up in arms. The Daily Beast, Talking Points Memo and The Independent are among the blogs picking up on it.
The consensus seems to be: 1. There’s no free health care for anyone in the bill, and 2. War of Yankee Aggression? Really?
So, if the Civil War is the War of Yankee Aggression – actually, the way folks in my native Alabama always put it was the War of Northern Aggression – does that make health care reform the War of Kenyan Aggression?
For good measure, TPM also has a post about Broun comparing President Obama to the leftist, totalitarian Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but that’s old news to us in the 10th District.
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Don't you mean the 9th?
Don't you mean the 9th?
thanks
thanks
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That's little strange for
That's little strange for me.. h ope to read more about it.
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I'm in ----
I want to be first in line for that free insurance card, just like the one Paul Broun has, and the one that everyone over 65 has.
I still think it's the height of hypocrisy for someone who works in a building that has a fully staffed clinic in the basement paid for by the taxpayers but limited to members of Congress (along with the barbershop and cafeteria) to dump on free insurance and free medical care.
When PB and the teabaggers stand up and shred their free insurance/medicare cards, I'll become a true believer.
There you go
There you go again--injecting rationality into a perfectly good disinformation campaign.
"I want to be first in line
"I want to be first in line for that free insurance card, just like the one Paul Broun has, and the one that everyone over 65 has."
Medicare is not free, not by a long shot. You and your employer pay over 5% of your gross pay for your entire working life. Then when you do go on Medicare you have to pay a monthly premium. Plus you almost have to buy supplemental insurance from a private source since there is quite a gap between what Medicare pays and the total medical bill. I'm currently paying $150 a month for my single coverage policies.
Which goes back to the
Which goes back to the question of who, exactly, is getting these mythical free insurance cards?
I'll still be first in line for the free insurance --
And if you don't work at all, what do you get when you turn 65, FREE MEDICARE.
Whole bunch of spouses out there sucking up on that FREE MEDICARE.
Part A medicare has no premium. It is FREE if you haven't worked. FREE as in "doesn't cost a single thin Yankee dime."
But I'll just settle for this;
This fall while members of Congress toil in the U.S. Capitol, working to decide how or even whether to reform the country's health care system, one floor below them an elaborate Navy medical clinic -- described by those who have seen it as something akin to a modern community hospital -- will be standing by, on-call and ready to provide Congress with some of the country's best and most efficient government-run health care.
Dr. Tim Johnson takes a look at the medical care lawmakers can tap.
Formally called the Office of the Attending Physician, the clinic -- and at least six satellite offices it supports -- bills its mission as one of emergency preparedness and public health. Each day, it stands ready to handle medical emergencies, biological attacks and the occasional fainting tourist visiting Capitol Hill.
Officially, the office acknowledges these types of services, including providing physicals to Capitol police officers and offering flu shots to congressional staffers. But what is rarely discussed outside the halls of Congress is the office's other role -- providing a wealth of primary care medical services to senators, representatives and Supreme Court justices.
Through interviews with former employees and members of Congress, as well as extensive document searches, ABC News has learned new details about the services offered by the Office of Attending Physician to members of Congress over the past few years, from regular visits by a consulting chiropractor to on-site physical therapy.
"A member walked in and was generally walked right back into a physician's office. They get good care. They are not rushed. They are examined thoroughly," said Eduardo Balbona, an internist in Jacksonville, Fla., who worked as a staff physician in the OAP from 1993 to 1995.
"You have time to spend to get to know your patients and think about them and really think about how you preserve their health going forward," Balbona said. "We're not there to put on Band-Aids. We were there to make sure that everything possible that could be done [is done] to preserve that member of Congress."
Office of the Attending Physician Services
Services offered by the Office of the Attending Physician include physicals and routine examinations, on-site X-rays and lab work, physical therapy and referrals to medical specialists from military hospitals and private medical practices. According to congressional budget records, the office is staffed by at least four Navy doctors as well as at least a dozen medical and X-ray technicians, nurses and a pharmacist.
Sources said when specialists are needed, they are brought to the Capitol, often at no charge to members of Congress.
"If you had, for example, prostate cancer, you would go to one of the centers of excellence for the country, which would be Johns Hopkins. If you had coronary artery disease, we would engage specialists at the Cleveland Clinic. You would go to the best care in the country. And, for the most part, nobody asked what your insurance was," Balbona said.
In addition to Balbona, several former staff members and private physicians who have consulted at the OAP as recently as last year agreed to talk to ABC News on background. They described a culture centered on meeting the needs and whims of members of Congress, with almost no concern for cost.
Congressmen are also eligible for free out-patient care at military facilities in the Washington, D.C., area, including Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Medical Center.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/congress-health-care-clinic/story?id=87...
Getting all Biblical here, let's stop looking for the mote in your neighbor's eye, and start looking for the beam in yours.
Not quite
For those who don't know, Medicare Part A covers hospital stays. The premiums are waived for people over 65 who have worked and paid into the system for at least 10 years. There is also a co-pay if you are in the hospital longer than 20 days.
So, again, who's getting this free insurance that Obamacare supposedly creates?
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UPDATE
Add Gawker and Wonkette to the list.
Aww crap
Now Wonkette's ragging on our town. Guys, not every county in Broun's district is a neo-Confederate throwback. Blame Atlanta for putting us in with a very politically dissimilar rural NE Georgia.
Health
Health care , what a huge problem , dunno if there is one cou8ntry on the Earth that has no health care problems, and those reforms are taking forever , but really treatment prices are so high , I mean pay 100.000 dollars for some operation , for which the materials and power for equipment cost barely max of 5000 dollars, but hospitals are money hungry machines , and do not even have a good stairlift for the elders.
health
I couldn't agree more to be honest. Hurry up and figure it out already, it's taking way to long. I am not sure about other countries exactly, but I know they do offer free health care some of them. I believe Canada is one of them, maybe we should look into it.
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Free?
Why does anyone refer to Medicare as "free?"
Semantics
"...health care reform opponents..."
Don't you mean "current health care reform proposal opponents"? Or is there evidence that none of the offered counterproposals are "reform"?
The "current health care
The "current health care reform proposal" is the only one that's ever going to see the light of day.
Of course.
That's my point exactly. Despite the fact that there are opposing plans, even crappy ones, "journalists" tell us we have only one choice. Congress tells us we only have one choice. And those of us who don't follow things closely will swallow that line, and whatever else is fed us.
Like Paul Ryan's plan?
The one that cuts taxes on the wealthy while raising them on the middle class, ends Medicare as we know it and still increases the long-term deficit? http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3114
And afaik, that's the *most* serious counterproposal out there.
Yep.
As far as ~you~ know.
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Rapid Change
I feel that the idea for change in the current health care system in the United States is a step forward, however it seems to me that the proposed change is too radical and quick for the American people. The majority of people don't handle rapid change well and this proposed plan is facing resistance because of it. The stats are out there if you Google them that a socialist based health care is considered better my the majority of people in socialist countries. Unfortunately, since I'm not an American I'm forced to use visitors health insurance to cover my expenses while I study here, but I definitely look forward to going back to Europe and being covered under the plan, even if I'm taxed up front for the coverage.
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What does this mean for those visiting the country? Will they be covered by some kind of emergency medicare, or will they all require visitors health insurance. This could then have a knock on effect to tourism etc?
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