Dear GOP - the collective you are an Idiot

[gridlore]

Originally posted by suricattus; reposted with permission.

There is a move afoot in the nation -driven by the GOP - to repeal the new health care laws, to protect corporate interests, to defend against fear-mongering (and stupid) cries of "socialism!", and to ensure that people are forced to choose between keeping a roof over their heads or getting necessary health care.

This movement is killing people.

Think I'm overstating the fact?

Ask the friends and family of writer/reviewer Melissa Mia Hall, who died of a heart attack last week because she was so terrified of medical bills, she didn't go see a doctor who could have saved her life.

One person. Not the only one. That could have been me. Yeah, I have access to insurance -- I live in New York City, which is freelancer-friendly, and have access to freelancer advocacy groups. Through them, I can pay over $400/month ($5,760/year) as a single, healthy woman, so that if I go to the hospital I'm not driven to bankruptcy. But a doctor's appointment - a routine physical - can still cost me several hundred dollars each visit. So unless something's terribly wrong? I won't go.

Someone who lives in a state where there is no Freelancer's Guild or MediaBistro to put together an insurance plan for freelancers? Someone who has been laid off or downsized, and can barely make ends meet? SoL.

That could be you. That could be your best friend. That could be someone you've never met. That could be any of us - because there are people out there who think that taking care their neighbor is someone else's problem.

No. It's our responsibility. All of us, together. As a nation.

EtA: Nobody is trying to put insurance companies out of business. They will always be able to offer a better plan for a premium. We simply want to ensure that every citizen - from infant to senior citizen - doesn't have to choose between medical care, and keeping a roof over their heads, or having enough to eat.

We're trying to get this to go viral. Pass it along:

I won't watch another friend die because they can't afford healthcare. Save the Affordable Care Act! http://ow.ly/3QAD7 #ForMMHall #HCR

I'm going to post my story as the first comment to this post if anyone would like to read it. If anyone wants to tell their story, please tell it on your own journal and post a link in the comments. Maybe, just maybe, TPTB will listen to the slaves peons who clean their toilets before they have to clean their own.

Comments

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

You all know my story by now. Cancer and the sixteen years of health problems that followed. Most of you have followed my recent struggles.

What you may not know is back in 1995 I got health insurance two months before I got sick. It was that close. Without PacifiCare, I'm dead at 29 from a ruptured spleen (the cancer never would have had a chance, my spleen was ready to blow.)

Stop the GOP war on humanity.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

No VA coverage?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

I was discharged for being a fruit with a fruit salad. General Under Honorable, no benefits.

[caraig.livejournal.com]

My nephew is a bright young man, with a talent for mathematics. He was born with a heart condition which required replacing one of his valves two years ago. This valve will need to be replaced every 4-8 years. He is currently covered under my brother's plan. Without the Affordable Care Act, he will loose that coverage immediately. He will be 'dinged' for having a pre-existing condition in ANY health insurance plan he tries to get into. If he can even get any insurance, he will have a ridiculously high premium or a huge deductible because the insurance companies know he will need at least ten thousand dollars worth of surgery within the decade. Without the Affordable Care Act, he will be dead or bankrupt within eight years.

I asked a self-proclaimed libertarian what his view was to be, as far as my nephew's condition. His answer: Charity. Charity. This is what the Republicans who are trying to repeal ACA will want for everyone who cannot afford real health care. While they get their taxpayer-funded full-service private-room health care... they want the rest of us to beg for charity from everyone else who is in the same boat.

I personally feel that the health insurance industry is a murderous one, that it is one of the few industries in the world that shows a profit from denying service. I am uncomfortable with the mandate in the ACA, but I understand why it is there. I would rather there be a single-payer system. But I know that this has never even been seriously considered in this country and probably never will in the next 50 years. I will hold my nose, and suffer the health insurance industry, if it means that my nephew has a shot at a fulfilling life without going bankrupt.

[kengr]

What's really horrible is that if I recall correctly the mandate (which I don't like either) was put in the bill *by* the Republicans as a "poison pill".