Thumbs Down on Healthcare?

Most will remember the words of the song – “This Land is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie. Guthrie saw the plight of the farmers in the dust bowl and working men in the depression and wanted a narrative that spoke to them when he wrote this song in 1940. When the President was in Tulsa recently, he might have missed the mural on the side of the Guthrie Museum in Tulsa – where his guitar proclaims: “This machine kills fascists”. It was his way of saying that folk singers speak truth to power.  Petula Dvorak wrote recently in the Washington Post that among Guthries’ archives was found a tune he composed in the 1950’s about the color line drawn by the Presidents’ father in his housing project for veteran’s post World War II; that project was later investigated for profiteering and racial discrimination issues. As a veteran, Guthrie had lived in that project and spoke out against the discrimination.

Today, with more than 40 million workers on the unemployment lines, the worker is again threatened with being tossed by the wayside. True, some unemployment checks have been beefed up and some stimulus checks have helped for a few months, but this is all going away in a few weeks, even while some states have still not gotten their employment offices up to speed. Although utility companies were not supposed to suspend services and landlords were not supposed to evict tenants during this crisis, these protections will end soon without employment returning in many cases; it is possible that many will find themselves homeless.

The pandemic coronovirus was supposed to be over by now according to pronouncements from VP Pence and first son-in-law Jared. But, somehow, the virus is not listening and states that had opened up public places too early are trying to close them back up in response to rapidly rising case load counts. New cases across the country have exceeded 40,000 each of the last few days. Texas, Florida, Arizona and California are among the hardest hit areas.

So, in the midst of huge unemployment, and a rising incidence of virus cases – what does the administration decide to do – why have the Department of Justice (DOJ) sign on to support the case before the Supreme Court brought by Republican State Attorneys to rule the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obamacare) unconstitutional, of course.  As a country, we have not yet tallied the enormous costs of the pandemic ICU and ventilator use, not to mention the costs to families, emotionally and financially of this wide spread illness.  According to the National Law Journal, more than 29 million people would lose health care coverage if this law were to be overturned and it would double the number of Americans who are uninsured. The brief filed by the DOJ did not mention the pandemic, nor did it discuss the young adults who might be unemployed or gig workers who could still be covered by their parent’s insurance if they were under 26 years old. It did not mention the approximately 40 million Americans who are self employed or who have pre-existing conditions and were able to buy insurance for themselves and their families on the Market Places (albeit at inflated prices). 

The expanded Medicaid attached to the ACA has allowed 75 million people to be covered (10 million disabled individuals and 9.6 million children under CHIP [in 2018]) especially in the mostly blue states which signed on to the expanded coverages.  Medicaid is funded partly by the states and partly with Federal matching funds.  Some states have very strict allowances for benefits, including work options or job training programs.  But when such programs are mandated and do not adequately consider health conditions or child care needs, they are less than effective. Who can forget the days of insurance denials for pre-existing conditions? Or the bankruptcies suffered by families who faced large medical bills without insurance coverage? They could all come roaring back if the ACA is deemed unconstitutional.

Do you remember that early morning Senate session where the ACA was on the chopping block and Senator John McCain, already diagnosed with the brain tumor which would kill him, strode to the floor of the Senate and said thumbs down on the repeal effort and cast the deciding vote to keep it?  He was not happy with the attempt at railroading through of this legislation without proper process and “regular order”.

According to Vox he stated: “We must now return to the correct way of legislating and send the bill back to committee, hold hearings, receive input from both sides of the aisle, heed the recommendations of the nation’s governors, and produce a bill that finally delivers affordable health care for the American people,” he also said. “We must do the hard work our citizens expect of us and deserve.” (John McCain 7/27/17) Three years later, that has not happened as there are no Republicans of courage apparently to follow his stand of honor and disagree with the President.

We can only hope that the Supreme Court will oppose the efforts of the DOJ and others and put an end to these needless lawsuits. Then the nation can get about the business of fixing the ACA, which was never expanded the way Obama wanted, due to concessions made to get something passed.  There was always the intent to go back and modify the original bill.  Maybe now this can happen.

COVID-19 Stats for today from the CDC:

Total US cases: 2,504,175 (44,703 new since yesterday) Total Deaths: 125,484

Total Maryland cases: 66,777 Total deaths: 3,163.  Maryland is still partly in phase two of re-opening.

Timely Tidbits for today:

• Message to Americans – Stay Home: The European Union is considering banning Americans from traveling to member countries because the danger of pandemic transmission is considered to be so high from US travelers.  Chinese travelers will be allowed in, but Russian and Brazilians are also on the no-fly list.

• The President is doubling down on his racially divisive messages mentioning“Kung flu, hombres, thugs and the honorable heritage of beautiful confederate statues”; today he retweeted, then deleted messages about white power.  It seems that he really does want to divide, instead of unite, this country.

• The House voted last week to make Washington DC the 51^st state.  Senator Tom Cotton, who is getting ever weirder in his remarks, stated that DC has no industry and should not be a state - (he discounted lobbying – where does he get his contributions?), not like a real state such as Alaska where they have fishing or Wyoming where there is both logging and fishing (my paraphrase)! Note to the Senator: annual median income in Wyoming is $61, 584, in DC it is $104,000.  Just sayin’, facts count.

Well, I guess that is about all for today.  Please let me know of topics you would like to see covered.  Do you have a choice for Candidate Joe Biden to choose as his VP – let me know – and tell me what issues factored in your choice.

What do you think of statues being toppled?  George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were slave owners – but they helped form our country and set in place the freedoms we applaud today.  Where does one draw the line – is there a line to be drawn?  Tell me your thoughts.

‘Til next week - stay safe – peace.