British Couple Gets Hit With $200,000 Medical Bill Because Their Child Was Born During Their Vacation In NYC

The headline really begs the question, who the hell would ever want to visit the United States knowing they could be bankrupted if they should need medical care while they are here?

Because that’s exactly what a couple from England is experiencing after their son was born 11 weeks early during their five-day trip to New York City.

Katie Amos and her fiancé Lee Johnston were hoping to welcome the birth of their child in March long after returning to their home in the UK.

But while sightseeing in Central Park, Katie unexpectedly went into labor and later gave birth to a 3 lb baby boy they named Dax at Lenox Hill Hospital. So far, Dax is doing well and is adored by his parents. However, their experience with the US healthcare system has been a nightmare.

Doctors have informed the couple that their son cannot leave the hospital until March, and that’s a major problem because they have no money, no clothes and no support system for the next two months while they are stranded in New York City. Meanwhile, they can’t work and they have bills to pay in the UK. And they face a $200,000 medical bill on top of all of that.

Currently, the Ronald McDonald House is paying for temporary hotel accommodations while their baby is in intensive care but they need financial help to get them through the next two months and to pay a hospital bill no human being should ever have to deal with in the first place.

So, they have set up a fundraising page and have creatively told their story from Dax’s point of view:

New Gallup Poll Crushes Vital Piece of Republican Propaganda Against Obamacare

Years from now, history is going to look back on the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) as a law that befuddles people who weren’t alive when it was first passed. They’ll look back and mock those who levied such blind hatred toward the law much in the same way we do those who stood against every other piece of historic legislation that was passed in this country.

Because no matter what “horrors” Republicans try to sell to the American people about “Obamacare,” reality continues to prove otherwise. Aside from all the ridiculous nonsense (death panels, government takeover of health care, socialism) the biggest talking point they initially tried to use was that it was a “job killer.” Then again, what isn’t a “job killer” to Republicans? It’s their go-to fear mongering talking point. Well, as we’ve seen with unemployment dropping below 6%, over 10 million private-sector jobs being created since the law was passed and 2014 being the best year for job creation since the 90′s – the ACA hasn’t “killed jobs.”

Then we can’t forget about this time last year when Republicans were falling all over themselves with joy following the disastrous marketplace rollout. Though reality ultimately showed that it had very little impact as over 8 million Americans used the health care exchange to sign up for health insurance.

The next lie they then tried to push was that even though over 8 million people signed up for “Obamacare,” only a small fraction of those people would actually pay. Wrong again. In fact, 90 percent of the people who signed up for health care through the marketplace paid for their coverage.

Occupy Charity Buys $15 Million Of Americans’ Medical Debt And Cancels It!

Almost 4,000 indebted Americans have had their medical bills wiped out after a group of activists from Occupy Wall Street purchased and cancelled nearly $15 million of medical debt.

Working through the anti-debt organization Rolling Jubilee, the activists crowd-sourced donations from individual members and eventually raised $700,000. They then used this to purchase consumer debt on the secondary debt market at a fraction of the cost. Using just $300,000 they wiped out the medical bills of 3,801 individuals who collectively owed $15 million.

Rolling Jubilee estimates that 62% of bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical illness and the debt that follows. The group is part of a wider, national campaign called Strike Debt. Made up of former Occupy Wall Street activists, the organization campaigns for economic justice and democratic freedom.

80-year-old Kentucky resident Shirley Logsdon described the debt cancellation as “a godsend.”

The vice-president of the Rolling Jubilee Fund Thomas Gokey said:

“We have no moral obligation to pay a debt to an investor who purchased our debt on average at 4% and then claims we owe 100%.”

Traditionally the purchasing of debt at a fraction of the cost and then demanding repayment, usually at an exorbitant rate of interest, has been the preserve of vulture capitalists taking advantage of indebted nations like Greece. Rolling Jubilee has turned this practice on its head by using donations from ordinary individuals to purchase and expunge the debt of people whose only failing was to become sick.

Watch What Happens When An Anti-Obamacare Senator Gets Ripped By This Canadian Doctor!

When Senator Richard Burr attended the debate on health care on Tuesday, he was probably not expecting to get schooled by Canadian doctor and vice president at the Women’s College Hospital, Danielle Martin.

Senator Burr attempted to denigrate the “socialist” Canadian National Healthcare system with some nonsense he probably heard on Fox ‘News.’  when he questioned Dr. Martin if she knew, on average, how many Canadian patients die each year on a waiting list. Martin did not have this number; she did, however, totally obliterate  the Senator by saying, “I don’t, sir, but I know that there are 45,000 in America who die waiting because they don’t have insurance at all.”

Boom. Roasted.  

Watch the full exchange below:

GOP WOULD BAR POOR FROM HEALTH CARE ALTOGETHER

During a Republican primary debate in the last presidential election cycle, there was a dispiriting moment in which tea party audience members cheered at the idea that a comatose uninsured American -- unable to afford health insurance -- would be left to die. That infamous outburst, among others, has prompted GOP bigwigs to try to cut back on primary season debates, hoping to limit appearances that might expose the party's baser impulses.

But that mean-spirited and contemptuous attitude toward the sick is alive and well in the Grand Old Party, as its maniacal (and futile) resistance to Obamacare has made clear. Now, one Republican politician is pushing that callousness to new lows: He wants to bar the uninsured from hospital emergency rooms.

Last week, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal criticized a decades-old federal law that requires all hospitals that receive Medicare funds and have emergency facilities -- and that's most -- to treat any patient who walks in needing care, regardless of his ability to pay. "It came as a result of bad facts," Deal said, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "And we have a saying that bad facts make bad law."

Deal says that many people use emergency rooms unnecessarily, and those patients inflate health care costs. He is factually correct. But there are other facts that undercut his arguments and reveal his hypocrisy.

First off, Deal is among those red-state Republicans who have vociferously opposed the Affordable Care Act, which makes health insurance available to hundreds of thousands of people who couldn't otherwise afford it. If more people had health insurance policies that paid for doctors' visits, fewer would use emergency rooms for routine complaints.

Second, Deal, like many Republican governors, has refused the Medicaid expansion made possible by Obamacare, even though the federal government would pick up 100 percent of the cost for the first three years and 90 percent until the year 2022. That expansion is the best chance many Georgians without means have for getting health insurance.

So, to sum up, Deal hates Obamacare and refuses its Medicaid expansion, which would keep the working poor out of emergency rooms. In addition, he wants to deny them access to emergency rooms unless they can pay. Really, governor? Don't you insist that your values are "pro-life"?

It's no wonder that GOP strategists shuddered when audience members responded so cruelly during the CNN/Tea Party Express debate in September 2011. It portrays the party as pitiless -- a reputation unlikely to attract a majority of voters.

Quiet as it's kept, most Americans support keeping Obamacare, despite the relentless pounding it has taken from Republicans. (And despite a website rollout that was infuriatingly incompetent.) A new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 56 percent of Americans favor keeping it in place, while just 31 percent want to repeal it. (Twelve percent want to replace it with a GOP plan.)

That's likely because most voters, no matter their reservations about Obamacare, know that the Republican Party has no good solution for the millions of Americans who work every day but still don't earn enough money to buy a health care plan. Americans have struggled with the nation's dysfunctional health care "system," and they know it's overdue for an overhaul.

Meanwhile, as the mid-term elections draw closer, the GOP struggles to come up with a plan that pretends to overhaul the health care system. Looking to avoid being painted as mere obstructions, House Republican honchos are working to draw their caucus together behind a bill that would replace Obamacare with a workable alternative.

But the most sincere plan so far -- one offered by Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., Tom Coburn, R-Okla. and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah -- would probably offer policies too skimpy to do any good once a policy-holder gets sick.

Besides, even that replacement idea seems unlikely to draw broad support among the far-right tea partiers, who believe that allowing the uninsured poor to die is the appropriate government response to the health care crisis.

That's a hulking bit of hypocrisy for a party that advertises itself as "pro-life." Deal's latest proposal is one more reminder of how little that label means.

4 shocking facts about American healthcare

His name is Josh Sundquist, and he’s really good. In this video, he talks about four crazy facts about the US healthcare system. He even posts links to stories detailing the facts he mentions in his video (you can find the links in the “about” section of the video).

Anti-Choice Crowd in Michigan Wants Women to Buy ‘Rape Insurance’

Everyone knows that the anti-choice crowd will resort to anything in their anti-women crusade to impose their own ‘morality’ on others. In Michigan they have found a new way to deny women the right to a safe and legal abortion — they want them to buy what amounts to rape insurance.

With a sympathetic Republican controlled legislature, they have attempted to get anti-choice legislation passed but are stymied by Governor Rick Snyder, who is also a Republican but more of a moderate, favoring exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.

However, Michigan Right to Life have gathered sufficient signatures on a petition for an initiative which would require that women who want abortions covered by their health insurance buy a rider for that purpose.  This would apply to all health insurance policies in the state.

They have collected 315,477 signatures and the Secretary of State has certified 299,941 as valid — 258,088 were needed to move the initiative forward.

The Board of Canvassers will meet on Monday, December 2 to certify the signatures after which the measure will move on to the legislature which has 40 days to act on it.  They will have the option to approve, reject or do nothing.  The initiative obviously has strong support among lawmakers since the majority of them signed the petition themselves.

Democrats in the legislature have vowed to fight the proposal.  Robert McCann, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing said, “Obviously the Republicans have a choice to make; they can either continue their war on women or let the voters decide.  Frankly, it’s offensive that it’s something to be brought before the Legislature — requiring women to have rape insurance.”

As a legislative ballot initiative, Governor Snyder can neither sign it or veto it though he has in the past vetoed legislation which limits the right of a rape victim to obtain an abortion.  Last year the legislature passed a bill which would have required these riders but the Governor vetoed it. This time he will not have that opportunity.

If the legislature does not act on the proposal or rejects it, the next step would be a vote in the 2014 election in the form of a ballot initiative. With the majority of the legislature having signed the petition, it would seem that they are looking for a way around the Governor’s office and subverting the will of the people. It seems unlikely that they would allow it to go to the people in November when public sentiment is against the measure.

Since the legislature is scheduled to go into recess on December 12 and not return until Snyder delivers his State of the State Address in mid-January, and because the 40-day window only applies to days that the legislature is in session it will probably be the end of January before any action is taken.

This tactic has been used four times in the past, three of those occasions were to limit accessibility to abortions, including one to prevent the use of state tax funds for “welfare abortions” unless the life of the mother was threatened.  Another required parental approval for a minor to obtain an abortion and one to define legal person-hood.  The only non abortion related initiative was to repeal the single business tax in 2006.

HHS: Married Gay Couples Now Eligible for Medicare Nursing Home Coverage

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced yesterday first guidance implementing the Supreme Court’s decision on the Defense of Marriage Act. HHS will now extend medicare coverage to married same-sex couples in nursing homes.

A press release from HHS announcing the new policy reads:

Today, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a memo clarifying that all beneficiaries in private Medicare plans have access to equal coverage when it comes to care in a nursing home where their spouse lives. This is the first guidance issued by HHS in response to the recent Supreme Court ruling, which held section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

"HHS is working swiftly to implement the Supreme Court’s decision and maximize federal recognition of same-sex spouses in HHS programs," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "Today’s announcement is the first of many steps that we will be taking over the coming months to clarify the effects of the Supreme Court’s decision and to ensure that gay and lesbian married couples are treated equally under the law."

California bill would fine big firms whose workers get Medi-Cal

A follow-up on yesterday's post:

For years, politicians and labor unions have pilloried Wal-Mart and other large employers for paying workers so little that many qualify for government health insurance at taxpayers' expense.

Now critics fear the public will get stuck with an even bigger tab as California and other states expand Medicaid as part of the federal healthcare law. That has California lawmakers taking aim at the world's largest retailer and other big firms.

Legislators, backed by unions, consumer groups and doctors, are calling for fines that could reach about $6,000 per full-time employee who ends up on Medi-Cal, the state Medicaid program for the poor and others. They say this would eliminate a loophole in the Affordable Care Act that encourages large retailers and restaurant chains to dump hourly workers onto the government dole because there's currently no penalty for doing so.

The outcome of this California battle could have national implications as other cash-strapped states search for ways to shore up safety-net programs that are bound to be stretched by a massive healthcare expansion.

"There are concerns that employers will be gaming this new system and taking less and less responsibility for their workers," said Sonya Schwartz, program director at the National Academy for State Health Policy. "This may make employers think twice."

The state proposal has already cleared key legislative committees. The next hurdle is getting approval from a two-thirds majority of lawmakers in Sacramento.

With the idea gaining momentum, retailers and business groups are pushing back. They say California's move would set a dangerous precedent and result in fewer jobs at a time when many people are still struggling to find work.

More at The L. A. Times