Hypothetical Dystopia

Paul Ryan’s brazen lies

“Paul Ryan gave a feisty anti-Obama speech that will have fact-checkers working for days. His most brazen lie accused President Obama of “raiding” Medicare by taking the exact same $716 billion that Ryan and the House GOP notoriously voted to slash. It was stunning.

But that’s not all. He attacked Obama for failing to keep open a Janesville GM plant that closed under Bush in 2008. He hit him for a credit-rating downgrade that S&P essentially blamed on GOP intransigence. He claimed that all taxpayers got from the 2009 stimulus was “more debt,” when most got a tax cut (and the stimulus is known to have saved between 1.4 and 3.3 million jobs.) He derided the president for walking away from the Simpson Bowles commission deficit-cutting recommendations when Ryan himself, a commission member, voted against those recommendations.

He blamed Obama for a deficit mostly created by programs he himself voted for – from two wars, tax cuts, new Medicare benefits and TARP.

And of course, he riffed on the tired central lie of the GOP convention: that the president said “government gets the credit” for small businesses, not the business owners themselves.

Other than that, it was a great speech.

Interestingly, for all his lies, Ryan didn’t repeat the Romney camp’s false claim that Obama did away with the welfare system’s work requirements. Maybe he ran out of time.

Ryan got off a few good zingers: “College grads shouldn’t have to live out their 20s in childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters.” He didn’t mention that he opposed legislation to keep student loan rates from doubling. His remarks about his childhood were slightly moving. He talked about losing his father at 16, and he called his mother, who went back to school and to work after that, his role model. But he never mentioned the Social Security death benefits that let him go to an out-of-state school. Occasionally he seemed to be going after swing-voters, rather than his hard-right base, taking a more in sorrow than anger tone about Obama’s failings. Then he’d mix things up with nastiness and lies.” by Joan Walsh

Click through for more:

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/30/paul_ryans_brazen_lies/

# paul romney rnc gop politics election 2012 salon election obama mitt romney debt deficit economy bush taxes medicare obamacare class warfare sj lies truth college social security

Posted 8 months ago 5 notes
Federal health-care programs and those funded with federal dollars are barred from discriminating against transgender people, a senior official with the Department of Health and Human Services told LGBT advocacy groups in July — a sweeping decision that will impact most health-care services across the country.

—

This is huge. I cannot stress the importance of knowing your rights. ObamaCare (I personally hate that term because I feel like it takes away the validity and importance of our Health Care as if saying….”this is just one person’s opinion and doesn’t really count…Why can’t they continue to say Affordable Care Act?…but I digress)….mandates that ANY healthcare agency receiving FEDERAL funding is not allowed to discriminate against transgender folk. 

However, there is still a question mark when it comes to transition related care. In the article it said, “Although the decision does not specifically address transition-related care — surgery and other medical procedures that some transgender people undergo in the course of moving to their self-identified gender — a leading transgender advocate says the decision is a “tool” to get protections that would cover transition-related care.”

I am curious to know what is meant by “tool”…what does that look like and what does that exactly entail? While we are still figuring out what exactly is defined as discrimination under the Affordable Care Act, here is the exact place within the document to point people to if you feel you have been discriminated against: “Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act — the 2010 health care overhaul known as ObamaCare — forbids discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, national origin, disability or age in health programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance or by programs administered by an Executive Agency or any entity established under Title I of the ACA, as the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights described the provision.”

-Ryan

Memo: ObamaCare Will Bar Discrimination Against Transgender People

(via ryansallans)

# obama aca obamacare health care public health

Reblogged 9 months ago from becauseiamawoman (Originally from ryansallans) 226 notes
Federal health-care programs and those funded with federal dollars are barred from discriminating against transgender people, a senior official with the Department of Health and Human Services told LGBT advocacy groups in July — a sweeping decision that will impact most health-care services across the country.

—

This is huge. I cannot stress the importance of knowing your rights. ObamaCare (I personally hate that term because I feel like it takes away the validity and importance of our Health Care as if saying….”this is just one person’s opinion and doesn’t really count…Why can’t they continue to say Affordable Care Act?…but I digress)….mandates that ANY healthcare agency receiving FEDERAL funding is not allowed to discriminate against transgender folk. 

However, there is still a question mark when it comes to transition related care. In the article it said, “Although the decision does not specifically address transition-related care — surgery and other medical procedures that some transgender people undergo in the course of moving to their self-identified gender — a leading transgender advocate says the decision is a “tool” to get protections that would cover transition-related care.”

I am curious to know what is meant by “tool”…what does that look like and what does that exactly entail? While we are still figuring out what exactly is defined as discrimination under the Affordable Care Act, here is the exact place within the document to point people to if you feel you have been discriminated against: “Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act — the 2010 health care overhaul known as ObamaCare — forbids discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, national origin, disability or age in health programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance or by programs administered by an Executive Agency or any entity established under Title I of the ACA, as the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights described the provision.”

-Ryan

Memo: ObamaCare Will Bar Discrimination Against Transgender People

(via ryansallans)

# lgbtq obamacare discrimination transgender

Reblogged 9 months ago from stfuconservatives (Originally from ryansallans) 226 notes
Rick Perry is not alone. Ever since the Supreme Court allowed states to opt out of the law’s expansion of Medicaid without forfeiting all their Medicaid funding, at least five other Republican governors — led by Tea Party darlings like South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, Florida’s Rick Scott and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal — have summarily refused to implement the expansion on the grounds that their states just can’t afford it. They’re as wrong as Rick Perry. The federal government covers 100 percent of the expansion in 2014 through 2016. In 2017, states begin sharing the cost, paying 5 percent; that share grows to 10 percent in 2020. States are never on the hook for more than 10 percent of the annual cost. To put that in perspective, states currently pay between 25 to 50 percent of current Medicaid’s costs.

In many cases, Republican governors have wildly exaggerated what Medicaid expansion would actually cost their state.

— ‘We Can’t Afford It’: The Big Lie About Medicaid Expansion (via ryking)

(Source: diadoumenos)

# medicaid obamacare rick perry perry politics news economy

Reblogged 10 months ago from stfueverything (Originally from diadoumenos) 86 notes
How many times have you heard someone discuss the need to maintain health insurance for themselves or their family as a factor in an important personal, job-change, or life choice? If the health-insurance exchanges that Obamacare promises work at all well, a new era of personal freedom beckons.

— Steve Coll on Obamacare and the future of work: http://nyr.kr/NZDCB0 (via newyorker)

# Obamacare health-care Affordable Care Act News Government Jobs America Work

Reblogged 10 months ago from newyorker 432 notes

journalofajournalist:

felixsalmon:

THESIS:

The difference between Europe and the US is this. Let’s say that you’re paying $1,000 per month for private health insurance. The government comes to you with a bargain: we’ll tax you an extra $600 per month, but in return you’ll get better health insurance than you’ve got right now, so you end up ahead by $400 per month. Europeans look at that bargain and think it seems like a very good deal. Americans look at that bargain with great suspicion.

Very well said.

# health insurance health health care obama insurance obamacare aca scotus europe america government politics current events

Reblogged 10 months ago from journalofajournalist (Originally from felixsalmon) 181 notes
I’m going to eliminate every non-essential, expensive program I can find, that includes Obamacare,

—

Republican presidential candidate MITT ROMNEY, essentially telling 30 million Americans without health insurance that they’re “non-essential.”

Good job, Mitt.

(via The Huffington Post)

Let’s see, what would Republicans consider essential?

The military. Tax cuts for the rich. Subsidies for oil companies. Creationism.

Everyone else? Sorry, the Republicans don’t care.

(via liberalbutnotpartisan)

(Source: inothernews)

# obamacare aca health insurance health insurance obama mitt romney romney mitt 2012 republicans gop democrats

Reblogged 10 months ago from liberalbutnotpartisan (Originally from inothernews) 545 notes
Can we talk about the nonsense of caring about which news outlet first reports a big piece of news? I’m not talking about a genuine scoop—a report that wouldn’t have otherwise come to light—but about news that we’re all eventually going to find out anyway. Who Mitt Romney selects to be his running-mate, for instance, or whether the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate.

I know I’m often out-of-the-loop when it comes to journalism norms and conventions, but this one honestly confounds me. Has any publication ever received a Pulitzer for being the first to report a major announcement? Is there some secret reward at stake—free cookies for a year? A trip to Hawaii? Do colleagues buy you a drink to congratulate you on beating the other networks by ten seconds?

Because if this is just about bragging rights, it needs to stop. Now. And not just because it can lead to some outlets rushing to report incorrect information, as CNN and FOX did with the recent Supreme Court decision on health care reform. But because the race to be first is no longer just a feature of news coverage but often the main factor driving it.

—

Amy Sullivan, The New Republic. Who Reported It First? Who Cares?

With the Supreme Court about to announce their decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act our (mostly cable) media were chomping at the bit to be first out of the gate with some BREAKING NEWS.

CNN, as we know, fell flat on its face. It’s been struck down, they reported incorrectly. Their amplification machine went into overdrive with banner headlines on CNN.com and posts on social media until Wolf Blitzer — in purely Wolf Blitzer moment — helpfully illuminated us all.

“It’s getting a little more complicated,” he said.

As Sullivan points out: “His remark, of course, referred to the network’s own coverage. The court’s decision couldn’t have gotten more complicated because it was final, set down on paper.”

Sullivan’s article is well worth the read. Yes, there’s some importance to speed, she writes, but the media focuses too much on getting it first on too many stories where getting it first really isn’t important. Like, say, a Supreme Court announcement that everyone will hear about when it’s actually announced.

If the topic interests you, check out her follow-up. And if your journo-geekery runs real deep, head over to SCOTUSblog where Tom Goldstein walks 7,000 plus words through a minute by minute account of how CNN and Fox got their reporting wrong, and who the whole media scrum works in cases such as this.

(via futurejournalismproject)

# newsrooms journalism reporting editorial process speed politics news mitt romney scotus president vp pulitzer bragging cnn fox obamacare aca activism social activism

Reblogged 10 months ago from futurejournalismproject 51 notes

In Rwanda, Health Care Coverage That Eludes the U.S.

“One key reason that Rwandans are so much healthier today is the spread of health insurance.  In 1999, Rwanda’s health facilities sat unused, as the vast majority of people couldn’t afford them.   In response, the Health Ministry began a pilot project of health insurance in three districts.   In 2004, the program began to spread across the nation.   Now health insurance — called Mutuelle de Santé — is nearly universal. Andrew Makaka, who manages the health financing unit at the Ministry of Health, said that only 4 percent of Rwandans are uninsured. 

Mutuelle is a community system — premiums go into a local risk pool and are administered by communities. Until last year, Mutuelle’s premiums were about two dollars a year. This system turned out to be untenable — even two dollars a year was too much for a lot of people. (If you are a rural farmer with an income of some $150 a year, you have to spend every penny on food.)

Last year Mutuelle adopted a sliding scale.  For the wealthiest, premiums essentially quadrupled, to about $8 a year. Each visit to a clinic has a co-pay of about 33 cents. If you need to go to the hospital, you pay a tenth of your hospital bill.”

A medical technician took a blood sample from a patient at a hospital outside of Kigali, Rwanda, in July 2010.

(Source: The New York Times)

# rwanda healthcare health care health insurance insurance community health sliding scale universal obamacare activism social activism

Posted 10 months ago
sunfoundation: What happens if a state opts out of Medicaid, in one chart If governors opt their states out of the health law’s Medicaid expansion — as many are now threatening to do — it’s the poorest Americans who would find themselves getting the rawest deal. View Larger

sunfoundation:

What happens if a state opts out of Medicaid, in one chart

If governors opt their states out of the health law’s Medicaid expansion — as many are now threatening to do — it’s the poorest Americans who would find themselves getting the rawest deal.

# affordable care act ACA healthcare health obama poverty insurance medicaid coverage politics social justice news justice obamacare activism social activism

Reblogged 10 months ago from theatlantic (Originally from sunfoundation) 219 notes