“Our greatness comes from our goodness.” – Representative Joe Kennedy III
With all the chatter about health care, with all the misinformation about health care and what the ACA does, the phrase I keep hearing from people is “personal responsibility.” These people truly believe that luck has nothing to do with their kids not being born with defects. It’s not the luck of the draw, but somehow the fact that they’re responsible citizens, that they don’t yet have to make nursing home arrangements for their elderly parents, haven’t lost coverage for maternity or mental health care. Since they all work hard nothing bad will happen to them. I wonder, do these same personal responsibility fucks skip car and homeowner’s insurance, too? After all, they’re responsible, right?
Damn those sick kids. They lack personal responsibility. If they’d just work like the rest of us responsible people they wouldn’t get sick. Then it wouldn’t matter that the lifetime limit will be reached on their insurance before they reach age ten. Screw them and their irresponsibility for the rest of their lives, right?
And damn those elderly, right? The argument that our parents and grandparents are not responsible people, that we shouldn’t (as a society) help out with the ridiculous costs of elderly care, is offensive. These are the people who raised us. They are the people who brought us Social Security. They cared enough to vaccinate us. They taught us how to use a fork, wiped our asses, and went to work every day. They pay their taxes. They pay their bills. They vote. They are responsible. They’re responsible for us, and it’s our fucking turn to be responsible for them. No qualifications, no excuses. No buts. It’s our turn, and we should gladly step up for our fellow countrymen, for our elders. Maybe it’s just that I’m old, but I was taught to show respect to my elders. Without them we wouldn’t be here to turn around and be jackasses to them as the GOP plans.
Until we get around to recognizing health care as a right for all in our country, we need to embrace and improve the bipartisan bill passed in 2010 called the Affordable Care Act. The AHCA (the House version of “Trumpcare,” or BCRA which is the version pending in the Senate) is a tax bill, a “wealth care” bill. It trashes our protections and will boot 22 million people off their insurance so that the rich can have huge tax breaks they don’t need; they’re already wealthy, duh. 22 MILLION Americans lose their health insurance. Let that sink in.
What these personal responsibility fucks, including Mike Pence, are actually saying is “fuck you, I got mine, and you must not be living right so I won’t lift a finger to help you.” Who will be first to demand their due when one of their kids or grandkids gets seriously ill? What happens when they need help with their family member’s care so that they can continue to work and be responsible adults?
Yeah. That’s what I thought. They’re too selfish to look around and see what responsibility really means here. They have no idea what greatness is, never stopped to hear and understand what our parents taught us, that our greatness is in us and comes from our goodness.
Fact: this is who and what is covered today by Medicaid. Fellow boomers, plz note upper right chart. pic.twitter.com/AG55APSgC3
— Jeffrey K. Walker (@JkwalkerAuthor) June 23, 2017
Link: The Ten Essential Benefits, 10 categories of services health insurance plans must cover under the Affordable Care Act (aka ACA, aka “Obamacare” – basically, the bipartisan bill that passed in to law to protect Americans and to require we carry health coverage in March 2010)
Link: “Senate Republican healthcare bill would cause 22 million to lose insurance” – by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Susan Cornwell at Reuters
Link: “Kellyanne Conway: Those on Medicaid who will lose health insurance can always get jobs” – by Ester Bloom at CNBC
Link: “The lesson in bumpers” – by Barry Friedman
Link: History of Health Care Crisis – PBS
Link for original tweet from Jennifer Gunter:
How does my son, Oliver, born at 26 weeks with a serious heart condition fit into this personal responsibility agenda? https://t.co/COTsSWa8VP
— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) June 24, 2017