A Koch addiction is a pre-existing condition

From Esquire:

‘Repeal and Go Fuck Yourself’ Is in Full Effect

The Graham-Cassidy bill is earning the nickname.

Lindsey Graham has really good healthcare that he definitely won’t lose, even if the moral catastrophe he’s calling a “reform” bill passes the Senate. Graham has cosponsored an Obamacare Repeal and Replace Plan with the impressively mendacious Bill Cassidy and two other Republican heartthrobs. It is somehow worse than the previous plans.

The bill would usher a number of shocking cruelties into law, not least the possibility that as many as 32 million Americans could lose health coverage. That’s 10 percent of the population.

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Lindseypoo: Elusive Care Eunuch

From Michael Hiltzik at The Los Angeles Times:

The Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act is back, a zombie again on the march weeks after it was declared dead. The newest incarnation is Cassidy-Graham, named after chief sponsors Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Compared with its predecessors, the bill would increase the ranks of America’s medically uninsured more — by millions of people — cost state governments billions more and pave the way for the elimination of all protection for those with preexisting medical conditions.

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The End of the World….Again

From THINK PROGRESS:

When Congress passed the landmark health reform law last March, Republicans predicted the result wouldn’t be insurance for 32 million Americans, but rather “Armageddon.”

More than a year later, such outlandish rhetoric continues unabated.

This week, Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) met with constituents for a town hall meeting in Astatula, FL. During the event, a constituent asked Webster about how repealing health reform would affect citizens like her who have cancer (or other preexisting conditions) and found it next to impossible to get insurance in the private market. Webster agreed with the constituent that – despite his voting to strip such protections in January – preexisting conditions ought to be covered by insurance. However, Webster then went on to tell the audience that unless the health reform law, which covers preexisting conditions, is repealed, “we won’t have a country” anymore:

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Keep On Truckin’ (But Don’t Break a Nail)

From U.S. News & WORLD REPORT:

Nothing’s changed for Scott Brown when he drives to work, even though it’s now in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. The newly elected Massachusetts Republican senator still drives his 2005 green GMC Canyon pickup truck to the job.

Aides say that Brown has no plans to trade the truck in for a more senatorial ride. What’s more, when he travels around town to events, he shoves his aides into the cluttered back seat of the mid-size truck.

Wow! How macho can one fella be?

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Pearls(tein) of Wisdom

From Steven Pearlstein at The Washington Post:

I’m not sure what else was accomplished at Thursday’s Blair House summit, but surely one result is that we learned what Republican “leaders” really think about health care and health insurance.

The most important thing Republicans think is that if there are Americans who can’t afford the insurance policies that private insurers are willing to offer, then that’s their problem — there’s nothing the government or the rest of us should do about it.

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Rethugs, I hope this gives you some cloture…I mean, closure

From POLITICS DAILY:

With no votes to spare, Democratic senators moved health care reform past its first major hurdle Saturday night, with a party-line, 60-to-39 vote to begin consideration of the 2,000-plus page bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled this week.

…snip…

The bill that senators will begin debating after Thanksgiving combines proposals passed by the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Committee Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), and is designed to make health insurance more accessible and affordable. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would expand coverage to 94 percent of Americans at a cost of $848 billion over the next 10 years.

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(Shnooks and ninnies, from the top:  Chinless Mitch McConnell, Kit So-Not-James Bond, Orrin Down-The Hatch, Richard Who? Burr, Mean Mike Enzi,  Chuck Yer-Ass-Is Grassley, Captain Underpants, Limpy Snowe, Diaper David Vitter)

Pot(belly), Meet Kettle

From From THINK PROGRESS:

Ensuring that insurers don’t reject any American for health coverage because of a pre-existing condition is a top priority of the public. Republicans have repeatedly said that they also want to make this change, but in the alternative legislation they released, Americans with pre-existing conditions would still be left out to dry.

Today on CNN, FreedomWorks head Dick Armey defended the industry’s discriminatory practices by saying that if you have diabetes because you “eat like a pig,” you don’t deserve coverage:

ARMEY: But now, they [government officials] come along and they say, irrespective of the fact they’ve gone 20, 30, 40 years of their adult life without ever having bought insurance prior to getting a liver inflammation due to their excessive drinking habits or diabetes because they eat like a pig, you must now insure them.

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Risky Business

From Elizabeth Edwards at The Wonk Room at Think Progress:

Senator John McCain’s health plan is based on the idea that everyone should be on their own to buy their health insurance on the individual market. And it’s an approach fundamentally at odds with the point of health insurance: that we share risks. People with preexisting conditions, like McCain and myself, would pay much more for health insurance under his health plan, if we could get coverage at all.

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