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I thought the election is over and we should get over it already, sad?
"The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's cock holster."
Colbert reached god status last night.
And here is trump's tweet today, referring to himself in the third person like da G dat he is:
Why are Republicans so bent on getting rid people's health care coverage? How is this going to get them votes in the future?
Cuz, freedumb
@jasoninthehouse: Obama's $400,000 speech could prompt Congress to go after his pension https://t.co/h17muKPMmE via @USATODAY Yes, it will
Why are Republicans so bent on getting rid people's health care coverage? How is this going to get them votes in the future?
Because of people with this kind of mentality, bonus points if you manage to watch this to the endWhy are Republicans so bent on getting rid people's health care coverage? How is this going to get them votes in the future?
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcar...uld-remove-protections-for-people-on-employerHealth ‘reform’ will make sexual assault survivors sick
So far, we know that about 24 million Americans stand to lose their health insurance coverage if the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is replaced with the American Health Care Act (AHCA). We know that most of those 24 million people will be low-income.
We also know that groups of people who experience significant health care disparities, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, and Black and Latino people, will be among those who risk losing the most if the ACA is repealed. To that list, we must add survivors of sexual violence.
Before passage of the ACA in 2010, sexual assault survivors who had sought medical care for their injuries could be denied health insurance coverage at a later date. The reason? Health insurers often categorized rape as a pre-existing health condition.
In one widely reported case, a 45-year-old woman met two men at a bar in Florida who bought her a drink. Hours later, she found herself lying by the side of the road with injuries indicating that she had been raped and that the men had spiked her drink. Her doctor prescribed a treatment of anti-viral, post-HIV exposure drugs to protect against HIV transmission.
When the woman lost her health insurance several months after the attack, she was unable to obtain new insurance due to the health care treatment she had received for the assault. She went without health insurance for three years.
Stories like these prompted the National Women’s Law Center to launch a campaign called “Being a Woman Is Not a Pre-Existing Condition.” It was so popular that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi adopted the phrase in her pro-health reform talking points with media, and the New York Times ran an explainer on the ways in which health insurers treated women as if they were just one giant pre-existing condition.
The AHCA initially retained the ACA’s ban on discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions. But an amendment to the AHCA bill offered last week by New Jersey Congressman Tom MacArthur and North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows would make it easier for health insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
By letting states waive the ACA prohibition on charging people with pre-existing health conditions higher premiums, protections for those who’ve previously been medically treated for sexual assault would be gutted.
Perhaps more alarming, though, is the MacArthur-Meadows amendment’s provision allowing states to also seek waivers from the ACA’s requirement that essential health benefits be covered by health insurance plans. Essential health benefits include preventive health care services that most of us take for granted. These include tests for blood pressure and cholesterol, mammograms, and vaccinations. Essential health benefits also include coverage for mental health care and substance abuse treatment.
Sexual violence survivors face acute treatment needs in the aftermath of an assault such as care for gynecological injuries, other physical trauma, sexually-transmitted diseases, and pregnancy. But sexual violence takes many forms: incest, ongoing sexual abuse outside of the family, sexual assault, sexual harassment or exploitation, and rape. Each of these types of assault puts the survivor at risk for various potential negative physical health and mental health outcomes.
For example, an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse is at a higher risk for psychiatric disorders. Women and men who have survived rape as adults are at higher risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse — any of which can significantly interfere with daily living. No one can deny that there is a direct line between having survived sexual violence, and an increased risk of physical and mental health problems.
The mental health impacts of sexual violence are deep and often longstanding. Survivors need long-term access to nonjudgmental health and mental health services to reduce their suffering and mitigate as much as possible the stress that recovery from sexual violence puts on intimate family relationships, and obligations related to school and work.
It is hard to see any good coming from this latest attempt to repeal the ACA and all of the care it has brought to survivors of sexual violence.
The GOP plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare could remove protections for people who get health insurance through their employers, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
A provision in the revised plan — which is expected to get a House vote on Thursday — allows states to get waivers from some ObamaCare insurance regulations, the Journal noted.
That could mean insurers in those states would not have to abide by a regulation requiring that they cover 10 specific types of health services, including prescription drugs, mental health treatment and hospitalization.
According to the newspaper, those who get insurance from their employers could lose protections limiting the amount out-of-pocket necessary for catastrophic illnesses under the provision.
Under the House bill, employers would be able to lower costs through limiting pricier coverage areas.
“It’s huge,” Andy Slavitt, former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under former President Obama, told the Journal. “They’re creating a backdoor way to gut employer plans, too.”
Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, raised another question.
“The real question is, would employers do this? Many wouldn’t,” Levitt said. “Many employers offer quality benefits to attract employees. But employers are always looking for ways to lower costs.”
The GOP healthcare bill gained new momentum on Wednesday, after Republican Reps. Fred Upton (Mich.) and Billy Long (Mo.) said they would support the bill after a new amendment from Upton.
The amendment released Wednesday night listed as co-sponsors four lawmakers who were either undecided or had previously planned to vote no on the bill.