The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Fisking Für Gesundheit Und Geld

Posted on | March 25, 2011 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

“Fisking for good health and money”

The SOL/Puffington Host RSS feed is a source of endless wonder. Let us experience the flow of kool-aid that is the writing of Preeti Vissa, Community Reinvestment Director, The Greenlining Institute.  Let us enjoy her current outing, Poverty Is a Pre-Existing Condition: Why the Affordable Care Act Matters.

The title alone is worth a fisk. “Poverty Is a Pre-Existing Condition”. Sure, to the extent that you lack a wallet in the womb. But I doubt that’s what this lady means. “Why the Affordable Care Act Matters”. Oh, maybe we’re to be treated by an outburst of honesty, where another rube self-identifies and admits that, no, ObamaCare is about grinding the poverty in deep, and the people were sold 88 miles of sunshine by a cadre of prevaricators and useful idiots.
Cling to that hope, readers. We’ve got quite the opposite awaiting.

Vissa Smitty
Last week I wrote about asset poverty and the huge difference it makes to a family’s economic security to have assets — savings, home equity, etc. — that they can tap into during tough times. As we mark the one-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, we should remember what a crucial role the health care reform law is starting to play in protecting people’s financial safety net. So this famous ObamaCare legislation is now so powerful it’s going to prevent my Roth IRA and my 401k from dying of leukemia? Sweet! Honey, let’s go buy an SUV!
I would have thought the equally well-read and understood Dodd-Frank bill would have been the one to provide economic security, but what does my poor wee rube self know of these inscrutable matters?
That health and wealth are connected is thoroughly documented. For example, people in the highest income group can expect to live, on average, at least six and a half years longer than those in the lowest. Even those in the middle (families of four making $41,300 to $82,600 a year in 2007) will die, on average, two years sooner than those at the top. That is so true, and clearly explains why entering a monastery is suicide. The poor, trapped Trappists!
I mean, correlation is causation, no? Surely other life choices can’t have any effect.
While most of the data on health and wealth is based on income — not always an adequate measure of poverty, as I noted last week — there is an unmistakable connection between health and one’s ability to hold onto assets and maintain a financial safety net. A 2010 study by researchers from MIT, Dartmouth and Harvard found “large and substantively important correlations between poor health and asset accumulation.” Looking at survey data from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the researchers found that from 1992 to 2008, those in the healthiest one-third “had accumulated, on average, more than 50 percent more assets than those in the bottom third of the health distribution.” Forget my previous sarcasm. I believe now. We must declare the moral equivalent of Kinetic Military Action on this threat and empower the Federal government to fix everything.
Without adequate health insurance, medical expenses can quickly devastate one’s finances. A 2005 Harvard and Ohio University study found that a staggering 55 percent of bankruptcies were caused by medical debt. By 2007, that number had shot up to 62 percent, with the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical expenses rising by nearly 50 percent from 2001 to 2007. Furthermore, we should simply ignore any Constitutional limitations
that were put there by Ignorant White Men who didn’t understand the Holy Cause of Progress!
There’s a similar connection between medical expenses and foreclosures. A 2008 study, for example, found that 49 percent of foreclosures were at least partly caused by medical issues, with over two-thirds of those who experienced foreclosure reporting at least one factor such as medical bills, lost work due to illness, or the need to care for a sick family member. What if the housing itself is killing us? We really should eliminate the risk involved in permitting people to figure out where to live.
Clearly too many sub-optimal outcomes there. How about adding another box to the flow chart from hell for the Federal Unified Commission for Keeping In-transient Grants. Effy, as we’ll call this JETLAG*, will be involved in granting all static housing in the several states to people.
Another organization will grant transient housing to all the winnebago warriors out there, after we’ve first stripped the American people of all mobility. One thing at a time. Can’t let them on the road to serfdom too quickly, or the rubes may awake.
That’s why the Affordable Care Act is so crucial. While it won’t solve all of the problems of our health care system, it will give American families real and substantial protection against having their homes and savings wiped out by medical expenses. At least that’s the intent. And intentions matter. Especially when the legislation achieves precisely the opposite of the intention.
It shall have been sad that the evil conservatives shall have destroyed the noble intent of this legislation with their greedy
private property fetishes. Conservatives are the problem, and Progress is the solution.
Under the law, children can’t be denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions, a provision that will expand to include adults in 2014. Seniors struggling with the “donut hole” that sticks them with a large bill for prescription drugs have already gotten some relief and will get more. Lifetime caps on coverage will go away. And 32 million people with no insurance today will have it once the law is fully implemented — with several types of assistance to help pay for it, including tax credits for small employers who insure their workers. See, letting businesses and market determine products is so ronngg. Progress means corporations, not individuals, are accountable for screw-ups, and the government picks up the pieces when $DIETY’s inscrutable humor means something goes all pear-shaped.
It’s important to keep these real-world implications in mind as we mark health care reform’s anniversary and sort through the propaganda from those who would repeal the law, many of whom still spout utter nonsense about a “government take-over of health care” and the entirely fictional “death panels.” Of course there would never be a group of one or more people making decisions that could effect the demise of anyone that is so crassly named “Death Panel”. Since we avoid those 10 letters and a space, we can state with full honesty that death panels do not exist. See how easy it is to manipulate symbols and control reality?
Asset poverty is a pre-existing condition, one that can affect both your health and the whole trajectory of your life. One of the best cures for it is a health care system that covers everyone at a manageable cost. The Affordable Care Act gets us most of the way there, and it’s good for both our economic and physical health. It’s important to re-iterate that poverty is an external force. Call it an unfair form of gravity. It holds down poor people in a way that only the government, through re-distribution, can help. Individual creativity and initiative cannot be bound in another 2,500+
page bill and therefore do not exist. If you recall an earlier day, when you had liberty to achieve based upon your own merit, you are a racist and probably a terrorist, and will be referred to Janet Napolitano for processing.

Wow, normally the fisking relieves the stress. I’m angrier for having waded through this socialist drivel. Pass this around as a motivator for the patriots. We really have to put a stake in this vampire legislation’s heart.

*Joint Extended Three Letter Acronym Grouping

Category: Health Car, Huffington Post

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