Critics Question Whether Insurance Card Measure is a Remedy | The Texas Tribune

That's the ticket, let's shame those of us who are poor a bit more.  Just another means to "us and them" people; a waste of time and funds. And whatever happened to the idea of small government?

But instead of Hester Prynne’s infamous “A,” insurance cards for Texans with coverage under the federal Affordable Care Act would bear the letter “S,” for subsidy.

Supporters of House Bill 1514 by state Rep. J.D. Sheffield, R-Gatesville, say it’s necessary to standardize insurance cards and clarify the type of health coverage a patient has.

The House will take up the legislation, which easily passed out of the Insurance Committee, on Friday.

Doctors’ groups say the bill would also help physicians “remind the patient about the importance of continuing his or her portion” of payments toward the health insurance premium, said Sara Austin, an Austin-based neurologist, in written testimony in favor of the bill.
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“Other than creating a group that you’re going to discriminate against, I don’t see any purpose for indicating that people are getting a subsidy,” said Jose E. Camacho, executive director of the Texas Association of Community Health Centers.

Jamie Dudensing, chief executive of the Texas Association of Health Plans, which lobbies on behalf of several major insurers, said recently that she was similarly worried the bill could create a “scarlet letter” effect where some doctors could decide not to see a patient they learned to be on an “Obamacare” plan.

“Right now, providers are not really supposed to be discriminating against consumers if they have a contract with a health plan,” Dudensing said this week at an event hosted by The Texas Tribune, adding that insurers were “very concerned” about the bill.

Critics Question Whether Insurance Card Measure is a Remedy | The Texas Tribune

Republicans Are Now Trying To Pass Obamacare Extension To Save Their Own Asses

An issue to key our eyes on in the coming months,,,

It’s no secret that Republicans have opposed the Affordable Care Act since the very beginning. From death panels to economic Armageddon, the GOP has said and done just about anything they possibly could to make people as irrationally terrified of this law as possible.

But despite their incessant fear-mongering, basically none of their apocalyptic warnings have come true. The “worst” factual talking point they’ve had against “Obamacare” is that around 5 million Americans were forced to switch insurance plans because their previous plans were inadequate.

Oh, the horrors!

So, when I read that Senate Republicans were desperately trying to pass legislation that would extend the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act through 2017, I was a little caught off guard. After all, aren’t these the same subsidies many of them have been pushing the Supreme Court to strike down for years? So, why would Republicans want to pass legislation that guarantees the subsidies through 2017?

Oh, I know why – to avoid having millions of Americans, many of whom are conservative voters, blaming the Republican party for losing their health insurance just before the 2016 elections.

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If the Supreme Court rules against the subsidies, there’s not going to be anyone else to blame but the Republican party – and they damn well know that. That’s why they’re trying to pass this temporary fix so that they won’t have to suffer any sort of political ramifications for being the ones responsible for millions of Americans potentially losing their health insurance.

Republicans Are Now Trying To Pass Obamacare Extension To Save Their Own Asses

Christian activist: Supporting Obamacare means promoting homosexual ‘deathstyle’

Conservative Christian activist and vlogger ‘Coach’ Dave Daubenmire argued on Saturday that any Christian who supports the Democratic Party is not being true to their faith, in part because the Affordable Care Act is promoting homosexuality.

“Friends, homosexuality is a deathstyle, it’s not a lifestyle,” he said in video posted by Right Wing Watch. “The medical consequences of what homosexuals do is staggering — not only to them, but to the medical care system, the Obamacare. Do you know that when you support Obamacare, you support the medical care of those who are engaged in self-destructive behaviors, including male-on-male sodomy?”

Daubenmire also said that the Democratic Party has used abortion rights and marriage equality as its “main platforms” for attracting voters, which put it on the wrong side of the “laws of nature.”

Christian activist: Supporting Obamacare means promoting homosexual ‘deathstyle’

Obamacare Foes Make Final Push To Stop Health Law's Implementation : Shots - Health News : NPR

"[H]asten the collapse" and replace it with what?? Because, of course, our healthcare system works so well and is so affordable just the way it is...

"They can skip the exchange, pay the fine, and in doing that, do what's best for them financially, and we hope help hasten the collapse of Obamacare," said Dean Clancy, the group's vice president for policy.

"[H]alt the implementation and do what in its place??

"Right now there's a viable legislative strategy to go ahead and halt the implementation of Obamacare," Holler said. "And we want to drive that as hard and as far as we possibly can. And the town halls are an effort to do just that."

The problem with this type of thinking is that "they" have no viable alternative other than the current status quo. I am one of the lucky few (once I get a "clerical" error fixed) who is covered under an earlier mandate of the ACA. Because of my "disabilities" and the fact I am still able to work I can get Medicaid, though I do pay a premium which is structured around my earnings. Without this program I would not have any type of medical insurance and being diabetic, dealing with bipolar, and fibromyalgia my life would be a miserable hell to live. (It now appears I wouldn't even be able to get insurance through work as rumor has it the company will be capping hour at 28.5 to avoid compliance with the ACA.)

What so many seem to forget as this plan (the individual mandate specifically) was first proposed in the late 80s by the conservative Heritage Foundation. It is also part of the plan Romney introduced into Massachusetts. I just do not understand this opposition to a plan that "they" created. We spend more money nationally on health care but yet rank 37th world wide in ensuring the health of our population, the status quo of "doing nothing" just does not cut it.

Thanks to Obamacare, millions of Americans now are able to obtain health care insurance, whereas prior to the plan, millions were denied coverage by the insurance companies or were dropped by insurance companies for becoming sick. (Both denied and drop throughout the course of my insured life.)

Obamacare Foes Make Final Push To Stop Health Law's Implementation : Shots - Health News : NPR

Evangelical Corporations Try To Force Their Employees To Follow Their Religious Beliefs

In 2010 at the behest of the Koch brothers, Mitch McConnell, and corporate leaders everywhere, the U.S. Supreme Court granted personhood rights to corporations giving them power to control the direction of the government and buy the services of Republicans candidates without campaign finance restrictions. Dissatisfied with the inordinate power the conservative court gave corporations, they are likely headed back to the Supreme Court to demand power to impose their religion on their employees in the next logical step towards transforming America into a theocracy. Despite the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of, and from, religious imposition on the people, the extremist Christian fanatics intent on forcing all Americans to toe the evangelical line and fall under the purview of America’s version of Sharia Law are appealing to the conservative High Court for their blessing to impose their bastardized version of Christianity on the people and as usual they are focusing their attention on women.

The latest tactic of corporations with evangelical CEOs is a continuation of last year’s attempt to ban American women from using birth control as a result of President Obama’s inclusion of contraceptive coverage in the Affordable Care Act. At issue is whether a secular corporation with no business relationship or involvement in a religion can be considered religious and force its employees to follow the corporation’s religious beliefs and be prohibited from using contraceptives included in prescription coverage in health plans. The President gave religious organizations and churches permission to ban their employees from having access to contraceptives, but it still did not satisfy the neo-Christian fascist wing who sees the conservative Court as their ticket to impose, by Constitutional fiat, their religious convictions on their employees. It is noteworthy that the push to ban contraceptive use is being pressed by evangelical men who avoid using IUDs or hormonal birth control pills by choice, but their personal choice is not the issue; eliminating women’s choice is.

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Writing for the 3rd Circuit’s majority, Judge Robert Cowen said although there was “a long history of protecting corporations’ rights to free speech,” there was no history of protecting a company’s free exercise of religion. “We simply cannot understand how a for-profit, secular corporation can exercise religion. A holding to the contrary … would eviscerate the fundamental principle that a corporation is a legally distinct entity from its owners.” A few weeks ago, the Colorado-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby Stores finding that corporations are entitled to assert religious rights and impose them on their employees. The court specifically noted that President Obama had offended the company’s religious beliefs with the contraception requirement. Now that there is a split between the 3rd and 10th Circuit decisions, it falls to the Supreme Court to rule if a corporation has the Constitutional right to impose its “religious convictions” on its employees.

Evangelical Corporations Try To Force Their Employees To Follow Their Religious Beliefs