Is that Democrats will at least throw the occasional bone to poor and working people:
Keeping people like Alphonse off the Medicaid rolls doesn’t shield American or Floridian taxpayers from the cost of whatever treatments he eventually may receive, like at a hospital emergency room or a government-funded community health center. Unpaid medical bills totaled $57.4 billion in 2008 — and taxpayers picked up about three-quarters of the tab, according to a study published in the journal Health Affairs. Expanding health coverage via Obamacare was supposed to reduce that burden, but the patchwork Medicaid expansion limits the law’s reach.
And if Alphonse’s condition deteriorates into what’s known as end-stage renal disease, or permanent kidney failure, he automatically would qualify for Medicare coverage paid for by the federal government. Although Medicare mainly is for people over 65 or those with disabilities, people who need dialysis or a kidney transplant are eligible under a special rule enacted in 1972.
For those too poor for Obamacare in Miami, watching neighbors who make more money receive subsidized health insurance makes the experience even more painful, said Mayte Canino, a field and volunteer coordinator for Planned Parenthood of South Florida and the Treasure Coast. Uninsured people are skeptical of Obamacare and unaware of many provisions, and only 49 percent know that states have the option to expand Medicaid, according to a poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation this month.
“That even affects them more, when they see that other people are getting help and they’re not,” said Canino, who helps people sign up for insurance. “Many of them are very unhappy. They blame the law, some of them, for it. They just walk away from it, and they think that’s it. They’re defeated.”
Free enterprise and Capitalism are two very different systems. As long as we allow the Capitalist system to operate without being heavily regulated in the U.S. we will have a health care for profit system. In very few, if any, other countries on this planet is there a for profit health care system in operation. The 1% makes a buck when we’re born. They make a buck all throughout our lives. And they make a buck as we sicken and die. That is unconscionable. But the worst part of it is that “we the people” allow it to continue. 1% of 350 million people equals 3.5 million people. 99% of 350 million people equals 346.5 million people. 346.5 million against 3.5 million, who are we afraid of?