As the House hurtles toward its uncertain vote on TrumpCare today, we can only hope South Dakota’s lone Congresswoman pays attention to the story of former police officer Dana Palmateer, whom the Affordable Care Act saved from bankruptcy and, probably, from death:
Dana Palmateer, 55, worries the changes would chip away at her nest egg, if not knock it out entirely.
The former police officer and early retiree said she was diagnosed with colorectal cancer last year after a colonoscopy. Without insurance Palmateer would have had more than $150,000 in medical bills to pay, she said. Instead, she said she pays a $40 monthly premium and occasional fees for medications and treatments.
“It’s a pretty small price to pay for saving my life,” she said. “And that didn’t just save my life physically, it saved my life financially” [Dana Ferguson, “Trump’s Biggest Supporters Could Be Hit Hardest by Health Plan,” ].
Congresswoman Kristi Noem keeps insisting that TrumpCare will give power back to the people. “I do not believe the federal government should be the ultimate decider on health care,” Rep. Noem tells that Sioux Falls paper. “When programs are necessary, states should be in charge, and in all other cases, it should be you, the patient, who is in the driver’s seat.”
I suspect Palmateer will join me and every other insurance buyer with long-term memory will ask Noem and friends to look back over the past few decades and ask when if ever we, the patients, have ever been in the driver’s seat when it comes to dealing with hospitals and health insurers.
Speaker Ryan can afford only 21 Republican defections on today’s health care vote. As of yesterday, TrumpCare had 25 hard nays from the House Freedom Caucus. CNN counts 24 nays this morning, after a seemingly fruitless late-night caucus meeting.
Noem doesnt have to worry farm subsidies has helped her in the past.Amazingly she wants subsidies for farmers , but no health care for constitutents.Go Noem and draft dodger Trump.
Cory, anti-Obama people don’t like to hear these things. Even though the ACA has helped millions of people and was a big clumsy mess when it was first brought out, it has helped many people but republicans will continue to deny that.
So instead they want to make things worse and go back to where we were before but with millions more uninsured.
Kristi says:
And that is why under Trump/Ryancare Noem advocates that the federal government should be the “ultimate decider” and prevent each state from protecting its residents from predatory insurance practices by prohibiting the state from enacting and enforcing consumer protection regulations that limit insurance companies from selling their product “across state lines.”
Wait, “states should be in charge,” but not in charge of what goes on in their respective states?
The “ultimate decider?” How does not having health insurance because you cannot afford it make you a decider? And how does having health insurance through the government make the government the decider? When you have health insurance at least you have options for care and some limits on the financial devastation that major illnesses can wreak. When you don’t have health insurance and your number comes up, you can be the ultimate decider of which funeral home your relatives will be using to bury you.
Well, golly Kristi, thank you for fighting for our right to bankrupt ourselves and die a horrible death without proper health care. How can you be pro-life and anti-health care?
Instead of working to make the ACA a better law, the Republicans in Congress have done everything in their power to undermine it. Still it has been remarkably successful in spite of the refusals by the Republicans to work on the law.
All we have heard from Trump is that it was going to be repealed and replaced on day one with a great new law where everyone is covered, the coverage is great and it will cost less. Now after 8 years of BS from the Republicans they have a law that covers millions less people at a far greater cost to those people covered. But it does lower taxes on the rich, so there is that. It also sets us up with the slow death walk for Medicaid as block grants shift more and more costs to the states.
Kristi should just come out and say that health care for Americans is a right only if you can pay for it. You have a right to life, but then you have a right to just die if you can’t afford health insurance.
Except, Kristi, it’s not the big bad federal govt that is the decider, it’s big insurance.
Until corporations get their big greedy hands off the healthcare industry, prices will continue to skyrocket.
Rep Noem should trying making that statement to a roomful of elderly Senior Citizens where their very livelihood depends on govt run Medicare.
Boy, moses, those government subsidies sure put Kristi in the driver’s seat, didn’t they?
Jenny, you know how I enjoy saying things that drive anti-Obama people nuts. That enjoyment is also quite easy to come by, since all I have to do is state facts. :-)
Kristi Noem will defend spending federal dollars to keep her in an airplane seat to Watertown, but she makes stuff up to knock Palmateer and others out of the driver’s seat when it comes to getting health insurance.
Pre-ACA, rescission stopped millions of Americans from being the ultimate deciders of whether they carried health insurance or not. One minor misfortune meant no insurance. The ACA empowers more Americans. Kristi will vote to take that empowerment away.
Noem: “I do not believe the federal government should be the ultimate decider on health care”.
Great – can’t disagree. But the federal government isn’t the ultimate decider. Decisions should be made between doctors and patients… but in reality many times the final decision (aka: ultimate decider) is an insurance company.
There is a reason that per capita healthcare costs in the US are more than twice the average of developed countries (most of which have universal coverage). Why do Republicans continue to believe the free market is the best solution when it has been PROVEN to be worse than alternate options?
http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0006_health-care-oecd
Time for a change.
Noem is using the same talking points from eight years ago, she needs to turn the page or have someone do it for her.
Those talking points didn’t work back than and they shouldn’t work today.
“death by the Affordable Care Act” seems to be a bit unfortunate phrase in a link title.
Noem is worthless and even her as eye candy is getting mighty old.
Good language point, Douglas! Check my edit, changing from passive to active voice. Better?
Looks better to me. I read some of my own blather and wonder how I could possibly have made it any more obtuse or unclear.
#KristiKare is going to hurt women, children, the working poor, elderly and our hospitals and care providers. Rural states to be hit the hardest with new burdens. She doesn’t want to go through the work to make it better. Work’s hard.
And she wants us to trust her to govern the state?
Is it legal for Insurance Companies and Hospitals to charge two patients different prices for the exact same procedure?
They have a price for a procedure, but give a discount to one “person” who is a corporation and not the next, who isn’t a corporation. If corporations are “people”, are two different prices for service discriminating against the non-corp person?
It’s all about shearing the sheep, and the non-1% part of the flock with assets remaining, is shrinking.
A 50-64 year old, statistically, has no protected assets in a Trust Fund, has no or little home mortgage, and they have a lifetime of assets built up. Increase their insurance to 1/2 of their gross income and they CANNOT choose to buy health insurance. Then when they need their gall bladder removed, or break an arm, the $50,000 bill causes them to lose their home. Ryan almost giggled at the thought when he described Trumpcare.
The Poor and Working Poor don’t have enough money, so who is left to fund their latest tax give away?
Yes, I’m that “Dana” that Ferguson interviewed for this report. We spoke for about 20-30 minutes. I know she couldn’t include every single detail that we spoke about, but……my one “complaint” is that the headline of this article…..sorta seemed to imply that I voted for Trump! Nope. She asked me who I voted for and I made that clear…..oh well, not the biggest thing about this.
Yep. I worked for about 28 years, that helped me build up my pension and other nest egg. When I was in that job, ironically enough, I had great health insurance. Health insurance that was subsidized by the taxpayers of the city I worked for. When I decided to hang up the badge and make a go of it on my own…..boy howdy, was I naive as to what health insurance was going to cost me. To get the same exact coverage I had in my career, my monthly premiums would have cost me roughly $800/month. Yikes! So, because at that time (pre ACA), I was very healthy, and I had taken a huge pay cut (my choice) I decided the best thing would be to purchase one of the “catastrophic” insurance plans available. This cost me roughly $200/month, a deductible of $20,000, and the payoff for a huge bill was something like 60/40. I made that decision, figuring if something very serious happened to me, I could “absorb” the deductible/other costs, without losing the roof over my head. Isn’t it odd? Our politicians NEVER talk about what life was BEFORE the ACA. And like I told Ferguson, I was LUCKY. Financially, I could make that decision. Most people ran without any coverage at all.
Fast forward to ACA….boy life changed. Lots of choices, affordable premiums, and variable coverages depending on what coverage you chose. Fast forward again to the fall of 2016…..colonoscopies are a covered screening because of the ACA. (no matter what coverage you choose) It caught my cancer at a fairly early stage and makes it more treatable. I’ve received a ton of medical treatment. A ton of very expensive medical treatment (multiple scans, lab tests, radiation, chemotherapy, surgeries, exams, etc) My insurance company is covering everything and my monthly premiums are very affordable as well as my deductibles are affordable. Yes, the ACA saved my life. Physically and financially.
I remember one particular day, while waiting for my radiation treatment. A fellow patient was sitting in the waiting room with me, and we had gotten to know each other. We saw each other daily. I asked him when his last treatment was. He told me it was THAT day. I congratulated him, but he didn’t smile. He told me it was his last treatment because he didn’t have insurance, and this was the last treatment he could afford because he had gone through his savings account paying for them. He told me that he knows he is going to die without further treatment, but he hoped that the treatments he received would at least extend his life for a little while….. gulp. Lump in my throat. Still can’t believe this is where we are in THIS country. All the while, Ms Noem, gleefully gloating about 60+ votes to repeal ACA without putting anything forward to help Americans. Shameful.
Ms Ferguson told me that as she saw the proposed ACHA, people in my age group, making around $24,000/year, would have to pay $12,000/year for health insurance premiums. Exactly right! I asked her to let that sink in a bit. GOP is asking people to pay HALF of their yearly income for minimum health insurance. How do they pay for the rest of their bills? They don’t! So they run without health insurance. ACCCKKKKK
I guess it is a sorta kinda moot point with the ACHA bill being pulled…..for the time being. But I hope that the Dems use this, somehow/someway, to do something to work on tweaking what needs fixed with the ACA. And as the GOP continues to chant that insurance companies are leaving the marketplace in droves…..the Dems really need to underscore that the GOP made that happen. How? By states, like ours, that did not expand Medicaid. That the Risk Corridors that were pulled last year by the GOP caused insurance comps to run. And by states, like ours, that decided not to run their one markets.
But will they? I love the Dems, but they are just not the best at messaging. Whenever they fight back, most of the time, they win. They really have a chance now to take advantage of the health insurance climate. But will they?
If Noem really believed in “personal autonomy,” then her farm wouldn’t have taken over $ 3 million in federal farm aid in the last 20 years….
In Committee, it was amazing to watch Hoyer and Pelosi talk about the years of work, the abundance of meetings, and the rejected invitations by Rep[ublicans to help write the ACA. H & P knew the subject and had the other side flummoxed with Facts.
As one who is inclined to lump D’s and R’s as one in the same, I have to admire their altruism and work ethic, and it helps serve as impetus for me to function above the “lumping” and resist labels, finding the Real Truth as fake news discourages.
Barry, do you think Ryan, Trump, and the others responsible for their tremendous failure can seriously follow through with the talk that’s bubbling up now about bipartisan efforts to reform health care? Can Republicans put seven years of heated, deceptive, and largely effective political propaganda and work to improve rather than repeal the ACA? And will “Improve” lose them fewer votes than “Repeal” or the sour-grapes strategy of sabotaging the ACA?
Dana P, thank you for sharing your real world experience with our healthcare system and for illustrating the life and death consequences of having or not having health insurance, as the case may be. Without people like you coming forward, the debate tends to gloss over the inhumanity of people not having healthcare.
The consequences of not expanding Medicare in South Dakota have terrible consequences for 50,000 of our friends and neighbors.
Please keep sharing your story, Dana.
I may be totally wrong about this, but I suspect that the failure of the GOP to pass their Obamacare destruction bill may have saved their sorry asses from the complete political doom of the GOP that would have resulted when millions of people lost their medical care and suffered the con sequences. So ironically, what the press and Trump and some Democrats are painting as a terrible defeat and collection of errors may in fact be a GOP victory of sorts.
Cory,
Anything is possible, but as you know, I have been critical of Democrats for not promoting improvements of the ACA during Obama’s TWO TERMS. They could have skipped over Republicans when they didn’t want to cooperate, and taken the issues to The People. Obama had the bully pulpit and could have had us raining phone calls on our Congressional Officers as they are getting now. Only now, the grifters, R&D, are the majority and the effect is noticeable, but less compelling for them to act in our interests over their own. He could have, instead of taking guns from PTSD Vets, signed an Executive Order making Medicare negotiate better prices with drug companies. Let Congress override that E.O.. He could have had many Press Conferences, teaching the less informed about the other side of Tort Reform, Across State Lines, Savings Accounts, and all the other economic nonsense bandied about by Republicans. That would have helped Vets with issues, but Obama had his priorities, and the ACA was no longer as important as taking Rights.
Now, D’s are enjoying the mess our Country is in, thinking I will vote for them simply because they are not Republicans. Unfortunately, most times, I see NO difference between: both Parties of Corporate America. In the end, neither side did much except line their own nests for 8 years. Senators buying HC Stocks and passing Laws to make the Stock valuable, and venture capitalists, unencumbered by Congressional oversight, give us the choice between poverty or living a while longer, illustrates what a profitable blood sport HC has become for both parties.
Ralph Nader, start a new Party so I can vote again!
Douglas,
That, or it was a plan by both Parties to keep us distracted while they gutted everything we hold dear. People like Hoyer are all that prevent me from claiming that is the case, but D’s like him are few.
As a young Apprentice Union Pipefitter, (Local 698, one of the first Halls in the U.S.) making good money for the first time in my life, I inquired about opting out of Social Security. I was told I could not, now I am told the payout for my contributions, which sometimes maxed out for the year, is charity.
Watch the Birdie…
Douglas, quite possible. But given a choice between Republicans passing massively destructive legislation and Republicans winning a few more seats than expected, patriots still have to take the latter.
Barry, don’t get lost in the easy false equivalency. Democrats gave you an imperfect reform to complain about in the first place. They paid an enormous political price for doing that very difficult thing, losses in 2010 that prevented them from following up with improvements. Republicans weren’t going to help us with reform; they were too wedded to the 2010 results that made them think they could one day retake the White House by sabotaging the ACA, blaming Democrats for every flaw, and promising repeal. They were kinda right… but now their empty promise has been laid bare, and they have to figure out a new way to win.