Repub “health care” bill pulled. RESISTANCE WORKS! Happy Friday!

If you won’t or can’t pay, he says, the doctor will treat it as charity work.

Indigent care is a thing and charity care is a thing, but like other charities they don’t even come close to filling the need that exists. I once had a friend who was a doctor who provided indigent care, and she was constantly frustrated at how little she was able to do for people who needed comprehensive care but got patchwork care instead.

Hurray! I hope the orange one and his flock of turds continue their master negotiation skills.

I heard the news on a freedom bridge, oddly — on NPR while in Canada.

Trump got to sit in a big boy truck.

This is beautiful. Also they actually made it into a children’s book, apparently.

Edit : aah ! Ninja’d by gijoel.

Sometimes I wonder what future American high schoolers will read about in American History class with respect to what is happening today. I doubt the travails of health care reform/deform will make the cut, but what about the broader strokes, like the highly partisan, no-compromise environment created by the Freedom Caucus and similar?

Trump wanted to put the bill up to a vote even though it wouldn’t pass so he’d know which Republicans were against him and get revenge.

I half-wish that had happened.

“And now we turn to the Republican party, in their deft interpretive dance re-imagining of Dali’s ‘Soft Construction With Boiled Beans.'”

Heh heh, victory! Too bad Drumpf’s persistent, if nothing else.

@Ooglyboggles

Ha! That pic is perfection!

If you won’t or can’t pay, he says, the doctor will treat it as charity work.

Oh, yes, cause doctors don’t need, like, to eat, to live, or money to even buy the necessary stuff to treat a patient. Doctors just do it for free for everyone who needs it, then they open the window of the office a bit to let the sunlight in, and there you have – they make some photosynthesis, and they are already nurtured for the day, no need to buy food.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, pretty much the only reason I want to be a doctor is charity, but the plan here is to make a lot of money by treating rich people so I can use this money to treat poor people for free, but I also am human with bills, and a family, and shit. If the government pays my salary and I do it for “free”, eesh, even better. But in a capitalist society you can’t work for free just because the person doesn’t want to pay you.
Theory is doctors are supposed to be smart… But so many I see are so sheltered and even – sorry for the bluntness – dumb that I get baffled. Can’t he just… Google it?! It’s his own profession, his own salary, how can he not know where it comes from? I guess this is what you get when you make medschools so freaking expensive and hard to get in that only the elite can get in.
And YES, I’M BITTER ABOUT THAT, WHY DO YOU ASK?!

If you won’t or can’t pay, he says, the doctor will treat it as charity work.

(Disclaimer: I am not a health economist.)

Medical care is one of these things where the old saying that “prevention is better than cure” really is true. If people have to wait until they’re genuinely sick before getting treatment, then the country will expend far more money overall than if those people had been able to go to regular non-emergency health checkups. A charity-based system of emergency care is therefore the worst system for medicine.

While they may be glad it happened, I am not certain that liberals can take credit for their activism killing the AHCA. The fact of the matter is, the TEA Party-ish Republicans fought the bill for their own reasons, and none of the people who were likely to be influenced by liberal activism were likely to have voted for it anyway.

The problem with the “repeal and replace” bill (AHCA) is that it prioritized reducing the taxes associated with the ACA (i.e. Obamacare) and did little to deal with the issues that the majority of opponents really cared about. Essentially, the implication of the bill is that Obamacare would be fine as long as all of the costs are borne by the middle class instead of the wealthy.

I think the fact that right-wing firebrands were tweeting things such as “GOPs exempt themselves from O-care, then write replacement that doesn’t allow a free markt in health ins; DOES repeal taxes for corp buddies,” that had a lot more impact than “Resistance” activism. (The tweet was by Ann Coulter, by the way).

@EJ (Marxist Jazz Weasel)

What I find interesting, and kinda tells me that it boils down to social factors (and corruption) rather than logic, is that universal healthcare (single payer) makes huge business sense. Less expense for employers (and less expensive over all), with the bonus that healthier (and less stressed out over health care) employees are happier and more productive. It’s a win/win situation, business wins and society wins. Obviously the thieving insurance companies don’t win in this case but everyone else does (though depending on the system they won’t exactly lose either).

That’s a very interesting point, WWTH, and I find it fairly convincing. I wonder how it applies to the emerging gig-economy model of employment, which lacks insurance entirely?

@WWTH

I think the big reason corporate America doesn’t throw in for universal single-payer, despite the fact that it would save them money is that the threat of losing healthcare keeps workers powerless. I think companies don’t mind paying the extra money for insurance if it means they have their employees under their thumbs a bit more. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people say they’d quit a job they don’t like or retire early but can’t because they need the health insurance.

That’s a very good point, and utterly disgusting.