Obamacare vs GOP replacement

I should have bought an insurance company when I had the chance – ya know. Cigna? Who knew. Maybe this new plan is dead in the water – sounds like it might be as written. Four senators are said to be against it because of the loss of Medicaid expansion which affects nearly half of the ACA recipients.

As written and from what I can see, my old buddy Dave who is just getting a bit better after two years of treatment and convalescence from Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma at 58 years of age will lose his insurance coverage when the subsidies go away. But so what? What has he ever done for insurance CEO’s anyway? He needs to call the insurance ceo’s and ask them to talk to our republican reps that went to Washington to save the insurance companies. That’s all they respond to – money, ceo’s, graft, corruption. His value to others as a human being, friend, dad, husband isn’t as important as any insurance company’s bottom line.

This is a guy I’ve known since we were in diapers. Our parents were friends in high school and both sets married young. Dave worked as a farm hand most of his life after growing up on his grandparents farm but he didn’t inherit it – I doubt he really worried much about health insurance. We were all bullet proof when we were 23 weren’t we? He never finished high school because he was busy planting wheat and feeding cattle and hogs when he was 14. He basically worked his whole life until he got cancer.

The radiation treatments from two years ago have left his stomach and intestines in a shambles and he can barely eat and digest food let alone work. So, he’s at about 100 lbs and still hanging on from a normal weight of 180 lbs. He’s a tough sob and a real cowboy who’s first love are his horses that he had to sell. His wife works as a clerk at a truck stop\fast food restaurant. He told me the work related insurance she could buy for him was more than she took home every month. They’ve never asked for any help from me and would be uncomfortable taking it. When I gave him a couple gallons of home canned tomato juice which he likes and I have an abundance of, he insisted on paying me back by bringing several dozen fresh eggs from his brothers farm chickens.

Anyway, for his sake and a couple of other old friends\acquaintances that we have in their mid to late 50’s who aren’t tapped into some employer based insurance plan, I hope this dies so their insurance stays intact and affordable for them. But, the assholes in power could care less by all accounts. If he has to go to the hospital, they’re obligated to treat them for most issues whether they have insurance or not. So, it will likely revert back to something like 2008 – non covered people who can’t pay will drive up health care costs for anybody else that needs healthcare at a higher rate.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by sdram.