FlipBoardJimmy Kimmel’s emotional monologue about his newborn son’s open heart surgery and the ACA was likely the standout in this week’s loud chorus criticizing the House GOP’s AHCA or “Trumpcare.” It brought some of the realities of the ACA to a national audience, away from the typical bubbles we live in on a daily basis — even if it didn’t help stop the repeal from narrowly passing in the House. Kimmel’s story sparked discussion, brought out support from all sides mid-week, and even helped boost donations to Children’s Hospital.
That doesn’t mean some — like Bill Maher — aren’t ready to lob some criticism, not necessarily at Kimmel but more at the ideas he presented. Thankfully, it has nothing to do with Kimmel’s situation with his son — it would take a real heel to criticize that on television — but Maher does take exception with Kimmel’s assertion that all sides land along the same lines on basic healthcare. When Kimmel says Republicans and Democrats all agree that “If your baby’s going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make,” Maher stops his audience from applauding and proceeds to rant:
“Unfortunately that’s not true, One side wants to tax rich people so that babies don’t have to die and one side is mostly against that. And this lets Republicans off the hook…
“Let’s not f*ck around with this, we are not on the same page with this.”
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Again, why do we care only about jimmy Kimmel’s baby? He couldn’t live on his own so he isn’t even a person yet. What a waste of resources
So pre-born babies who can’t live on their own aren’t yet people. With that logic he could have been aborted and nothing would have been lost. So there is nothing ethically wrong with abortions because they can’t yet live on their own. You have two options: 1) agree with me 2) try thinking harder about things
He could have been aborted and no life would’ve been lost.
Wooo, controversial.
I would like to see examples of pre-AHCA babies that were left to die because of Healthcare choices. Did the infant mortality rate go down once the AHCA was enacted? Serious question, I really don’t know.
Assuming you mean the ACA (AHCA is the shitpile they just passed and not enacted as yet) a baby born with a congenital heart disorder (Like Kimmel’s son) would have had a cap placed on the amount of coverage they could receive over their lifetime and be dropped from their insurance at any time.
Using Kimmel’s situation as an example, if he wasn’t a TV host with money, the insurance might not have covered the well visit that caught the murmur. They would have initially denied payment for the MRI or would have required paperwork before it would be covered (rather than just running him down and doing it). They would second guess doctors and decide that the treatment is elective rather than life threatening.
After a while, a person with a condition would not be able to afford treatment or doctor visits. Insurance companies had policies in place that would deny ALL claims so you would have to spend hours on the phone, filling out forms, getting justification for your treatment from your doctor, etc.
After the ACA was passed and enacted, they couldn’t do those things anymore. So to answer your question on infant mortality, yes. It’s gone down as a direct result of provisions is the ACA. [www.slate.com]
ACA, sorry. Thanks for the correction. So The infant mortality rate began declining once the ACA was passed? That’s awesome. Can you give me any examples, historical not just situational, where an infant was left to die prior to the ACA?
Im not sure if uproxx will let the link post but heres a link to an article quoting that infant mortality rates have significantly and sharply declined in the past 7 years, and a big drop in 2014. ACA has been law for that long. [www.lifesitenews.com]
Sharply declined is relative I guess. Here is a chart showing IMR’s from 1915 to 2011 which shows not much change since the mid 90’s.
Since Bawk has trouble with numbers, let me clear thing up for you.
First of all, a drop of 1.04 per thousand when 4,000,000 babies are born each year means 4,000 LESS infant deaths.
As for the rate of decline, as pointed out in the link it declined 15% in the last decade.
In the two decades before that, it decline by a total of 12%, or 6.2% per decade.
So yeah, it’s a big deal.
@Adam Smith II According to The United Health Foundations report from 2015 the IMR in 1990 was 10.2 per 1000, in 2010 it was 6.7 per 1000. That was a huge decline under Bush/Clinton. Maybe we should thank them.
[www.americashealthrankings.org]
Old is new again, out of power the Dems are back to ‘they want grandma to eat cat food’ rehetoric.
Please explain how, with the current budget cuts to charity and repealing Obamacare, Repubs DON’T want grandma to eat cat food. Go ahead.
Well like, is it good cat food, like fancy feast, or crappy off brand stuff? Big difference there
They don’t want grandma to eat cat food, but its more important to them that we have the largest military in the world than to have grandma eat good food.
Yes, and in-power Republicans still get their cultish supporters to parrot nihilistic more-for-the-rich rebrandings like they’re marching orders and can’t spell for shit.
“They want grandma to eat cat food.”
Best attempt at a response: “well here comes the bitch-and-moan about grandma eating cat food again.”
Maher can get on the nerves from time to time, but yeah this “both sides are the same” rhetoric is false and it leads us to things like Trump being president and repealing a thing that Democrats have been trying (and failing) to do for 50+ years.
Both sides AREN’T the same. And judging from how the House Republicans handled this whole repeal thing, if I have any problem with the Democrats its that they aren’t playing “the game” nearly as well as Republicans do. Republicans stonewalled Democrats for YEARS throughout all their efforts and yet in these first 100 or so days Republicans have just burst through any sort of barriers the Democrats have put up.
So yeah. If there’s one stereotype that’s apparently true about Democrats in office? It’s that most of them are a bunch of pussies who need out of office and replaced with some Democrats that’ll actually fight back. :P
Exactly what “barriers” have the Republicans burst through?
Trump is accomplishing almost nothing. And this bill is DOA when it arrives at the Senate.
What is so hard to understand about what the Republicans want to do?
They want to knock 24 million people off health insurance, double the cost of insurance for people 55-64, and allow states to give insurance companies the right to charge people with pre-existing conditions anywhere from 3x as much to 5x as much as other people.
Simple enough explanation for conservative to understand. No way to dance around it.
It has been a couple days and there isn’t even a coherent sound bite response they’ve settled on yet.
Huge miscalculation on their part. They will still probably narrowly wriggle out of it when the Senate changes it completely or just lets it die. But the celebrating and beer and ten zillion white guys yukkin it up with rape a pre-existing condition and erectile dysfunction not, after voting to exempt themselves–just like fifty unforced errors in a row. It will come back to haunt them.
Not reading the bill, not waiting until it was scored, coming clearly tied to a tax cut for the wealthy, and on and on. Gift-wrapped. Wouldn’t put it past McConnell to find a way to mitigate the damage pretty substantially but they gotta move quick and it better be good.