Kevin's Comments - The GOP death knell

Known to some as "The Repealing the Job-Killing Health-Care Law Act."

Regardless of the repeal moniker, it is the removal of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama signed on March 23, 2010... Health Care legislation whose only intent was to improve health care for all Americans and in particular the 30 million Americans without health care.

It is not my intention to debate the implications of this law on the budget or jobs... the libraries from both sides of this debate are staggering and while I have included links to articles, videos, blogs and resources to become better versed in the debate, my concerns are the impact of repeal.

This is not a fiscal conversation, it is not a jobs conversation, it is not a partisan conversation, it is not a conversation that should hold ransom anyone or anything... especially the sick, the dying, the aging!

This is not about Battles already won or lost:

• Battle of the Alamo (23 February - 6 March, 1836) - General Santa Anna defeats Texans. Wm. Travis and Davy Crockett killed in siege.
• Battle of Leesburg 21 October, 1861 - 1900 Union soldiers die
• Battle of Harpers Ferry (12 September - 15 September, 1862) - Stonewall Jackson captures Union garrison.
• Battle of Mobile Bay 23 August, 1864 - David Farragut takes port, says "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"
• Battle of Jonesborough (31 August - 1 September, 1864) - William J. Hardee's Confederates defeated, resulting in Atlanta's fall
• Battle of Boydton Plank Road (27 October - 28 October, 1864) - Union forces take control of road, but withdraw after battle.
• Battle of Nashville (15 December - 16 December, 1864) - Confederate Army in Tennessee overwhelmed.

It is about the lives of Americans fighting for their lives against disease, old age, criminal assaults, accidents, mental illness, birth-defects, genetic diseases, and all other debilitating maladies being battled on a daily basis.

It is a conversation about the GOP death knell that will ring out across this country with the repeal of health care.

death knell, noun

1. something that heralds death or destruction

2. a bell rung to announce a death

The drum that will bang slowly as mourners walk beside casket after casket of Americans who could not receive appropriate treatment because of a lack of health care insurance, because of a pre-existing condition by birth or genetics, because of annual lifetime benefits, because of a lack of preventive care benefits, because of the health coverage disparity in low-income and minority populations.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/01/theres_no_job-killing_health-c.html

There's no "job-killing" health-care law. There's only the health-care bill. And my problem with the modifier "job-killing" isn't that it's uncivil, though perhaps it is. It's that it's untrue.

I can't deny, of course, that "The Repealing the Health-Care Law Which Might Slightly Reduce the Long-Term Labor Supply Act of 2011" doesn't have the same ring to it as "Repealing the Job-Killing Health-Care Law Act." But civility means sacrifices.

It tolls for thee!

Battling colon cancer is a life-time battle if not lost in the first or second round... life becomes so precarious. Fear of losing your job and insurance is as frightening as losing your life!

Every six months it is imperative to go through the entire battery of test to ensure the cancer has not returned for those fortunate enough to have been treated successfully, but it is an insidious disease. Testing, treatment, and recovery is costly and repetitive occurrences are not rare.

Follow-up exams are important after treatment for colon cancer. The cancer can recur near the original site or in a distant organ such as the liver or lung. Follow-up exams include a physical examination by the doctor, blood tests of liver enzymes, chest x-rays, CAT scans of the abdomen and pelvis, colonoscopies, and blood CEA levels. Abnormal liver enzymes may indicate growth of liver metastasis. CEA levels may be elevated before surgery and become normal shortly after the cancer is removed. Slowly rising CEA level may indicate cancer recurrence. A CAT scan of the abdomen and pelvis can show tumor recurrence in the liver, pelvis, or other areas. Colonoscopy can show recurrence of polyps or cancer in the large intestine.

The loss of a job that supplied medical benefits is devastating. COBRA policies often deny coverage for return bouts of the disease and are very expensive. But imagine you lose your medical insurance for whatever reason... You now have a pre-existing condition that will preclude purchasing medical coverage either for cancer re-occurrences or for any major medical coverage.

This is one conversation about one illness that represents every kind of major illness or medical requirement that attacks an individual without insurance, without income to sustain medical treatment, without resources to continue the battle to sustain life.

Representative Boehner and the GOP House Representatives want to repeal The Affordable Health Care Act that will save lives. If it served no other purpose, no higher duty, no greater obligation than saving lives... asked and answered!

• We fight wars with spiraling debt dollars.
  
• We spend billions in military weapons that have never been or are no longer of value to their original purpose.
  
• We have determined corporations to be individuals with the right to buy our elected officials.
• We speak volumes of hateful rhetoric and discourse about our elected leaders and President, but cannot find the truthful and honest, voice required to dismantle this attempt to kill fellow Americans.
• We close our eyes and ears to the truth and bask in the inglorious rhetoric that claims without debate "job killing", "deficit exploding", "death paneling" rancor against life-saving, grace giving comfort to those requiring our help.

We are all one 'pink slip' away from finding ourselves in the boiling cauldron of life without insurance.

Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2011/01/09/time-for-a-new-era-of-political-correctness/#ixzz1B2zinnJr

As a radio host for Clear Channel Glenn Beck said in 2005 he was "thinking about killing [filmmaker] Michael Moore" and pondered whether "I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it," before concluding: "No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong?"

And Fox News' Bill O'Reilly repeated “Tiller the Killer” about Kansas physician George Tiller so often, alleging he performed illegal late-term abortions, that someone did finally walk up and kill Tiller in May of 2009.

(Republicans may want to rethink the title of their first piece of legislation “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act”.) But a conversation about tone and language is also in order.

There's certainly less harm in being overly sensitive than overly violent.

Each and everyone of us has an obligation to help those less fortunate, more vulnerable, in greater need supplying the tools and instruments needed to comfort and attend to the sick... by sharing the Hippocratic Oath of the Physician, we cannot turn our backs on those in need.

Neither can our government as our spiritual reference "there, but for the grace of God, go each of us!"

“ I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over-treatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help."

Barack Obama - "For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga.

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief — I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper — that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? I'm not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a mill-worker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!

In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; the belief in things not seen; the belief that there are better days ahead. I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. I believe that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us. America!"

Transcript: Illinois Senate Candidate Barack Obama

FDCH E-Media

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19751-2004Jul27.html