Showing posts with label Flip Flop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flip Flop. Show all posts

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Florida plans to eliminate the undeserving from healthcare

Florida State Flag
Florida, like most other Republican run states, has decided that the poor do not deserve healthcare.  Their rejection of Medicaid Expansion is based on their distrust of President Obama and their acceptance that reimbursing hospitals with Low Income Pool money is better than giving health insurance to the undeserving poor.

The public distrust of President Obama and his Democratic administration has been a Republican party strategy.  All Republicans are expected to continue this public display of criticism of the President so that they can use it as their main reason to obstruct any Democratic policy and by so doing, help the Democrats fail.  This is partisan politics which shows that Republicans have no problem taking actions that hurt Americans and hurt their state's economic condition without so much as an ounce of guilt.

Psychologists often say that a person's view of others is influenced by the subconscious guilt that they feel about their own actions.  Psychological projection is a theory that explains why some people shift their own faults onto someone else and deny that it occurs in themselves.  Neurotic or psychotic liars think all people lie.  Every narcissistic untrustworthy person thinks everyone else is untrustworthy.  Maybe that is the thinking that has entered into the Republican party.  The fact that many in the right wing of politics are commonly referred to as "nut jobs" may have a real basis in fact.

Someone who really does not deserve trust is Florida's governor, Rick Scott.  He was the former CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare.  In that position, Scott and his executives illegally charged Medicare billions in fake charges.  Scott quit that position just four months after the government's case became public.  His company was fined $1.7 billion as a result and Scott narrowly escaped getting jail time.  Now he's Florida's governor.

And now Florida finds itself with a House in conflict with its Senate regarding budget money for low income healthcare provisions.  With only a few weeks left in the legislative session, Florida Senate lawmakers have passed a budget for $80.4 billion which includes low income healthcare spending, while lawmakers in the Florida House have passed a $76.2 billion budget which eliminates healthcare spending for low income people.

Governor Scott has had a flip, flop, flip attitude when it comes to low income health insurance.  First he was against expanding medicaid to toe the Republican line to attempt to repeal the ACA in its entirety.  Then he was for it, but could not persuade stalwart Republicans to support it.  Now, after the Federal government has rejected his demands to continue to fund the Florida Low Income Pool, he is against it again.

Governor Scott and the Republican Florida House would much prefer to allow big tax breaks for business and a few dollars in savings for cable bill taxes for it's citizens than provide life saving health care for Florida's "undeserving."

Scott's demands to continue the Low Income Pool (LIP) were rejected by the federal government as it warned it would over a year ago, if Florida could not provide evidence about how the money was being used.  Also, the LIP fund was never supposed to be a permanent program.  Florida did nothing to convince the Federal Government that the LIP fund should be continued, outside of Rick Scott demanding that it should and the government refused to extend LIP.  But there would be plenty of federal money available for healthcare if the state would just expand medicaid.

With the Federal government offering to pay for 100% of the costs of expanded medicaid for the first three years of its implementation,  and 90% thereafter, Florida did nothing and let that money pass by.

The benefits of accepting expanded medicaid far outweigh the benefits of the LIP fund.  Medicaid expansion provides individuals with medical insurance; while the LIP fund provides hospitals with payment if they should care for someone who cannot afford to pay for services.  If an individual does not have medical insurance, they are more likely to not get healthcare when they need it.  This can lead to unnecessary complications and even death in some cases.  When they do need it, it is usually urgently needed and may be a life or death situation, so they are more likely to go to an emergency room where prices are much higher.  Expanded medicaid would save lives.  The LIP fund merely save some costs for hospitals.

There is a reason why hospitals, the Chamber of Commerce, medical device manufacturers  and others in the medical profession have favored expanding medicaid.  Not only does it mean more money for business, it also means a healthier state population and a healthier state economy.  Denying expanded medicaid makes Republicans in Florida seem very ignorant.

It is beyond time for the Florida House to stop their war against the poor in Florida.  It is time for Republican leadership to show that they are not right wing nut jobs.  It is time to accept medicaid expansion and get back to the business of serving all people of the state.  It is the correct thing to do.  It is the economical thing to do.  It is the moral thing to do.

And there is little time left to do it.




Saturday, August 18, 2012

Why Mitt Romney appears to be a spineless, dishonest shape-shifter

This may be the most sympathetic blog I have ever written about Mitt Romney.

The video below shows the record on the extreme flip flop nature of Mitt Romney.  It seems strange that Mitt Romney's position on so many issues could be reversed so thoroughly since he has begun his Presidential Campaign.  What could be happening that could make him such an etch-a-sketch man? 

Postulating causes of that metamorphosis may not take us in a direction that most of us would find familiar.  Mitt Romney is not like most of us.  His life has been blessed with riches that we will never know.  He has experienced the leadership power of being a Corporate CEO and the political power of a Governor of Massachusetts.  This is the second time he has attempted a run for the Presidency of the United States.  In order to have accomplished all that in his lifetime, he must be knowledgable, capable and at one time must have been likeable.  

Although Romney has not made it part of his political campaign, he was a Mormon Bishop in Boston for many years.  He was a generous contributor to the Mormon religion.  Although many consider Mormonism a cult, Romney did get positive life experiences by being a member.

Tony Kimball, a long-time Romney colleague, said he was "shocked" by Mr Romney's "end justifies the means" approach to trying to win the White House.

Tony Kimball
"There is no way that I can square what Mitt is doing and saying on the campaign trail with the Mitt I have know for 40 years and I don't know how he can square it either," said Mr Kimball, a retired university politics professor who served as another Boston area Mormon bishop and then spent seven years as Mr Romney's executive secretary.
Boston Mormon Temple
"I am dismayed by the things he feels the need to do as a political candidate.  This is foreign to the way he spoke and presided in the church.  It is not the same person."

"The sharp-edged individualism, the turning his back on the poor, the arguing that the rich deserve more tax breaks, that is all counter to what Mormonism teaches about compassion and collective care."

"Mitt seems to create a caricature of Obama and the Democrats and then attacks that creation.  I think he lacks the antennae that a good politician needs and I have serious misgivings about how he would manage the White House."

So what has thrown him off his game?  Why does he appear to be so wishy-washy, aloof and incapable of being President?  Why would he deny the exceptional health care plan he provided as Governor of Massachusetts?  Why would he change his opinions on almost every major issue he stood for since he has been a Presidential contender? 

Which is Mitt?
One reason is that he is a man who is being molded by a new Republican Party.  A Party that must reward their billionaire donors.  A Party whose policies violate Romney's own standards and personal values.  As such he is a man out of touch with his own sensibilities.  A man so unlike his own Party's thinking that his actions, his speech and his body language appear off to us.  He is a man who has given up on his own confidence.  Like a fish out of water, he is trying to survive in a world where everything is different than he knows.  By his flip-flops and lies we know he has given in to his "owners" and now his mind is theirs.  He is spine-less in that way.

Honesty is not his forte.   He is devilishly clever enough to realize when his policies are unpopular with voters and dishonest enough to change his policies on a dime to capture votes, even when it conflicts with his real beliefs.  He seems to have no problem with lying to the public about Obama and Democratic policies.  He truly does create lies about Obama and then blames him for them.  He is dishonest and a shape-shifter in that way.

Somehow in the excitement of this campaign he has forgotten his religious teachings.  His charity now begins with his wealthy supporters at the expense of those who struggle to make ends meet.  Thy shalt not lie is an easy commandment for him to break.

This is not a man that we can trust as President.  We can reasonably expect that this is a man who will deliver favors to those billionaires who are buying the Presidency.  He will forego his own thinking on all kinds of decisions to be led by his masters.  His dishonesty with the American people is sure to continue in office if he were elected.  When crisis is upon us, we do not want a dishonest puppet leading us to his master's commands. 

I strongly recommend viewing the following video.