Death Panels

("Health Care Nightmares")

We have, after all these years, finally discovered the true meaning of "death panels". It is the intransigence by many states with Republican leaders to accept money, being offered by the Federal government, to expand their Medicaid roles. The result, as Mr. Krugman notes, is the likely demise of thousands of people.

Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling in 2012, which struck down the requirement in the Affordable Care Act compelling states to expand their definition of Medicaid eligibility, states were able to reject FREE money the first year and virtually free money for years thereafter. The result is that there are an estimated 5 million people, in various Republican controlled states, who are not earning enough to qualify for subsidies to pay premiums for health care coverage, but make too much to obtain Medicaid assistance.

 

 

And these people, predicated solely on the mindset of their state government that it can and will do anything and everything to make the President and his signature legislation fail, are the victims. Not victims in a hypothetical sense, but in a real world, DEAD sense.

For that, there should be remorse where there is none, and shame where its absence is striking. And so, death panels do exist and our Republican leaders continue to watch idly as those who can so easily be saved are not.