By Brent Budowsky | 09/24/09
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) wins the award for why Republican favorable numbers on healthcare are barely above 20 percent. Mr. Cantor was recently asked what a woman with stomach cancer should do if she did not have the insurance to pay huge medical costs.
Here is the Cantor plan for middle-income Americans who may have lost their health insurance after being laid off by a company whose CEO might be making a million dollars a year. First, she should sell all of her lifetime possessions to desperately pay humongous medical costs, with the side benefit that this would make her poor, and therefore qualify for health programs for the poor that many Republicans don’t support. If this fails, Mr. Cantor advises the woman to do this: beg.
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Posted on Thursday September 24, 2009
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Posted on Friday September 18, 2009
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By Alex Blum | Los Angeles Times, Sep 15, 2009
Along with every other pediatrician I know, I have seen far too often the unconscionable consequences of children not having health care coverage.
One case still haunts me.
In the middle of one night during my training at a county hospital outside Los Angeles, a 12-year-old boy arrived at the emergency room. He was having a seizure. From a brain scan, we made the terrible diagnosis: He had suffered a massive stroke. At best, he would be severely disabled for the rest of his life.
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Along with every other pediatrician I know, I have seen far too often the unconscionable consequences of children not having health care coverage.
One case still haunts me.
In the middle of one night during my training at a county hospital outside Los Angeles, a 12-year-old boy arrived at the emergency room. He was having a seizure. From a brain scan, we made the terrible diagnosis: He had suffered a massive stroke. At best, he would be severely disabled for the rest of his life.
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Posted on Thursday September 03, 2009
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by Molly E Secours, September 3, 2009, 9:05 am
For almost a year I lived on my purple couch in between cancer treatments. My living room was a healing sanctuary and every morning I glanced at the sky and nodded thanks to the creator for a safe place to recover.
As I peeked my head above the covers this past year recovering from chemo and radiation, I was blindsided by the financial debt accumulated through treatment and realized that without getting my 9.8% adjustable mortgage lowered, keeping my house was an impossibility. I thought about selling to get out from under it but with the plummeted housing market, it was upside down by about $30,000.
A recent study reports that 49% of Americans facing foreclosure are because of medical debt. I was one of them.
Read all of Molly's story on Red Room.»
For almost a year I lived on my purple couch in between cancer treatments. My living room was a healing sanctuary and every morning I glanced at the sky and nodded thanks to the creator for a safe place to recover.
As I peeked my head above the covers this past year recovering from chemo and radiation, I was blindsided by the financial debt accumulated through treatment and realized that without getting my 9.8% adjustable mortgage lowered, keeping my house was an impossibility. I thought about selling to get out from under it but with the plummeted housing market, it was upside down by about $30,000.
A recent study reports that 49% of Americans facing foreclosure are because of medical debt. I was one of them.
Read all of Molly's story on Red Room.»
Posted on Thursday September 03, 2009
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By Emily Monacelli09/03/2009
Every Wednesday, Rowena Gutierrez sets up a large plywood sign and opens her garage door, inviting people to browse through her possessions -- lamps, a dining table, small angel statues, clothes. If they find something, both people benefit. The buyer takes home the trinket, and Gutierrez puts that money toward the estimated $11,000 she owes in medical bills.
Several times this summer, Gutierrez's three-month long "Broke Ain't No Joke" sale helped her get her gas and electric utilities back on. She continues to sell off her possessions in hopes of paying down medical debt.
"The only thing I can think of is just continue to sell everything from the floor up, and go live with a relative," she said sitting on her exercise bench, the only furniture she hasn't sold from her otherwise empty living room.
"We're down to just the beds we sleep in, you know," she said of her and her 14-year-old daughter. "And my exercise bench."
Read the full story on MSNBC's The Grio. »
Posted on Wednesday September 02, 2009
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By Michelle Andrews | Posted November 7, 2008
IF YOUR COMPANY STUMBLES, WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR HEALTH COVERAGE?
For years, workers have watched their healthcare outlays rise and benefits shrink, and for some, whether they will have benefits at all suddenly is in doubt. As Wall Street's turmoil sloshes over Main Street, it seems that every day another trusted company files for bankruptcy, succumbs to a takeover, or shuts its doors. Nearly 34,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy in the 12 months ending in June, 42 percent more than the year before—and the word from on high is that this may be just the beginning. If your company stumbles, your healthcare, along with your job and your 401(k), could suffer as well. Many employees may worry they're only a couple of bad balance sheets away from joining the ranks of the nearly 46 million Americans without health insurance.
Unfortunately, they may be right.
Read the full story on U.S. News and World Report. »
IF YOUR COMPANY STUMBLES, WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR HEALTH COVERAGE?
For years, workers have watched their healthcare outlays rise and benefits shrink, and for some, whether they will have benefits at all suddenly is in doubt. As Wall Street's turmoil sloshes over Main Street, it seems that every day another trusted company files for bankruptcy, succumbs to a takeover, or shuts its doors. Nearly 34,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy in the 12 months ending in June, 42 percent more than the year before—and the word from on high is that this may be just the beginning. If your company stumbles, your healthcare, along with your job and your 401(k), could suffer as well. Many employees may worry they're only a couple of bad balance sheets away from joining the ranks of the nearly 46 million Americans without health insurance.
Unfortunately, they may be right.
Read the full story on U.S. News and World Report. »