Health Care Inequality Quotes
This notorious quotation was the first time anyone had ever used the term "death panels". As Wickipedia says,"Death panel" is a term that originated during the 2009 debate about federal health care legislation to cover the uninsured in the United States. Sarah Palin, former Republican Governor of Alaska, coined the term when she charged that proposed legislation would create a "death panel" of bureaucrats who would decide whether Americans—such as her elderly parents or children with Down's syndrome—were "worthy of medical care." When Palin was challanged to show where in the proposed Obamacare bill, there was any mention of dealth panels or anything like them, Palin's spokesperson pointed to Section 1233 of bill HR 3200 which would have paid physicians for providing voluntary counseling to Medicare patients about living wills, advance directives, and end-of-life care options. But there was absolutly nothing about withholding medial care. Just the opposite Obama care guaranteed medical care to many millions more Americans regardless opf age or medical condition. However, the bill was ovr 2000 pages long and very few people had read most of it, including the members of Congress who voted for and agaisnt it. A number of conservatives repeated the false accusatuins (See Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) Quotation 644139. One poll showed that after it spread, about 85% of respondents were familiar with the charge and of those who were familiar with it, about 30% thought it was true and Palin's new term won the dubius distinction of winning the "Lie of the Year" award. Despite the fact that it was totally false, in order to win Obamacare be a single vote, the President had to eliminate the part of the bill that allowed payment to physicians to take the time and explain to patients and/or their families, the various options of palliative treatment during the last months of life. Many people thought that the doctors would form death panels.
_0_PostageStamp_47x47.jpg "Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen gives an interview to John Dickerson during the CBS news program Face the Nation in Washington, D.C., July 5, 2009. During the interview, Mullen discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, North Korea's recent missile tests and his recent visit to Russia. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, U.S. Navy/Released)"){kind=small}
While ObamaCare prohibited insurers from discriminating against individuals, they were allowed to discriminate against regions if the State Insurance Regulators would allow this. In Tennessee they did under the theory that “one size does not fit all”. However what the insurers did was set up separate insurance corporations to service the rural areas which were very poor in Tennessee, and very poorly educated and malnourished as typically goes along with poverty. So the insurers tailored insurance policies which while affordable, for low income workers, would not protect the insured very much for any serious disease and therefore, did not protect the families from medically caused bankruptcy. When Obama Care set minimum basic coverage requirements on all insurance policies, these insurance companies preferred to close down rather than comply, and the State Insurance Regulators had not required all companies serving the wealthier communities to cover all communities as existed in most other states or where those other State Regulators set strong minimum standards of coverage. Tennessee did neither, so the insurance companies could cherry pick the best communities and avoid pockets where there were more health problems.
