McCAIN UNDERSTANDS WHY ALL AMERICANS NEED HEALTH CARE

What better person to advocate for "health care for all" than John McCain who understands first hand why it is so important that all Americans; not just politicians , are entitled to have it.

How do Congress' lawmakers get health care?

McCain's office did not respond to CNN requests on how the former Republican presidential nominee, 80, gets his insurance, but according to a 2017 report by the Congressional Research Service, there are a number of options for lawmakers -- not to mention the fact that McCain was a decorated war hero and eligible for VA benefits.

The vast majority of congressional members and staffers get their insurance through the Washington, DC, exchange, known as DC Health Link. The exchange has a reputation for working well, in part because of its small, more manageable size, according to Alice Rivlin, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution's Center for Health Policy.In a moment of unexpected high drama, Republicans were stymied once again in their effort to repeal Obamacare — and they have John McCain to thank for it.

McCain Votes No, Dealing Potential Death Blow To Republican Health Care Efforts

The senator who earned the nickname "Maverick" over his long tenure showed why in the early morning hours Friday.

McCain, who was diagnosed with brain cancer and returned to Washington to advance the health care bill, turned around and bucked his party's leadership — and President Trump — by joining two moderate Republicans and every Democrat in voting against the so-called "skinny repeal" of the Affordable Care Act.

Reforming health care in the US is priority one if this country is going to keep up with the rest of the civilized world;

Life Expectancy Study Suggests U.S. Will Lag behind 

New analysis shows many likely to live beyond 90 by 2030, but not Americans

Led by Imperial scientists in collaboration with the World Health Organization, the study found that among high-income countries, the United States is likely to have the lowest life expectancy in 2030, with men and women expecting to live 79.5 and 83.3 years respectively - similar to middle-income countries like Croatia and Mexico.

This was partly due to a lack of universal healthcare in the United States, and also due to factors such as relatively high child and maternal mortality rates, and high rates of homicides and obesity, the study said.

The problems with health care in the US as compared to the rest of the civilized countries is simple;

It's all about money; greed and self interests.

About $765 Billion Is Wasted Each Year on Health Care. Can You Help Us Find It?

The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates

ProPublica has been researching why the U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world. One answer, broadly, is waste — some of it buried in practices that the medical establishment and the rest of us take for granted. We've documented how hospitals often discard pricey new supplies, how nursing homes trash valuable medications after patients die or move out, and how drug companies create expensive combinations of cheap drugs. Experts estimate such squandering eats up about $765 billion a year — as much as a quarter of all the country's health care spending.

 

MCCAINCARE; HEALTHCARE INSURANCE ALL AMERICANS SHOULD HAVE

The question all American voters should be asking is; why are not all Americans provided with the same healthcare insurance that the politicians who represent them have?



If John McCain were uninsured, his surgery could have cost $76,000 - Vox



That’s more than the average annual American household income.

The fate of the GOP’s health reform plan right now hinges on Sen. John McCain’s recovery from a blood clot surgery. The health scare is also the perfect reminder of just how critical insurance can be — and how much protection from medical emergencies Americans stand to lose with the Better Care Reconciliation Act, the Senate Republicans’ plan to dismantle Obamacare.

According to a press release from McCain’s office, the senator had a craniotomy to remove a blood clot from above his left eye on Friday, July 14, at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. He’s now “recovering comfortably at home.”

This weekend, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he’d delay the vote on the contentious Better Care Act until the Arizona Republican had returned to the Hill and could vote to start debate on the bill. (McConnell needs all the supportive votes he can get.)

There are at least four deeply ironic things about McCain’s health situation:

1) As Vox’s Dylan Scott explained, nothing less than a health emergency has thrown the GOP’s health reform plan into disarray.

2) The senator’s office is saying the blood clot was discovered during a routine physical, which is exactly the type of preventive service Obamacare expanded and the Better Care Act could curtail.

3) The craniotomy sounds like an emergency surgery (though McCain’s office would not confirm that). Obamacare required insurance plans sold in the individual market, the fully insured small-group market, and through Medicaid to cover a list of 10 “essential health benefits”, including emergency healthcare. The Better Care Act would allow health insurers to once again sell skimpier insurance plans that might not include such comprehensive benefits.

4) Life-saving surgeries like these would also be out of reach for more people if the GOP plan were to pass, since it’s expected to leave millions more Americans without insurance compared to Obamacare.

To find out just how much the procedure would cost someone without insurance, we looked to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which publishes Medicare payments for more than 3,000 hospitals for inpatient procedures. We decided to go with the Medicare rate, since this is often used as a benchmark by experts for the cost of a procedure and it’s what the government considers reasonable to pay for a service.*

At the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix (line 1598 of this spreadsheet), the most recent data (2014) suggests the average charge to Medicare for a craniotomy was $76,119, while average Medicare payments ranged from $25,932 to $33,958.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JOURNALISM AND TABLOID PRESS

There's a difference between tabloid press and "reporting the news" the latter requiring discipline in adhering to objectivity and unbiased analysis of the people and events being reported on.



Tabloid press, on the other hand, thrives on the dramatic exaggeration of the news with little regard to accuracy of details or credibility and with the emphasis placed on entertainment value. The more far fetched, unbelievable, provocative or insulting it is, the better.



The army of pundits who represent these organizations march in lock step when it comes to promoting tabloid press rather than just reporting the news.



Now that it's backfired these same so-called news media organizations are claiming to be the victims of the reaction of what they label the "media-illiterate"  rather than the perpetrators of what perpetuated it.


Anti-journalism “smears, lies and death threats” are on the rise, says CNN’s Brian Stelter, who devoted, for the second consecutive week, a segment of his Reliable Sources Sunday chat show to issues surrounding President Donald Trump’s ongoing attacks against the news organization.

“These people, these trolls, they’re media-illiterate,” Stelter said of anonymous online commenters who harass reporters and trash the press as fake news with ties to ISIS. “They don’t really know how newsrooms work.”

Stelter and his panel of guests, including Daily Beast editor John Avlon, USA Today‘s Kirsten Powers and Ben Jacobs, the Guardian reporter body-slammed by then-GOP candidate (now Montana congressman) Greg Gianforte, said such online threats against journalists have soared since Trump took office.



CNN: Anti-Journalism “Smears, Lies And Death Threats” On The Rise | Deadline