In the midst of talk about Republicare, read the simple reality of the poor and medical care.

[LuckyLib]

"They are poor, sick and voted for Trump. What will happen to them without Obamacare?"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/west-virginia-tug-river-obamacare/

One of the saddest pieces I've seen -- makes me long for folks in congress who get how folks struggle.

<snip>
Unlike in Washington, where health care is a contentious policy debate, health care where Keisha is a nurse practitioner is a daily need to be filled. The high rates of chronic diseases in McDowell County have made it the county with the shortest life expectancy in the nation.

<snip>
In other parts of the country, the primary impact of the ACA has been requiring people to have private health insurance, but in poor and sick communities like McDowell County, the law’s dominant effect has been the Medicaid expansion, which has given more people access to the kind of health care that wasn’t widely available or affordable to them before. With an insurance card in her pocket, the patient at Tammy’s window can venture into the realms of medical care that are typically out of reach to those without one: blood work, immunizations, specialized doctors, surgery, physical therapy.

[progree]

1. One excerpt - a perfect rebuttal to a rightie saying that the poor can always go to emergency rooms

so everyone has great healthcare so what are people squawking about anyway?

It was 2003 when Derrick started to feel pains in his back and groin, and Keisha, then a 22-year-old licensed practical nurse, started to understand what insurance could mean. Derrick was 24 — too old to be covered by his father’s insurance but unable to afford his own. He thought his only option was to go to an emergency room. His parents remember him returning home, having been told there was nothing wrong with him. When the pain didn’t go away, Derrick tried a different ER.

Keisha would later learn that doctors thought her brother was seeking pain pills. Months passed.

All the while, a tumor inside his kidney was growing. A few months after the cancer was finally discovered, Derrick died at 25.