So how will this new proposed health care plan help the unemployed?

[Hugabear]

Please don't tell me that their answer to providing health care to the unemployed is to simply extend COBRA benefits. The entire concept of COBRA is a huge insult, a slap in the face. The idea of having to pay MORE money to keep your health insurance, at a time when you have LESS money coming in - how does that help anybody?

Please tell me there is going to be some real reform in this area.

[FrenchieCat]

1. I believe that there will be subsidies on a sliding scale for those with low income.....

and enrollment into the public option.....and I would presume that being unemployed usually results in low income.

[Birthmark]

2. It works like this...

...when you become unemployed you can easily keep your health insurance by...Hey! Look! PUPPIES!!!

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. You'd be into Medicaid...

...unless you had very good unemployment benefits. If you had no benefits -- and only about half the unemployed qualify for unemployment, for reasons that still baffles me -- you'd definitely qualify for Medicaid. And there'd be a national standard for getting Medicaid -- no patchwork of state thresholds.

[Hello_Kitty]

4. I'd be interested in knowing what the nat'l threshold for Medicaid would be.

Because here in AZ, if I made more than $850 a month I did not qualify for the state's program. Coincidentally, my UI check was just a hair over that! :grr:

[bobbolink]

7. That's only right, since Medicaid gets cut and cut and cut. People making a lot less than that

SHOULD be able to get Health Care, don't you think?

[Hello_Kitty]

10. But at $880 a month I shouldn't have?

What individual policy was I going to be able to afford? And still eat? So I went without. Which made me one of those uninsured deadbeats that some DUers love to hate.

[bobbolink]

25. Is that what you heard??? You want justice, too?

So, then where have you been every time that Medicaid has been cut, leaving people suffering and dying?

Did you speak up for us?

Did you lobby for us?

No?

Well, then....

ARE YOU SPEAKING UP FOR US NOW????????????????????????????????????????

NO? Then why would you expect us to speak up for you?

Yeah, it really DOES come back around, doesn't it?

[Hello_Kitty]

29. Does lobbying for single payer universal coverage for all count?

Because I've been doing that for years.

[bobbolink]

35. Of course it counts. It's laudable. I hope you can also respect , honor what I do for homelessness

It goes without saying that your work for this cause is worthy of honor, but I will say it and hope that you will recognize my contributions, also.

Just so you know, I've also done a tremendous amount of volunteer work for singlepayer.

I really don't get why DU gets into such snits about who is doing what...... those of us who are giving of our time and energy to better this society ALL deserve recognition.

OK?

[Hello_Kitty]

39. You started off by flaming me

I had the nerve to think that on UI benefits of $880 a month I should qualify for Medicaid and you claimed that this would lead to poor people getting their benefits cut. This reveals a startling lack of awareness on your part about who is on Medicaid. Not everyone on state health aid is homeless or disabled, not by a long shot. In Arizona, as is probably the case in most states, a large percentage of recipients are working families with children. As I said, if I were a parent I could make $1650 a month and receive full health benefits for myself and my dependent. For families above the poverty level (sometimes up to many times above it) there is SCHIP for the kids and even health insurance assistance for parents. This is funded by a combination of state and federal funds.

Yes, everyone should have health care and it should not be means tested.

[bobbolink]

42. Obviously, you're just not going to get it, and I'm very tired of your crap.

I gave you kind words, I acknowledged you and asked to be acknoweledged in return.

You clearly don't give a shit that we are getting cut back so much, and I refuse to keep trying to get your good will.

In your world, it's everyone for him/herself, so nowI'm for myself.

Maybe some day you'll grow a heart. Until then, I'm sick of you and your thoughtlessness.

[Hello_Kitty]

45. You have yet to demonstrate how anything I said

Indicated a desire to see people getting cut back or indicated that I don't give a shit about it.

Please link to that comment or STFU and go away (and I mean from DU entirely) because I and doubtless many others here are sick of you and your self-righteous drama queen crap.

[bobbolink]

48. Take your hatred of poor folk and STFU yourself. Yes, you told me to STFU, and I'm putting it right

back on you.

And who are YOU to tell ANYONE to leave DU??

I'm so sick of authoritarian dictators!

[Hello_Kitty]

49. Still waiting for some substantiation of my alleged hatred of the poor.

Waiting...

[Hello_Kitty]

33. Oh BTW, bobbolink

You know who's really causing Medicaid to be strained? People with kids. If I had one kid I could make twice as much as without a kid and we'd both get ACCCHS in Arizona. With more kids my income limit would go up further. If I had 4 kids I could be making $3k a month and qualify for state aid for me and my whole family.

So when are you going to start ranting about people making way more than you or I when I was unemployed getting Medicaid because they reproduced? Hmm?

[bobbolink]

34. What we have to do is STOP fighting among various groups. We're playing right into the hands of the

power elite when we do that.

EVERYONE deserves excellent health care as a right.

EVERYONE.

[Davis_X_Machina]

8. 133% of the poverty line -- or $1150/mo...

...using 2009 figures.

[lumberjack_jeff]

16. 133% of FPL.

For a single person, $10,830.

[Hello_Kitty]

17. Oh great! $902 a month.

So I'd have barely slid in while on unemployment.

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Sorry, my post was misleading.

$10,830 is the FPL, so 133% of that is $14436 or $1200/month.

[bobbolink]

6. You're forgetting one teeeeny little thing.... Medicaid will be CUT!

If *I'M* cut waaay back on Medicaid so some unemployed person can come in and get MORE BENEFITS, there will be one hell of a fight!

[Hello_Kitty]

11. Yeah, fuck those unemployed losers.

Let them pay $500 a month for COBRA. Or pay the same for an individual policy, assuming they could qualify for one.

[bobbolink]

20. You're absolutely right.... It's my JOB to lose what little health care i have now so they can have

it better.

Being on the bottom of the ladder, it's only right, right?

HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED ACTUALLY HEARING WHAT POOR PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY?

ARE YOU CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING SOMEONE ELSE'S POINT OF VIEW?

[Hello_Kitty]

28. Sorry, I was too busy being scorned b/c I couldn't afford insurance and didn't qualify for Medicaid.

When I was unemployed for a year I was one of those "deadbeats" who was causing everyone's health care costs to be high. I didn't realize that also meant that I was for taking poor people's health care away from them. Thanks for clearing that up.

Boy, I suck. :sarcasm:

[bobbolink]

36. No, you're too busy pitting one group against another.

You want us to work for you to get health care, while you are too "busy" to lobbby to prevent more cuts to Medicaid.

Repeat: when you pit one group against another, the only winners are those in power.

[bobbolink]

37. "Scorned"? That sounds so much like today's Christians complaining that they are persecuted.

Just a tad over the top.

Stop pitting one group against another, and work for EVERYONE to have the necessary health care!

[Hello_Kitty]

38. Um, have you been paying attention to the health care debate at all?

I am not the one pitting groups against each other. Look in the mirror.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[1]

14. so "i got mine, screw the unemployed". is that what you are saying???

[bobbolink]

21. Yes, you quoted me exactly, didn't you? Word for word, right?

Did you lay awake all night figuring out how to be as mean as possible to those who have NOthING??

[1]

32. no, i was paraphrasing. the result is the same...

but as long as you think your NOTHING is more important than everyone else's NOTHING, then just keep on bashing us all.

i don't like "more liberal than thou" posts...

[Hugabear]

15. "so some unemployed person can come in and get MORE BENEFITS"?

You got something about unemployed people? Oh I know, we should all just dig into our pockets and fork over some of our nonexistent paycheck, right?

[Hello_Kitty]

18. Oh yes. Or else you are a deadbeat and a criminal.

Just ask all the people on DU (who have employer or government sponsored insurance) who say so.

[bobbolink]

22. You got EXACTLY what I'm saying, don't you?

Don't look now, but your hatred is showing.

Damn, this is just like dealing with the RW.....don't bother to actually THINK, and have compassion for another... just vilify them.

Works really well for you, doesn't it?

[Hello_Kitty]

27. Whom am I vilifying?

[leftofthedial]

5. you will now have to sell off your life's savings in order to purchase

the mandatory health insurance from the insurance corporations instead of using it to buy food.

[nightrain]

9. that's about right... all to preserve the health insurance extortion corporations!

It's stupid. I reckon we'll come to regret these absurdly fragmented "reforms".

[Laelth]

13. And, if you don't, you're a criminal. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Sebastian Doyle]

31. Well, there definitely are criminals involved here

The insurance corporations, and the whores in Congress who gladly do for them, what Monica did for Clinton.

[scheming daemons]

12. Who knows? It hasn't even come out of committee yet... and then there's reconciliation

Neither the current house bill or the likely senate bill is what the final product will look like.

[Greyhound]

23. No they won't, and they are already terrible.

A legally required system of tiered care that lowers standards for those already at the bottom, brilliant.
:eyes:

Oh, and let's not forget the billions in corporate welfare for the health care denial and insurance industries.

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. self delete

[undeterred]

26. I am concerned that there will be a gap

and I will be in it. I am unemployed and can't afford COBRA or to purchase a private insurance policy. My state offers a program for the uninsured without children, but my income is too high to qualify. But the rates are way down in my field, and it would be a huge burden to pay $4-500 a month on what I have been earning. I can't afford insurance unemployed or employed and I am afraid there will be nothing I can afford.

[Hello_Kitty]

30. I was in the same situation.

From what I was told at a meeting with some of my congressman's staffers about the House plan, if you have a job your employer is either going have to provide you with coverage or pay into a pool so that employees can get a subsidy to help pay for coverage. I wish I'd thought to ask them how it would work for self-employed or 1099 contractors. I'm going to have to email them. If I get an answer I'll post it here on DU.

[IrishBuckeye]

40. Your income is too high to qualify but you're unemployed? Huh?

I don't understand this statement.

[Hello_Kitty]

46. Unemployment benefits. eom

[Ms. Toad]

41. They will be first in line if they are still unemployed in 2013, n/t

[PretzelWarrior]

44. you sound like Freaking Colonel Jessup.

you are underestimating the Obama team. Typical.