I want to USE a provison of the health care bill, and another moronic email I got from a certain conservative I know to do a little good old fashioned ranting, and demonstrate once more that while the truth depends on your point of view, some of us have a far more defensible point of view!
Background: I have two autistic sons. If you weren't aware of how insurance companies largely treat autsim, here's a clue, from another Michigan parent of 2 autie's, that I've linked to before, that I think that sums it up pretty nicely. That was pretty much MY experience, almost word for word, anyway.
Now... in this new health care bill there is some stuff concerning this very issue. You can read the details here but basically: plans offered by state-based exchanges will have to cover speech/behavioral therapy for autism, and plans offered in the individual and small group markets outside the exchange will also have to cover autism.
I will say this right up front: This bill does NOT help ME. My family is insured by a LARGE group plan, through my employer and, like most people in Michigan and about 34 other states, will continue to see their childeren discrinimated against, and refused coverage for necessary, scientifically proven and medically necessary speech and behavioral therapy. (And for the record, I am NOT an anti-vaxxer, and I do NOT practice ANY FORM of 'alternative medicine.' IMHO, if 'alternative medicine' was worth a damn, it would be called "MEDICINE." And I have little patience for arguing with those who believe otherwise so, please, DON'T BOTHER.) In any case, my children will continue to face this discrimination. And yeah: I'm disappointed. (Like everyone else, for one reason or another.)
However... my opinion of the provisions IN the bill, largely reflect my opinion OF the bill: They don't go far enough but, compared to the status quo, we (the autistic communtiy) are better off now than we were a week ago.
And Autism Votes felt that, despite being disappointed that the bill didn't end autism discrimination one and for all, they should recognize the hard work that was done on our behalf by three member of congress in particular:
Representative Mike Doyle, DEMOCRAT, PA
Senator Robert Menendez DEMOCRAT, NJ and
Senator Chris Dodd, DEMOCRAT, CT
And what to my wondering eyes did appear in my inbox, from the most conservative, Republican man I know?
"Looks like our Democratic congress dropped the ball on Autsim again!"
W. T. F.?! WHO DROPPED THE BALL?!
Even if, as ClassicLiberal pointed out, the biggest insurance company recipient in terms of dollars is Max Baucus, the fact is the Republicans didn't offer a damn thing! NOT. A. SINGLE. BLOODY. THING!
They locked themsleves out of the debate completely and sat on their hands with their thumbs up their asses doing nothing but saying no to everything and lying about the whole thing from day one!
Riiiight. The failure was on the part of the Democrats. Well... it was, I guess: They kept trying to please the REPUBLICANS and get any one of those bastards to vote for these needed reforms!
That being the case, I'll be dancing naked in the 9th circle of hell before I'll accept a conservative blaming any of this bill's shortcoming on the Democrats.
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In the interest of full disclosure, I will have to point out that the majority of States that mandate insurance coverage, about 2/3 of them, are traditionally RED STATES. (Not surprisingly, CT, PA and NJ are among the few Blue States that do.) So I'm plenty pissed at some of these STATE legislatures, like Michigan's, who are run at least in part by Democrats and/or have a Democratic Governor, and haven't passed this no-brainer yet.
But I still know who our friends in CONGRESS are!
There were a bunch of LTE's in my local newspaper today, and all but one were in favor of the recent HCR bill that was passed. They by-and-large had accurately discussed the features and disadvantages of the bill. Then there was the one LTE that was anti-HCR bill, and guess what? They grossly distorted that bill and its effects AND its creation. That author claimed that it had been crafted behind closed doors (no, not most of it), that it had no bipartisan input (like that was Dem's fault, first off, and like that's an accurate portrayal anyway), and that the factual depiction of the bill's benefits by the newspaper shows the liberal slant of the newspaper!
ReplyDeleteIt consistently amazes me how disconnected from reality these folks are.
Well, the newspaper MAY have had a liberal bias, but then... so does REALITY! So it's hardly the paper's fault! LOL
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment.