Our nation's forefathers started us off with good intentions.

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We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

            -- Preamble of the United States' Constitution

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Emphasis mine.

That's not to say that they envisioned a "welfare state" -- an accusation oft tossed into the mix by radical right-wing conservatives. The line "promote the general welfare" does, however, denote the support and importance of the "health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being"¹ of the people, the states and the nation itself. The mythos that later came to embody the "domestic Tranquility" and principles of liberty and justice in a free democratic Republic was bolstered with the words from a plaque at the base of one of our most notable national symbols, the Statue of Liberty:

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"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

            -- Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus, 1883

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What a grand dream of freedom, of democracy, of goodwill and equal opportunity...

How horrified our founding fathers might be now, to read of the way our system has been twisted and corrupted so that the poor and the sick are effectively shut-out from the benefits that modern-day medicine can provide, like the child who was taken off a liver doner list through an example of the cold, hard nature of economic triage² as reported recently in the Miami Herald:

originally posted 2008-06-11 18:24:22, bumped -- cho

Is Compassionate Conservatism Right for America?

In an ongoing effort to make their colleagues unelectable, and to provide Democrats with an unassailable platform in November, House Republicans are dismantling and blocking some of the most popular provisions of the Iraq spending bill. Today they blocked passage of extended unemployment benefits despite rising unemployment. And, as we speak, they are working to remove a moratorium on seven Medicaid Rules changes proposed by Bush.

originally posted 2008-05-21 13:27:55 -- bumped, cho

George W. Bush appears to desire the complete destruction of the Republican Party for the next forty years even more ardently than he wants to fund his war in Iraq. Or so I am lead to believe by a recent spate of incomprehensible policy decisions. He has given the Democratic Party an arsenal of tools to use against both John McCain, and nearly every Republican incumbent up for re-election in the Senate. It is July 4 in May!

Democrats in the Senate have been unable to pass a series of extremely popular and necessary programs due to stiff opposition from the Bush Administration and Senate Republican leadership. Instead of giving up, Democratic Leadership has attached the programs to the Supplemental Appropriations Bill which funds the War in Iraq. The President, who has suddenly discovered "fiscal responsibility," is threatening to veto the bill unless the offensive amendments are removed. His water carriers, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) are working hard behind the scenes to insure that Republicans uphold the President's veto.

Senate Republicans who are up for re-election in November (or ever) face an unsettling dilemma.

Over the past several months, I have diaried attempts by the Bush administration to gut our public health safety net through a proposed set of arcane rules changes. If implemented May 25 as planned, the rules changes will limit federal subsidies to public hospitals, indigent hospital care, emergency rooms, outpatient clinics, school-based health care, graduate medical education, case management, rehabilitation services, and children'a Medicaid enrollment.

I have also diaried the efforts of health care activists to prevent these rules from going into effect. It is coming down to the wire now. The moratorium on the rules goes before the full Senate this week, probably as an attachment to the Iraq spending bill. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Charles Grassley (R-IA), and administration officials have vowed to kill the moratorium. Find out how you can help below the break.

Are we witnessing a hostile corporate takeover of the United States of America?

The Bush Administration has been quietly and incrementally liquidating our public health safety net in a manner reminiscent of the hostile takeovers so prevalent among corporations in the 1980s and 1990s. A proposed set of arcane regulation changes unilaterally imposed by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) will go into effect between now and May 25, if not stopped by Congress. CMS estimates that the new rules will result in a "cost savings" of $15 billion dollars over five years.

But who will benefit from these "savings"? The rules changes will cause widespread cutbacks and closures of the emergency rooms, hospitals, and outpatient and school-based clinics currently serving most Americans. The cash raised by liquidating America's public health safety net is, according to the Washington Post, equivqalent to five weeks of war in Iraq. It represents just 3% of the $500 billion dollar bail-out the president has promised to financiers.

It is money and effort taken from the American people and redistributed to wealthy corporate interests.

On Sunday 3-9-08, McClatchy Washington Bureau published an article entitled White House, Congress to battle over Medicaid for the poor. The subject of the article -- how President Bush's rules change to Medicaid will effectively close hospitals in poor and rural areas, and thus often eliminate the one source of medical care for those least able to access it -- is not a new one to ePluribus Media readers.

But that's not our story here. Our story is about how the traditional media came to pay attention.

The Bush Administration has published a list of twelve proposed Medicaid Rules changes which will cut at least $15 billion over five years from our public health budget. If the rules changes go into effect in March and May as scheduled, they will result in closures or scaling back of Emergency Rooms, outpatient clinics, teaching hospitals, school based clinics, public hospitals, services to the disabled and case management. I have previously diaried the rules changes in detail.

While most of us are focused on universal care, the Bush Administration has been incrementally shredding our existing public health safety net in ways that have yet to become apparent. The most recent assault on our public health care infrastructure is escaping the notice of mainstream media and citizen journalists alike, probably because it is not easily explained. I am referring to a proposed set of arcane regulation changes by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) which, if enacted, will result in $15 billion dollars in cuts over five years to service providers.

In early December, I diaried a proposed Medicaid Rules change, which, if it goes into effect in May as scheduled, will result in draconian cuts to public and teaching hospitals. This is a non-partisan issue: the US v. the Bush Administration. Representatives Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Sue Myrick (R-NC) have introduced HR 3533, the Preserve Our Public and Teaching Hospitals Act into the house to block the odious rules change. Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)have attemtped to introduce a moratorium on the rule in the senate.

Unfortunately, the good guys have not been able to muster the votes to extend an existing moratorium on the rules change, which would spare our frayed public health care infrastructure a possibly mortal blow for at least another year.

While people are focused on universal care, the Bush Administration is incrementally chipping away at our existing public health safety net. The most recent assault on our public health care infrastructure is escaping the notice of mainstream media and citizen journalists alike, probably because it is not easily explained. I am referring to a proposed arcane regulations change by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) which, if enacted, will result in $4 to $5 billion dollars over 5 years in cuts to public hospitals and other hospitals that serve indigent patients. In addition, CMS is proposing other rules changes that will result in billions of dollars of reductions to teaching hospitals.

These hospitals serve as the backbone of our public health safety net, train the next generation of physicians and health care professionals, and are essential to any kind of response to disaster, terrorist attack or pandemic outbreak. Without them, our already frayed public health infrastructure may disintegrate.