Nebraskan by birth and by heart, I am not nor ever will be a Nebraskan by residence again. Love the state though I do, it's these heartless things that make the heart of the country so impossible to endure.
After several good Dems were elected to the Senate, this all seems inconceivable. But one needs to remember Sen. Roman Hruska (R) who was in the Senate when Nixon's appointees to the US Supreme Court were actually turned down. He famously said he didn't really understand that because "mediocrity deserves representation, too". I consider that something of a NE watershed. Didn't happen right then, but it DID happen. It as nationwide, but I blame Hruska for elevating the very notion that incompetence should be rewarded. He and the comment were not Nebraska's finest points.
Somehow the state has decided, evidence to the contrary, that Gilded Age values of 'deserving and undeserving poor' were worth resurrecting. It is said that Democrats will offer supports to everyone even if some one person might not qualify. Republicans restrict benefits on the fear that one undeserving person might squeak by. They would rather have 6 hospitals close than risk giving something to someone who might not "deserve" it.
The mediocrity kicks in when they stand, straight-faced, calling this freedom. The word no longer has any real meaning when we pretend the few cents spent on someone is a terrible hardship on taxpayers. This also overlooks that there is not a single person, even homeless and begging on street corners, who doesn't pay taxes because you HAVE to pay sales tax. Alabama taxes food but not hair styling. That led faith and secular leaders to create a plan called "Alabama Arise" to change their tax code to eliminate food taxes and impose them on disposable purchases. Despite the intervention of a large part of the faith community, the Christian Coalition lobbied against the Alabama Arise ballot proposition claiming somehow it would let "those" people (we know whom they meant) get away with not paying taxes at all if they removed them from food. The measure did not pass.
Mediocrity devolved into cruelty all masked with piety. That's now a universal. Someone might be getting a service the don't deserve, and even if your neighbor and others qualify, blocking access to Medicaid removes the fear "they might be getting something they don't deserve even if we, the decision makers, can't see it." Mediocrity and cruelty drive these policies. Tis better to deny and be safe than to be compassionate and accurate and do the right thing. We no longer reward any of that. Only cruelty is now a virtue. Thanks for nothing, Roman.
Same here in Iowa. The head of hospital oversight said in a statement to non-profits, up to twenty clinics and medical centers are in danger of closing. When I asked what the outcome might be, he said that the two major medical systems would have to take them in - - or close. All that will be left is hours long rides for basic and emergency services.
"Free" (tax payed) universal health care is so complicated that only 1 of the most avanced economies in the world was unable to have it... Guess which? Small clue:the one were 500.000 people go bankrupt every year because of medical debt.
While I agree with the sentiment, it is not quite accurate. Switzerland (for example) has a private health insurance system similar in many ways to the one in the US — with the exception that if you are a certain level of poor, it's free. Everyone else is forced to pay for it. You MUST BE insured!
I worked in Switzerland for a few years. The first place my employer took me was the police — all people living in Switzerland are registered with the police. I agreed to let them know if I moved.
The second place they took me was to a private insurance company. As I recall, I paid about $150 a month (for me and spouse!) while making a six-figure income.
I asked my employer's rep if I should look at prices with other companies? He said, "No, they're all exactly the same, by law." What a concept!
I never saw a doctor in the years I spent there.
This was 45 years ago. I have no idea if it is still the same.
Germany. It was the model for ACA. But we lost critical elements in Lieberman's vote against the public option and SCOTUS killing the Medicaid mandate.
In fact only about 2% of universal health care is single payer which IS very complex when a country is a "late entry" and costs very high. Other versions such as Germany's are much easier to construct which is why Pres. Obama used that plus a cost sharing standard based on CA's single payer attempt, to create the ACA. It had a public option, universal Medicaid, and a premium plan on a SLIDING scale based on income. (The latter was from CA.) It would have been a smooth transition to coverage had Lieberman not killed the public option and SCOTUS the universal adoption of Medicaid. Single payer as most attempts have shown is a wrenching difference. It's VERY hard to pay for Medicare 4 All with its enormous gaps - the 20% private pay (insurance you pay for extra) and covering everyone from birth when now it's after 40-45 years of contributions during one's work life.
When other nations created UHC (Germany did in the 19th C.) costs were lower, money could be set aside for increasing needs, and a floor established early on. It's much harder now. So opting for a highly regulated insurance company presence, as Germany does even now, was much easier than developing an entire bureaucracy to deal with a wholly new program. Hybrids often work better, are less expensive, and deliver familiar services in familiar ways. We can revive ACA with a couple of tweaks including the public option, but it would take forever to decide WHAT single payer plan we want then do it. So we have to figure that out. Purity of no insurance companies even though most of Europe uses them or complex construction of a new bureaucracy. Ours to decide if we get Dems back in power.
Remarkable how playing Russian Roulette with health is acceptable while the cost is human lives. Yes the US is a loss-leader in social indidicators. We proudly brand our individualism, except at the very top. The exceptions and excemptions of our tax code favor the few and yet for more than five decades what has trickled down is not “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But those trickled down on have increased. Great advertising. Behind the scenes multiple jobs to keep the banks happy and the “American Dream” alive. It is voracious. And it it eats the middle class for lunch. Not a great tale, rather a story of failure at a grand scale.
Something. Has happened to people. They really just don't give a shit about others. Decisions. Slop. Lies. Inaccuracies. Slow deaths. That the ones making the decisions, do not have to witness. Existence has a pricetag from the moment we take our first breath. The decision makers are perfectly contented to keep their eyes closed tight.
All states I’m sure have a “Jane” or a neighbor asking for help in understanding the do’s and don’ts of the new Medicaid rules.
The truly sad part about the new rules is, the Jane’s and the neighbors are the ones who voted for these representatives in 2016, 2020, 2024 and will vote for them again in 2026 & 2028.
We are all worried about the sick and ashamed of the celebrants.
And yet the criminals in the trump regime and all the people making and overseeing these regulations have quality health insurance paid for by us.
Nebraskan by birth and by heart, I am not nor ever will be a Nebraskan by residence again. Love the state though I do, it's these heartless things that make the heart of the country so impossible to endure.
After several good Dems were elected to the Senate, this all seems inconceivable. But one needs to remember Sen. Roman Hruska (R) who was in the Senate when Nixon's appointees to the US Supreme Court were actually turned down. He famously said he didn't really understand that because "mediocrity deserves representation, too". I consider that something of a NE watershed. Didn't happen right then, but it DID happen. It as nationwide, but I blame Hruska for elevating the very notion that incompetence should be rewarded. He and the comment were not Nebraska's finest points.
Somehow the state has decided, evidence to the contrary, that Gilded Age values of 'deserving and undeserving poor' were worth resurrecting. It is said that Democrats will offer supports to everyone even if some one person might not qualify. Republicans restrict benefits on the fear that one undeserving person might squeak by. They would rather have 6 hospitals close than risk giving something to someone who might not "deserve" it.
The mediocrity kicks in when they stand, straight-faced, calling this freedom. The word no longer has any real meaning when we pretend the few cents spent on someone is a terrible hardship on taxpayers. This also overlooks that there is not a single person, even homeless and begging on street corners, who doesn't pay taxes because you HAVE to pay sales tax. Alabama taxes food but not hair styling. That led faith and secular leaders to create a plan called "Alabama Arise" to change their tax code to eliminate food taxes and impose them on disposable purchases. Despite the intervention of a large part of the faith community, the Christian Coalition lobbied against the Alabama Arise ballot proposition claiming somehow it would let "those" people (we know whom they meant) get away with not paying taxes at all if they removed them from food. The measure did not pass.
Mediocrity devolved into cruelty all masked with piety. That's now a universal. Someone might be getting a service the don't deserve, and even if your neighbor and others qualify, blocking access to Medicaid removes the fear "they might be getting something they don't deserve even if we, the decision makers, can't see it." Mediocrity and cruelty drive these policies. Tis better to deny and be safe than to be compassionate and accurate and do the right thing. We no longer reward any of that. Only cruelty is now a virtue. Thanks for nothing, Roman.
Same here in Iowa. The head of hospital oversight said in a statement to non-profits, up to twenty clinics and medical centers are in danger of closing. When I asked what the outcome might be, he said that the two major medical systems would have to take them in - - or close. All that will be left is hours long rides for basic and emergency services.
Tom. Thanks for the compassionate neighboring, compelling story telling and diligent research you have put into this piece.
Thank you!!
"Free" (tax payed) universal health care is so complicated that only 1 of the most avanced economies in the world was unable to have it... Guess which? Small clue:the one were 500.000 people go bankrupt every year because of medical debt.
While I agree with the sentiment, it is not quite accurate. Switzerland (for example) has a private health insurance system similar in many ways to the one in the US — with the exception that if you are a certain level of poor, it's free. Everyone else is forced to pay for it. You MUST BE insured!
I worked in Switzerland for a few years. The first place my employer took me was the police — all people living in Switzerland are registered with the police. I agreed to let them know if I moved.
The second place they took me was to a private insurance company. As I recall, I paid about $150 a month (for me and spouse!) while making a six-figure income.
I asked my employer's rep if I should look at prices with other companies? He said, "No, they're all exactly the same, by law." What a concept!
I never saw a doctor in the years I spent there.
This was 45 years ago. I have no idea if it is still the same.
150 dolars, for a couple. Same all companies by legal mandate. Income independent. . I can't quite see anything in it that that resembles US...
Yea, I noted the exceptions.
Multiple private insurers (*not* "single payer") is in common, though there is some regulation, unlike the US, where there is none.
Germany. It was the model for ACA. But we lost critical elements in Lieberman's vote against the public option and SCOTUS killing the Medicaid mandate.
In fact only about 2% of universal health care is single payer which IS very complex when a country is a "late entry" and costs very high. Other versions such as Germany's are much easier to construct which is why Pres. Obama used that plus a cost sharing standard based on CA's single payer attempt, to create the ACA. It had a public option, universal Medicaid, and a premium plan on a SLIDING scale based on income. (The latter was from CA.) It would have been a smooth transition to coverage had Lieberman not killed the public option and SCOTUS the universal adoption of Medicaid. Single payer as most attempts have shown is a wrenching difference. It's VERY hard to pay for Medicare 4 All with its enormous gaps - the 20% private pay (insurance you pay for extra) and covering everyone from birth when now it's after 40-45 years of contributions during one's work life.
When other nations created UHC (Germany did in the 19th C.) costs were lower, money could be set aside for increasing needs, and a floor established early on. It's much harder now. So opting for a highly regulated insurance company presence, as Germany does even now, was much easier than developing an entire bureaucracy to deal with a wholly new program. Hybrids often work better, are less expensive, and deliver familiar services in familiar ways. We can revive ACA with a couple of tweaks including the public option, but it would take forever to decide WHAT single payer plan we want then do it. So we have to figure that out. Purity of no insurance companies even though most of Europe uses them or complex construction of a new bureaucracy. Ours to decide if we get Dems back in power.
Remarkable how playing Russian Roulette with health is acceptable while the cost is human lives. Yes the US is a loss-leader in social indidicators. We proudly brand our individualism, except at the very top. The exceptions and excemptions of our tax code favor the few and yet for more than five decades what has trickled down is not “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But those trickled down on have increased. Great advertising. Behind the scenes multiple jobs to keep the banks happy and the “American Dream” alive. It is voracious. And it it eats the middle class for lunch. Not a great tale, rather a story of failure at a grand scale.
Something. Has happened to people. They really just don't give a shit about others. Decisions. Slop. Lies. Inaccuracies. Slow deaths. That the ones making the decisions, do not have to witness. Existence has a pricetag from the moment we take our first breath. The decision makers are perfectly contented to keep their eyes closed tight.
Thank you for your movie review.
How did the US become so niggardly?
I guess it's always been that way, everyone afraid that someone else is getting a free ride.
My fondest wish for †rump is not prison.
My fondest wish is that he be stripped of all assets. He gets to keep a single set of clothing — nothing more.
Then, he's dumped into some ghetto, forced to survive in the system he imposed on others.
Ask Donald... Reagan 😅. When non profit health insurers become for profit
We can't blame everything on Reagan. But a lot of it.
Think; Reagan, Rush, Newt, McConnell, Trump, that mess up your day.
That made ALL the difference.
All states I’m sure have a “Jane” or a neighbor asking for help in understanding the do’s and don’ts of the new Medicaid rules.
The truly sad part about the new rules is, the Jane’s and the neighbors are the ones who voted for these representatives in 2016, 2020, 2024 and will vote for them again in 2026 & 2028.