Hurricane Katrina, The Obamacare Rollout, And Allowing Privilege To Shape Our Politics [View all]

[ProSense]

Hurricane Katrina, The Obamacare Rollout, And Allowing Privilege To Shape Our Politics

By Tara Culp-Ressler

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According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, about five million poor Americans will have no access to basic health benefits under Obamacare because they fall into a “coverage gap” created by this fight over Medicaid. Without expansion, they make too much money to qualify for their state’s Medicaid program, but too little money to qualify for subsidies on the individual market. They’re left out of Obamacare altogether. A New York Times analysis estimated that number to be a little higher, concluding that 8 million low-income people will be locked out of health reform.

This group includes much of America’s working poor who struggle to make ends meet with their jobs in the service sector. It consists of thousands of cooks, janitors, nurses’ aides, truck drivers, and waiters. And just like in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many of the people left behind are the poor, black Americans who live in the South.

“Blacks are disproportionately affected, largely because more of them are poor and living in Southern states,” the New York Times reported last month. “In all, 6 out of 10 blacks live in the states not expanding Medicaid.”

Millions of people locked out of Obamacare? Hardworking Americans struggling to get by who can’t realize the promise of affordable health coverage? That seems like a political scandal. But the main focus of the political and media outrage over Obamacare’s troubled rollout hasn’t really focused on those people. As a whole, the political system isn’t incredibly worried about the fact that low-income and uninsured Americans — the people without much political influence to begin with — are victims of a partisan divide over the health law.

Instead, the current discussion is centered on a relatively small group of people who do currently have insurance, but whose plans don’t meet the minimum standard for benefit requirements put forth by the health reform law. Those people are receiving notices that their insurance plans are being canceled and they must purchase a new plan under Obamacare, one that will include the full range of consumer protections that the law now requires insurers to provide. If the United States is poised to shift to a system that doesn’t put insurance profits above all else — and therefore leave behind an old system that charged sicker Americans more than healthier ones, locked out people with pre-existing conditions, and offered no guarantees that coverage would be affordable or comprehensive — it’s an unavoidable aspect of reform.

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http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/16/2950911/obamacare-katrina-blind-spot-privilege/

You have to hand it to the insurance companies. They're able to exploit anti-Obamacare and anti-Obama sentiments to get people to declare they love bullshit private insurance that doesn't cover much. These predators have found a bunch of allies who are lauding the virtues of private insurance for a selective group. Congress jumps to help them, but offer no fix for low-income Americans.

Stunning map of states refusing Medicaid expansion. 5 million hurt. TPM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024019515

The Cruelty of Republican States in One Chart
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023790604