Once Again, Eric Cantor Disgraces Virginia

By Karen

Rep. Eric Cantor proudly led this week’s Republican charge — for the freaking 33^rd time — to repeal Obama’s Affordable Care Act. I’m ashamed to say my Virginia taxes pay this rat-bastard’s salary while he and his cronies waste time on the clock making “symbolic” gestures.

I’ve got a “symbolic gesture” for Cantor.

Cantor’s bill passed in the House 244-185 so it can go to the Senate and get stomped to death — again.

Cantor keeps babbling about “patient-centered care,” yet never explains HOW he’d get there because he knows there’s only one way left — and he can’t say it.

But I’d like to see one politician from either party stand up and admit, “The ACA isn’t really about healthcare. It’s mostly about insurance.”

Anybody who’s ever wrestled their insurer over coverage knows —having insurance in no way ensures getting healthcare. And it virtually guarantees you will NOT get “affordable” healthcare.

Republicans, with their pathological refusal to face facts, keep calling the ACA a “government takeover.” Yet people won’t be fighting the government over medical bills. They’ll be fighting WellPoint, Aetna, Humana, Cigna, Unitedhealth…

With the ACA, Obama either screwed us royally, or he sees it long term as the best hope to ultimately achieve single-payer — Medicare for all.

Insurers will be giddy with power once they have 30 million new customers to screw and kill, and they’ll be cooking the books like mad to skirt the “85% must go toward healthcare” provision to keep profits growing.

Unfortunately, it’s us little guys who will be driven into bankruptcy and/or die while insurers squeeze every last nickel from the system in ways that would make the Mafia blush.

Finally, insurers will ruin enough lives so Americans of all parties will scream with one voice to end the corruption, forcing Congress to DO something for a change.

And the solution will be Medicare for all because it’s the only option left. And it WORKS in every industrialized society where people aren’t as stupid as we are, resulting in longer life spans and reduced infant mortality for less cost.

Republicans go about healthcare reform like a bunch of pathetic Civil War re-enactors, thinking if they keep refighting the same old battle, they’ll change the winner. They insist the U.S. has ”the best healthcare system in the world” like the myopic souls who believed ”one Southern gentleman can lick 10 Yankees.”

Representatives of both parties must first wean themselves from insurers whose billions in profits don’t go to healthcare — but help to buy off politicians. (Check out Cantor’s record on that.)

As long as Washington is on the take (while enjoying dandy healthcare benefits at our expense), we’ll never see meaningful reform.

Limbaugh Saves Face by Betraying Listeners

By Adele

Attention, dittoheads: Rush says he only wants to entertain you! His attack talk? It’s comedy. The guy’s just trying to be funny!

After 5 sponsors began pulling ads from his radio show, the great El Rushbo went all Limpaw and started back-tracking after calling women “feminazis” and Sandra Fluke in particular a “slut,” a “prostitute,” “round-heeled,” and “promiscuous.”

Fluke’s unpardonable sin was to testify in favor of affordable contraception before Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress. Rush tried to inflame his listeners by falsely claiming that Fluke wants the government to pay her to have sex, and demanded she post videos of her sex life online to give taxpayers something for their money.

With prodding, Republican House Speaker John Boehner finally mumbled that Rush had been “inappropriate.” The White House called Rush’s words “reprehensible.”

Rush’s response was to pile it on thicker.

After Obama phoned Fluke in support, saying her parents should be proud she’d spoken out, Rush said Fluke’s parents should be “embarrassed” that their daughter is having so much sex, and should “disconnect their phone” and “go into hiding.”

But as always, when conservative men with rock-solid moral superiority see the money slipping away (sponsors Sleep Number, The Sleep Train, Quicken Loans, Legal Zoom, and Citrix started pulling ads, and others are considering it) Rush issued a hubris-laden apology to Fluke — and utterly dismissed the malicious, incendiary intent of his broadcasts that his listeners LOVE (bold mine)…

“For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week.”

“My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.”

“Illustrating the absurd with absurdity” is what Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Cats Working do. It’s called “satire.” When Rush’s worshippers are hanging on his every word and quoting him, I don’t believe they realize he’s doing schtick.

According to Rush, he isn’t their spokesman. He admits he’ll say anything for the money. Yank the money, he crumbles.

I just hope Rush has really done it this time — sealed the deal for Republicans to lose the female vote. The best way to punish Rush’s mouth is to keep Obama in the White House.

A Solution for Obama’s Contraception Dilemma

By Adele

Conservatives and religious zealots who believe some women should spend their lives pregnant are shocked, SHOCKED that Obama would mandate free access to birth control as part of healthcare reform, even in Catholic hospitals and with other groups that claim it “violates their conscience” to let women protect themselves from accidental pregnancies.

You’d think Obama was ordering all women to USE birth control, which he isn’t.

Mitt Romney, with his rich Mormon heritage of polygamy, with sister-wives producing literally HERDS of children, is all over this issue, calling it an “attack on religious liberty.”

Newt Gingrich, the newbie Catholic and likely practicing birth-control hypocrite, ditto.

As always, they ignore the REAL issue, which is…

WHAT BECOMES OF THE UNWANTED CHILDREN?

This bunch wants these babies born so they can grow up neglected, abused, and even murdered. Protect the fetus so the child it becomes can suffer unimaginably at the hands of adults. That’s the CHRISTIAN way!

Here’s my idea…

Like they do for unwanted puppies and kittens, establish kill shelters for human newborns. After delivery, they spend a week or two in the shelter (depending on space), and if nobody adopts them, they get the needle or gassed. Simple.

Babies born with obvious defects or any other problem that makes adoption a long shot get put to sleep on the spot to make room for those who have a chance.

Mitt, Newt, and the rest who refuse to face the reality that some babies are better off unborn can start stepping up to the plate. If they REALLY care about these infants — more than keeping women prisoners of their reproductive organs — they can adopt the stray babies before their time runs out.

Got Anthem’s Annual Screw Job

By Karen

While Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act waits for a Supreme Court ruling, Virginia’s largest health insurer, Anthem, continues to merrily bilk its customers to maximize profits.

Virginia’s Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, is fine with that. He wants the General Assembly to do NOTHING to plan the state health insurance exchange that must be operational by January 1, 2014, so small business and individuals (like me) will have a prayer of finding the “protection and affordability” the new law requires.

Instead the Assembly is busy repealing the law that limits personal gun sales to one a month, because insane college kids and criminals everywhere are feeling the pinch of not enough weapons. More murders, more medical spending.

The Assembly also intends to FORCE women seeking abortions to first have an ultrasound, hoping to guilt them into giving birth. Not to mention adding to the cost of the procedure.

So yesterday I got Anthem’s annual notice of my new individual health insurance renewal rate. It’s going up $58 a month — 20%.

In 2011, it went up $25, or 9.6%.

Nearly 30% in TWO YEARS. Can you think of anything else, besides CEO salaries, that has risen that much? Me, either.

Anthem included a cryptic, sinister warning against making any attempt to cut the cost — like decreasing benefits or raising the deductible (again) — which would void “grandfathered” status if health reform ever really happens.

Naturally, Anthem didn’t state if my policy would be grandfathered, nor what benefits might be affected, but just implied that reform might cause me to lose something wonderful about my current stinking, inadequate coverage.

Being self-employed, I have an individual policy. I feel sure Anthem is striking back because I exceeded my $2,250 deductible last year with my breast cancer false alarm and they actually had to pay some claims.

It’s perfectly legal in the individual market for insurers to nail customers to the wall one at a time for daring to get needed healthcare.

And since I now have non-cancer in my medical record, I’m trapped with Anthem until SOMETHING changes with heathcare.

And the way it’s looking, it’s only going to get worse.

Paula Deen, Diabetic – and Hypocrite?

By Karen

Anthony Bourdain’s rant against Paula Deen has now been justified by Paula herself. She confessed to Al Roker on the Today Show this morning that she’s known for 3 years she has Type 2 diabetes.

Eater.com got Bourdain’s take while Deen’s announcement was still pending, last weekend at the Cayman Cookout. Tony didn’t gloat or take any cheap shots, but his suspicion that she’s known about her condition for some time was right on target.

Paula also told Roker she’s a paid spokesperson for pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, who makes Victoza®, the daily non-insulin injection she takes. You can catch her new schtick on a Novo Nordisk site called Diabetes in a New Light™, which tucks Paula and her cooking around hype about Victoza®.

And not so coincidentally, her son Bobby is doing his own show, Not My Mama’s Meals, for the Cooking Channel, which conveniently premiers TONIGHT, featuring lighter versions of Paula’s death-dealing recipes.

Paula herself never could have pulled a 180 on her cuisine without revealing her hand. But knowing what she knew at the time, it does render her self-righteous reaction to Bourdain’s claim that her food is “f**king bad for you” beyond disingenuous.

On the other hand, diet alone doesn’t cause diabetes. There’s also heredity, being overweight, lack of exercise, and age. Paula fills the bill on 3 out of 4.

But for the sake of her fans she claims to care about, she should have come clean and publicly begun revamping her recipes and her image when she was first diagnosed.

Instead, she blithely continued to slather butter on everything until she landed a comparatively lucrative deal (I assume) with a drug company so she could segue into her new career as the fearless diabetes fighter, and gave her son a cushy new platform for a spin-off to keep the family’s bucks rolling in.

Now I can’t look at a Deen without seeing dollar signs in their eyes. Shame on them.

Bobby and Paula (Photo - Cooking Channel)

The High Cost of NOT Having Cancer

By Karen

I’ve been waiting for the bills (11) to trickle in after my breast cancer brush in June so I could wrap my head around how totally out of control our healthcare system is, and how Obama, in fixating on insurance, completely missed the target.

If you’re just tuning in, as the result of a fishy mammogram, I ended up having a benign lump the size of a pencil eraser removed from my right breast.

I was just able to sum up the whole situation in one sentence, but thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, it actually took a month and 5 visits.

Total cost if I had no health insurance…

$23,629

(Not including the original routine mammogram, which was $345.)

But I do have insurance. After I paid my $2,250 deductible (+ $284 in monthly premium), Anthem paid exactly $2,945.

I owed an additional $513 because Anthem has me on an 80/20 split.

Here’s the kicker: Anthem “disallowed” $17,921 — 76% — of the $23,629, so the total owed was only $5,708.

But if I were uninsured, I’d be on the hook to pay the whole $23,629.

Question 1: If the medical system can continue to function collecting only 24% of their charges, WHY are they trying to rob the uninsured?

Question 2: Why must insured and uninsured alike undergo and pay for physician CYA, providing THEM defense against a malpractice suit? Did I really NEED 2 additional rounds of mammograms and 2 ultrasounds, not to mention that stereotactic outrage where they drilled in and ripped out a half-ass piece of the lump for “testing?”

As soon as they saw that white spot on my mammogram, they hustled me off to a surgeon while everybody said it was nothing. They knew where this was going — or they SHOULD have, since this is their “profession.” Why not just knock me out, do the fucking lumpectomy, and be done with it? It would have knocked $4,532 in preliminary bullshit off the bill.

Instead of playing cute with insurance companies and whistling when hospitals are trying to stick every patient with the full cost of running the place for every moment the patient is in the building, our brilliant lawmakers should be legislating that everybody involved with healthcare GET REAL about costs and stop the gouging.

In the meantime, we schmucks who need the services will continue getting screwed, if not by the insurance companies, then by the medical providers themselves.

PS: And does Bon Secours really need to send a letter before every invoice, telling patients a bill is coming? Is this not silly and wasteful on every level? To top it off, in addition to collecting only 24% of their original billing, they offered me a 10% discount for paying my portion within 30 days (which, of course, I accepted).

And yet they manage to stay in business.

Could you live on less than 24% of what you earn unless your paycheck was obscenely inflated in the first place?

Cantor Stomps Obama’s Last Nerve

By Yul

It was a sweet moment when John Boehner put his arm around House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and reassured everyone he doesn’t think Cantor’s an asshole. But “Boner” is in a dwindling minority.

Cantor is MY Congressman, and if cats could vote, he wouldn’t be elected dog-catcher. His insatiable need to top his own douchebaggery knows no limits.

Cantor looks like the creepy kid everybody either ignored or bullied in school. He probably entered politics just for spite, and fell into a tub of butter when the Republicans regained Congress in the mid-terms and made him House Nerd Majority Leader, with endless opportunities to diss the president.

Who can forget the time Cantor met with Obama on healthcare and showed up lugging the 2,000+-page bill as a prop to piss Obama off?

Or during the initial debt ceiling meetings with Biden, when Cantor flounced out with his tail in a fluff?

Cantor misses no Obama-baiting opportunity to show his solidarity with Virginia’s 7^th District closet bigots who have kept Cantor in Congress since 2001.

Just this week, when Obama headed the latest debt ceiling meetings, Cantor allegedly interrupted Obama 3 times, repeatedly suggesting a short-term fix. Obama finally smacked Cantor down, warning, “Don’t call my bluff.” Cantor later claimed Obama “stormed” out of the meeting in a hissy fit.

No, Eric. That’s what they have you for.

These talks themselves are ridiculous. A bunch of suits throwing around trillions as if they really know how much money that is. Making grand 10-year projections they won’t be around to carry out.

And it came as no surprise to learn that Cantor is betting AGAINST the government that furnishes his livelihood and healthcare. He invests in ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury EFT, which is projected to skyrocket if the U.S. financial situation tanks.

It’s maddening that gullible voters can be snowed by Republicans who scream, “No tax increases…!” without listening to the whole sentence, which is, “No tax increases for the WEALTHY and BIG CORPORATIONS!”

Meanwhile, Obama, the Great Compromiser, is prepared to throw 60-somethings under the bus AGAIN to appease those greedy SOBs. He’s offered to raise eligibility for Medicare to 67. Why not? Obama tossed near-retirees like bloody chum to insurance industry sharks, lettng them be ripped to shreds on premiums until 2014, before any meaningful healthcare reform kicks in.

The further into poverty with no safety net Cantor and other avaricious Republicans can shove the poor and middle class in any way, while claiming to be saviors, the bolder they become.

When are voters going to wake up and stop the madness?

ALL CLEAR!

By Karen

My surgeon called promptly at 8:30 a.m. today with the wonderful news that they found no sign of cancer ANYWHERE.

I don’t even have to get another mammogram for a year.

I’m still soaking it in. After spending almost a month in this nightmare, it’s a little hard to switch gears into, “Oh, well. Never mind.”

Last night I watched the first 4 episodes of Laura Linney’s Showtime series, The Big C, just in case I needed to be prepared for the worst.

But the worst turns out to be a boob that’sgoing from black and blue to red to yellow, and may end up with a couple of battle scars.

Sure beats the alternative.

I’m liking The Big C, by the way, although I think credulity is being stretched a bit thin by not having her tell anybody yet but strangers in a support group she spent 5 minutes in. She’s apparently got stage 4 melanoma and has opted not to have treatment.

The End is in Sight – Maybe

By Karen

I need to correct a misstatement in my last post. I called my surgery a “lumpectomy,” but I have learned my doctor calls it an “excisional biopsy.”

ANOTHER biopsy? WTF??!!

Hands down, the worse part was being forbidden to eat or drink past midnight on surgery day (June 29), since the fun didn’t start until 3:30 p.m. I got weak and woozy, but perked up like a houseplant after they hooked me to a saline drip while we killed time pre-op.

(Coincidentally, I got the same stuff I inject into Yul every day for his chronic renal failure.)

I had a pow-wow with the anesthesiologists about keeping me asleep this time, or else. They told me that having a biopsy done in a doctor’s office, as I did with the Mammotome®, means minimal sedation because if something goes wrong, there’s no Plan B. My nurse confided that many women have told her it was the most excruciating thing they’d ever been through.

I felt vindicated that I wasn’t just being a sissy.

The doctor gave me one last scare when she stopped by and mentioned the possibility of finding “little bits of cancer,” but assured me they could be easily dealt with later.

FINALLY, it was time for my happy juice. The lights went out and I woke up when it was time to go home. The doctor said I mentioned the “governor’s mansion” and “tira misu” under sedation.

In a million years, I couldn’t tell you why.

The doctor went in from another angle, so my breast looks like a truck ran over it — twice. I’ve got an ugly-looking incision about 1 ½ inches long near my nipple, held together with clear glue, surrounded by a large, angry red area.

But I haven’t had much pain and only took one of the prescribed painkillers.

Keeping the breast immobile seems key. Last night I slept in a flimsy bra and woke up sore.

Now I wait until next week to hear if this is the end of it — or not.

I’m beginning to wonder how anyone who has gone through this is ever able to say they are “cancer-free.” I feel like I’ll never get a definitive answer so I can consider myself healthy again, that my breast has been so mangled, it will never have another “normal” mammogram, and I’ll always live under the threat of breast cancer.

Lumpectomy, Here I Come

By Karen

At least, I think it’s called a lumpectomy when they remove a chunk of breast. In my case, a chunk of benign cells behaving badly.

Getting surgery scheduled ASAP was like, oh, pulling a breast out of a mammography vise. I only managed to get my slot in the OR after some kind staff member at Virginia Breast Center heard the jerking around their surgery scheduler gave me — which included the priceless line, “The system’s down and we always leave at 2 on Fridays” — and took it upon herself to get me on the books as soon as the “system” was back up so I wouldn’t have to spend the weekend in suspense and probably delay the procedure another week.

So this morning I went over to St. Francis for PAT. That’s hospital-speak for pre-admission testing: blood pressure (sky-high), temperature (normal), EKG (beating), blood work (red).

Nobody had mentioned to me heretofore that last week I should have stopped taking my vitamin D, calcium supplements, and fish oil, so whatever they were doing that will be bad for me now is done. And since my surgery is scheduled for 2:30 p.m., even if I eat dinner at 9 pm. on surgery eve, I’ll be approaching 18 hours without food or water when they roll me in, so knocking me out won’t take much effort.

I also learned I’m not having any of that minimally-invasive, less painful, faster recovery, new age voodoo stuff you see in ads.

All that gentleness is for wusses who can’t withstand a stereotactic biopsy with only a dab of local anesthesia. Not me.

My doctor is cutting into my breast with a good old-fashioned scalpel and slicing that hunk of troublesome tissue right out of there.

And if I’m not 100% unconscious when she lays into me this time, readers, you will hear my screams, no matter where you happen to be.