What Do You Prefer, Destroying Healthcare Or Guaranteeing It?

2 evil little men, up to no good: Paul Ryan and his crony Peter Roskam

When I knew Paulette Garin she was as progressive an activist as you'd find in Wisconsin or anywhere else. Let's go back to the summer of 2009 for a moment, before Paul Ryan was a household name but was already becoming the face of the Republican House caucus' ugly and shallow financial and health care "policies," which really amount to nothing more than obstructionism and egregiously distorting President Obama's ideas for cleaning up the mess the GOP left the country in. Ryan has happy to alternate with another unctuous piece of work, his tag team partner Mike Pence, distorting the issues on Hate Talk radio, tweeting away the days and scooping up huge corporate bribes from the Medical-Industrial Complex and Big Insurance-- but he has steadfastly refused to meet with his constituents for a real talk about the health care debate." Wow-- 8 years and essentially nothing much has changed... At that time, I wrote that "Blue America started a StopPaulRyan fund-raising page and we've been praying for a good, solid opponent to weigh in against Ryan. It looks like our hopes are being answered-- in spades. Paulette Garin, a member of the National Single Payer Alliance and the Wisconsin state Coordinator for both Progressive Democrats of America and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, has taken the plunge and filed her candidate papers with the FEC, making her Ryan's official opponent. She's been spending all of her time campaigning for health care reform rather than for Congress but yesterday she faced off against Ryan in the only contest he's agreed to participate in-- a goat-milking event at the Racine County Fair. Paulette beat him."

She was too progressive for the DCCC though and they tanked her campaign and made sure the nomination went to an unemployed clueless man who lived in his parents basement, John Heckenlively, and would offer no threat to Ryan. After they disposed of Paulette, they promptly abandoned Heckenlively went on to raise $12,066 and accrue 30% of the vote (two years after Obama had won the district with 51%. That's the DCCC. They've been protecting Ryan's reelection bids every 2 years since 2000. I'm sure there must be a great reason and maybe Pelosi will tell us in her memoir someday.

This morning Paulette sent me a note asking me to share it with DWT readers. "in case, she wrote, "anyone got overly sidetracked by the Russian spy drama, the following bills HAVE been introduced."

• HR 861 Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency by Matt Gaetz (R-FL) with co-sponsors Thomas Massie (R-KY), Steven Palazzo (R-MS) and Barry Loudermilk (R-GA)

• HR 610 Vouchers for Public Education by Steve King (R-IA) with co-sponsors Andy Harris (R-MD), Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Pete Olson (R-TX)

• HR 899 Terminate the Department of Education by Thomas Massie (R-KY) with cosponsors, Justin Amash (R-MI), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Jody Hice (R-GA), Walter Jones (R-NC) and Raul Labrador (R-ID)

• HJR 69 Repeal Rule Protecting Wildlife by Don Young with cosponsors Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Alex Mooney (R-WV)

• HR 370 Repeal Affordable Care Act by Bill Flores (R-TX)

• HR 354 Defund Planned Parenthood by Diane Black (R-TN) with 136 co-sponsors, all Republicans

• HR 785 National Right to Work (this one ends unions) by Steve King (R-IA) with 15 cosposors, all Republicans

• HR 83 Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Bill by racist fanatic Lou Baretta (R-PA) with many cosponsors including Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Mark Sanford (R-SC)

• HR 147 Criminalizing Abortion (“Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act”) by Trent Franks (R-AZ) with 59 cosponsors, all Republicans

• HR 808 Sanctions against Iran by Peter Roskam (R-IL) with cosponsors Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and Mike Coffman (R-CO)

Now, Paulette isn't running for Congress and so far no one is running against Ryan. Everyone I ask to run says they don't trust the DCCC to not sabotage them the way they sabotaged everyone else who has ever run against Ryan. On the other hand, we do have a great progressive candidate against the aforementioned Peter Roskam in Chicagoland-- Geoff Petzel. If you missed the first introduction or the second, let me try again. This is a guest post he just sent me this morning:




With Republicans Ready To Destroy The Affordable Care Act...
-by Geoff Petzel,
candidate, IL-06

With Republicans ready to destroy the Affordable Care Act it is a topic of discussion at every meeting or event I attend. Yesterday I was told by a voter that although I have spent the last 20 years fighting for environmental protection, the environment is not the biggest issue that I represent. Instead, a voter told me that I am the poster boy for the ACA. I hope I am.

In 2011, at the age of 27, I was struggling to start a business and was without health insurance. I couldn’t afford the premiums, and besides, I was young and wouldn’t get sick, right? Wrong. In September of 2011 I suffered a massive heart attack that nearly took my life. Without insurance I delayed going to the hospital even while in cardiac arrest- I was hoping the heart attack would go away and I could sign up for insurance. I knew the hospital visit would put me in a lifetime of debt. After 2 hours I went to the hospital.

Fortunately I survived the heart attack. While I was at home recovering I watched my Congressman speak in opposition to “Obamacare”. It made me angry. It made me decide to run for Congress in 2012 because I wanted to make sure that no person would face the decision I did-- one between life-saving medical care and a mountain of debt. I lost in the primary that year, but I was able to speak out on healthcare-- the reason I ran to begin with.

Now we flash forward to 2017. I am still a small business owner, but I have been able to purchase health insurance through the health care exchange. Early this year, I wasn’t feeling well and went to the emergency room. It was discovered that I had blockage in additional arteries and I would need heart surgery.

During this most recent hospital experience I witnessed first-hand, the problems we have with the Affordable Care Act. First, when I went to the Emergency Room I was informed that the hospital was not “in-network”. This makes no sense. The nearest “in-network” hospital is 45 minutes from my house while the hospital I went to is 15 minutes away. In a medical emergency, why should I need to worry about what hospitals are in-network?

The hospital tests revealed I had blockage in my arteries and would need to undergo a heart procedure to clear the blockage. Rather than schedule the surgery immediately, my doctor released me from the hospital so the procedure could be scheduled at a hospital that is covered by my insurance. I did, and the procedure went well.

I had already been examining a run for Congress in 2018 while these events were occurring. The process I went through re-affirmed my commitment and guaranteed I would become a candidate once again.

I suppose I am a poster boy for the ACA-- a small business owner, someone with pre-existing conditions and someone who needs preventative care and routine doctor visits to avoid an emergency situation or possibly death. I was also uninsured before the ACA and now have coverage. That is why, when I am elected to Congress, I will do anything I can to save and improve the ACA. But I also support pushing for a single payer system.

Did I forget to mention that my insurance company, BlueCross/BlueShield denied my insurance claim? They said my initial visit to the emergency room was un-necessary and could have been avoided with a doctor visit, even though the hospital stay revealed 3 blocked arteries and a need for heart surgery. If my ER visit wasn’t justified, then whose is?

We need to push for a universal single payer system that eliminates the private insurance companies who will do anything they can to avoid paying a bill. Insurance companies don’t care about patient health or whether a procedure is medically required or not, they just want to eliminate cost and pad their profit margin. A single payer system eliminates this greed and allows doctors and patients to make decisions based on medicine and not insurance company policies. A single payer system would also increase the quality of care, lower costs for businesses and employees and guaranty coverage for every single American-- as a right.

When I was told I am the poster boy for the ACA, it made me proud. If I can be a champion for the millions of people who don’t want lifetime spending caps, who don’t want to have coverage denied because of pre-existing conditions, who want affordable drugs and a reasonable system that protects public health, I am all in. When Peter Roskam, my Congressman, pushes for a repeal of the system that saved my life and has insured millions of Americans, I am proud to be a voice of the resistance. And that resistance, led by normal working families across our Congressional District, will help send my Congressman a pink slip in 2018.