During the debate over health care reform, Republicans warned us about the impending “death panels.” What they forgot to tell us was that it would be Republicans setting up the death panels and deciding who lives and dies.
Since Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer cut the state’s Medicaid budget, 98 people have been denied state Medicaid funding for potentially life-saving transplants. Two of those people have died.
From Reuters: “Most states are not proposing to trim Medicaid rolls because the new federal health reform law requires that they maintain current Medicaid coverage. But the U.S. Health and Human Services Department has said Arizona can drop coverage because the state is providing it through a temporary waiver, and the new law does not require extending that. … Taking an ax to transplant funding is backed by many Republicans in Arizona, some of who sympathize with Brewer.”
Our first government death panel comes not from “Obamacare” but from Tea Party Republicans working through a loophole in Obamacare.
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