Tax Reform

In Rachel’s detailed commentary about the tax reform bill she illustrates the relevance that this bill has towards the state of the nation currently, especially the middle class. Rachel says based on the article that regardless of the Democratic senator’s votes the bill will still pass. She states the facts and even uses a relevant television commercial to parallel the outcome of the votes. While I originally disagreed with the tax reform bill the basic numbers she presents are something to consider. If small businesses benefit and it makes it easier on families with kids, referring to the child tax credit, is it possible that this is the better decision. I appreciate this perspective because her article poses a question for me, asking if this tax reform bill is worth it. Honestly, I would enjoy paying less taxes. I think I would have to experience both sides before deciding on what is necessarily better for the economy. For now, I am still hesitant when she says the corporate tax will be lowered, are they not making enough money already? It appears to me the bill appeals to most and reels you in with the middle class and small business incentives then whispers, oh also, 20 percent tax for “us” we corporations need more money anyway. It is curious why the Democrats are fighting it so much. For now, I stay undecided.  

Pharmaceutical Price War

In the article “To Cut Drug Prices, Academy of Sciences Tells the Government to Negotiate With Manufacturers” it talks of how the government should be responsible for regulating the prices and distribution of prescription drugs across the country. This is because of the continually emerging problem of individual citizens lacking access to prescription medications that they need due to high cost and limited support from insurance programs. While it is a noble case that they are making it is altogether unfeasible.

The analogy that comes to mind is if one were to make a case against McDonald’s for their poor food quality, or to Apple for employing cheap overseas labor. The Pharmaceutical Enterprise is too big and established for anyone to care about regulating it. The amount of of effort that would be required for limited government resources to be allotted to the heavy regulation of medications all over the country makes it an unattractive and unnecessary proposition to the powers at large. The government of the United States of America operates as a Republic, voting in representation at every level of legislation. In this framework it would be highly unrealistic to request that they heavily regulate an industry which seems to be running effectively to all standards of measurement that they care about. Can’t afford medications? Get better insurance. Can’t afford better insurance? Get a better job. The system works if the individual is worthy of accessing it.

Along with being a republic, America is also a capitalist country in which such propositions may be promptly confused with socialist measures. Now do I agree that something needs to be done in order to make medications more accessible to lower income citizens? Absolutely. But do I think that lobbying for the government to come in and regulate is the effective process to achieve the desired result? Absolutely not. The most that will happen from a proposal such as this is the insurance companies having to report more accurate data on their medication prices; not so different from McDonald's having to report how many calories are in a double cheeseburger. I believe the only way to make medications more accessible, the only way to get anything done for the benefit of the masses, is to develop a case that in some way makes the new system more profitable/attractive to the private powers; insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies etc. The U.S. government doesn’t have time for this.

Immigration Policies

In reading my classmate's opinion on immigration policies in their article, "A New era of Immigration" I began to think about the specific differences between Obama and Trump immigration policies and why Obama had a better formula.

Obama focused on specific threats and had an outline for the guidelines of who would be detained at the border and why. His travel ban only lasted 6 months and was focused on one country. By saying, “Trump has taken more action to keep this country safe” is false, his policies are broader and leave it open to the discretion of law enforcement encouraging presumptions of criminals versus Obama’s policies that specified exactly who could not obtain visas or cross the border.

Trump, in my opinion, has caused more chaos by leaving the rules open to interpretation and I can see people being detained based on preconceived notions, which becomes an issue of prejudice and profiling.

Opioid Crisis and the Bandaid to fix it.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention more than 140 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. Today we call that an epidemic. To combat that Trump has been talking about how it is a national crisis and health emergency, it is actually what helped him win in New Hampshire, promising to change policy. Up until now not much has happened until Trump declared a public health emergency to deal with the opioid epidemic. While simultaneously the Trump administration launched an ad campaign trying to bring awareness to the detriment of drinking and doing drugs. During his speech it rang similarly to another politician who suggested to, “Just say No” as Trump echos this with “don’t drink don’t drink”, something his alcoholic brother would tell him.

If the Just Say No campaign did not work why should the American public believe that declaring a public health emergency will.  Because it is not good enough. For an epidemic this large, wiping out almost a generation of people this has become a national emergency. It appears Trump wanted to create a show, some sort of temporary solution that creates a bandaid for addiction treatment. The funds allocated for Public Health Emergencies are almost gone and there are no new policies being put into place, so where is the real solution? This was a declarative act to subdue the masses into appeasement while not actually allocating funds to programs that will find solutions. A possibility would be to make Naloxone, an anti-overdose drug, more available and allow insurance to cover more treatment costs so that people have an opportunity to go.

Too many people are dying, too many people are not receiving the help they need. An Ad campaign is not America’s solution to a deadly disease. This is a citizen’s saddened call to action to change the stigma and start offering solutions, to not shrug it off and use it to make you appear to be changing policies. SAD.

Children Health Insurance Program in danger

In the editorial article, “Congress, End the Health Care Chaos. You Have 9 Million Kids to Protect.” The authors calls Congress to action around the Affordable Care Act reform. Apparently a bill is going through Congress that will supposedly reform a lot of damage the Trump administration has done and help with insurance costs while keeping many of the people, especially children, insured. The author is boldly holding the legislative branch accountable to making a decision quickly. Though there is a hint of disbelief whether anything will change. Especially regarding the Children Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which covers around 9 million children. The editors express anger that federal funding will run out and there will be no insurance coverage. I appreciated this article because it provided information, insight, and spoke out about injustices between both Republican and Democratic opinions and how that affects everyone involved. It especially illustrated the lies and mistakes that the Trump administration operate under and how blind the American public can be, the information I believe is valuable because many people might not know that these kind of budget cuts are occurring right underneath their noses.  

The best part about the bill is that it is a bipartisan bill which means it has benefits for both parties. The author does a good job illustrating both ideas, the Republic benefits would deal with more state flexibility and allowing more high deductible plans. Contrasted by giving more money to insurers to be able to offer more people lower deductibles and co-payments. I agree with the plan this bill proposes and the authors lay out the information for the reader to know what it entails though I would say the tone of the article sways more to the left and is biased towards supporting the passing of this bill.

Assault on Birth Control

The New York Times editorial piece on Trump's "assault on birth control" was an informative piece. I appreciated the information the author provided from both viewpoints of the argument. I believe the article was filled with passion and seemed to be informative. The author used many references to different times that birth control helped women not get pregnant. I also enjoyed the applause that the Obama administration received. The part I found most interesting was the focus on Hobby Lobby. This case brought by the company, Hobby Lobby, was on a religious basis to deny birth control. I think the author focused a little too much on this but it was relevant information and specific to the overall case made for birth control. I also thought the tie in to Trump's attack on the Affordable Care Act as a whole was brought in at the end making a poignant statement of attack towards the whole system. Overall the article was good, informative, and well thought out. The article brought many statistics and talked about how birth control has been helpful to the system thus far. I think this is an important issue to focus on and needs to be addressed more often.  

Healthcare Funding (Blog Assignment 2)

This article from NPR is an important read because, it shows the balance or imbalance of federal funding to states who either expanded or did not expand Medicaid. The federal funding is being pulled from many blue states and appears that Texas will be getting a majority of the funding moving forward. I believe this is important because while Texas might have the most uninsured citizens, the affordable care act had made it possible for many people to afford healthcare. With the funding being pulled it will become harder to get affordable healthcare in these large states, such as CA and NY. While the Graham-Cassidy Bill operates under the guise of fairness saying, "Our goal is by 2026 to make sure every patient in every state gets the same contribution, roughly, from the federal government." -Senator Lindsey Graham. Unfortunately the bill forgets to take into account the cost of living in expensive states. So while the bill wants to streamline the expense of healthcare it is not in the best interest for people in states where healthcare, cost of living, and wages are higher.
Graham-Cassidy Health Bill