UPDATE: Charlene Dill story HITS MSN (mother murdered by Rick Scott's Medicaid Gap)

[nashville_brook]

You might remember the thread a couple of weeks ago on the death of a young Florida mother of three with a heart condition who couldn't receive healthcare b/c she fell into the state's enormous Medicaid Gap created by Republicans refusing to take federal monies to expand the program. Thom Hartmann picked up the story from that post and then Truth-Out did a piece.

After a cover story in the Orlando Weekly, the story has caught fire, being featured on Al Sharpton's show, Alex Wagner's show and on Huffington Post Live.

Tomorrow night Lawrence O'Donnell will have it on, and The Maddow Show producers have also reached out to primary contacts for the story.



While the story threatens to go national, I hope everyone remembers that the politics in play are state and local. And it couldn't be any more clear to someone paying attention to what's going on in Tallahassee.

ALEC-led Republicans are leaving dead Americans on their ideological battlefield. They are being helped along by ALEC-led "think tanks" and publications and lobbyists with lots and lots of money. Now they're moving into local government:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/06/conservative-group-alec-city-local-government

Conservative group Alec trains sights on city and local government
• American Legislative Exchange Council forms new initiative
• Offshoot will target ‘villages, towns, cities and counties’

Now the council is looking to take its blueprint for influence over statewide lawmaking and drill it down to the local level. It has already quietly set up, and is making plans for the public launch of, an offshoot called the American City County Exchange (ACCE) that will target policymakers from “villages, towns, cities and counties”.

We need to get mad about Charlene Dill, and we need to direct that energy where it can do some good: state and local legislative bodies that have created two sets of rules -- one for us and one for them. Now, they're creating two sets of outcomes -- one for us and one for them. And we can't go on like this. It's no wonder the most talked about economics book of the year is a warning us that the gap between the rich and poor threatens to destroy society. I'm feeling it, Mr. Piketty.

State and local government holds the power here, which I suppose is predictable since they've spent so much time and money in buying our corrupt political system here in Florida. We need to understand how that turns up the heat. It's our own neighbors who think it's just fine for young mothers to die if they have the "wrong kind" of job -- the kind that doesn't pay or offer benefits. This exploitable labor exists, in fact, because of policies set by our state and local politicians. In Florida, that' means ALEC.

If you live in Orange County or want to know more about this, visit http://www.votelocal2014.org








Here's the story from the Orlando Weekly:



http://orlandoweekly.com/news/the-perils-of-florida-s-refusal-to-expand-medicaid-1.1665144?pgno=1

The perils of Florida’s refusal to expand Medicaid
Charlene Dill is one of an estimated 2,000 people who expected to face dire health issues due to lack of access to care


Charlene Dill didn’t have to die.

On March 21, Dill was supposed to bring her three children over to the South Orlando home of her best friend, Kathleen Voss Woolrich. The two had cultivated a close friendship since 2008; they shared all the resources that they had, from debit-card PINs to transportation to baby-sitting and house keys. They helped one another out, forming a safety net where there wasn’t one already. They “hustled,” as Woolrich describes it, picking up short-term work, going out to any event they could get free tickets to, living the high life on the low-down, cleaning houses for friends to afford tampons and shampoo. They were the working poor, and they existed in the shadows of the economic recovery that has yet to reach many average people.


(snip)

Dill’s death was not unpredictable, nor was it unpreventable. She had a documented heart condition for which she took medication. But she also happened to be one of the people who fall within the gap created by the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to opt out of Medicaid expansion, which was a key part of the Affordable Care Act’s intention to make health care available to everyone. In the ensuing two years, 23 states have refused to expand Medicaid, including Florida, which rejected $51 billion from the federal government over the period of a decade to overhaul its Medicaid program to include people like Dill and Woolrich – people who work, but do not make enough money to qualify for the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies. They, like many, are victims of a political war – one that puts the lives and health of up to 17,000 U.S. residents and 2,000 Floridians annually in jeopardy, all in the name of rebelling against President Barack Obama’s health care plan.

(snip)

These are the people in the coverage gap – the unknowns, the single mothers, the not-quite-retired – the unnamed 750,000 Floridians who are suffering while legislators in Tallahassee refuse to address the issue in this year’s legislative session, which ends on May 2. The working poor – who used to be the middle class – are on a crash course with disaster for no logical reason. Charlene Dill, at the age of 32, didn’t have to die.

In the Sunshine State, 440,000 people signed up on the health care exchange, while 125,000 were judged to be eligible for Medicaid. Florida, with its retirees and low-wage workers, is on the demand side of health care.

“We are No. 2, plus we have a federal exchange,” SEIU state council president Monica Russo says. “I find that quite a statement. Floridians need health care. I think [Republicans] can campaign all they want against health care, but at the end of the day, what are they going to do? Rip health care out of their hands?”


snip -- much more at link: http://orlandoweekly.com/news/the-perils-of-florida-s-refusal-to-expand-medicaid-1.1665144?pgno=1

[DirkGently]

1. "what are they going to do? Rip health care out of their hands?”

And yet, that does seem to be the plan.

[nashville_brook]

5. and btw, we have the votes to pass medicaid expansion, but the tea party speaker won't

Last edited Sun Apr 13, 2014, 07:36 PM - Edit history (1)

bring it to the floor. that's the power that these corporate interests have. key tea party republicans in the house... gerrymandered districts... voila, aparthied.

[bvar22]

2. This is EXACTLY how the Democratic Party NEEDS to campaign.

Last edited Sun Apr 13, 2014, 08:24 PM - Edit history (1)

The Republicans in these Red States are GUILTY of murder.
Many people in the states who refused the money to expand Medicaid will DIE as a direct result of the selfish and callous choices made by their Republican leadership.

Find faces to put on the statistics.
Paper the Red States from end to end with billboards like this with:

[font size=4]When RICH people get sick,
they go to a doctor.
You could too,
IF you had a Democratic Governor.

[/font]

So the Fuch WHAT if Limbaugh, Fox News, Boehner, McConnell & the Republicans whine and throw a fit.
It is The TRUTH:
People WILL DIE because of their selfishness and callousness.
Lets SEE the
Working Class faces faces and the families of those killed by Republican selfishness!

[font size=4] Your Republican Representatives ALL have Health Insurance.
They can go to the doctor when THEY get sick.
You could too IF you had a Democratic Governor.

[/font]


You will know them by their WORKS!

[nashville_brook]

3. alan grayson was 100% correct - they want us to "die quickly"

[malaise]

6. Yes indeed

Now we need to show ads from bedsides and from funerals.
Make them pay

[nashville_brook]

12. i truly hope that party funders understand how deeply this resonates

the republicans are generating a body count from their culture wars. we're feeling it, big time. this needs to be an ad campaign! we need money and support to make that happen.

[DirkGently]

8. How many people are enough to satisfy

Republican spite, I wonder?

How many need to die in the name of pretending government can't help people?

[nashville_brook]

13. who will be the last working poor person to die before medicaid expands for all?

[DirkGently]

16. And they're still running on "killing"

The ACA. By which they mean ... killing the most vulnerable among us.

[nashville_brook]

20. here in Orlando/Orange County, we saw how far they'll go to keep our jobs INSECURE

i'm talking, of course, about TEXTGATE and the local ALEC-led politicians breaking the law to keep Earned Sick Time off the ballot.

They want workers to vulnerable which keeps our economy fragile, which re-enforces their "woe be to the wealth creators" narrative. I've never imagined politics could be so craven.

[WillyT]

26. + 1,000,000,000... What You Said !!! - K & R !!!

[nashville_brook]

27. i know, right!

we've been saying this forEVER… real people are suffering big time. that's the issue. if the party puts it out there, it WILL resonate.

we need new leadership -- more Elizabeth Warrens, more Sherrod Browns. We're bleeding real blood out here.

[DirkGently]

31. Conservatives get a pass

... on actual physical harm. Liberals break a window and it's violent lawlessness. Conservatives draw a bead on Federal cops with their rifles or condemn the poor to death by starvation or lack of access to care, and somehow it's to be assumed their hearts (?) are in the right place.

[nashville_brook]

38. ^^THIS.

[Doctor_J]

50. From your keyboard to their billboards. I have little confidence it will happen though

The entire party has battered spouse syndrome

[sakabatou]

4. K&R

[Thinkingabout]

7. Death Panels by Republicans. By the party which "errs on the side of life",

There should be a federal exchange so resident of GOP run states can still sign up for healthcare.

[nashville_brook]

10. death panels = state legislatures and county commissions

seems like when they're putting the lives of Americans at risk, that some kind of power could be exercised from the federal level. the supreme court left it here... so can't SOMETHING be done?

i don't see congress stepping up... maybe the senate.

[SunSeeker]

9. Rick Scott murdered her just to flip off Obama. nt

[nashville_brook]

11. he and the house speaker will weatherford - it's the ALEC-wing of the GOP

tea party extremists. not every republican in florida walks this walk, but they're all culpable for letting their party rot to the core like this.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

18. They are ALL confederates! ALL. OF. THEM. And they deserve to be erradicated....

Last edited Sun Apr 13, 2014, 09:16 PM - Edit history (1)

[nashville_brook]

22. it can't happen soon enough -- please, party-people, PLEASE send reinforcements to Florida!

we need capacity and resources. we need to get Rick Scott out of office and sweep these republicans out of the state house.

[DirkGently]

14. Hope Maddow or Hayes get on this.

I'd like to hear both of them on the issue.

[nashville_brook]

15. this atory could benfit from the lens both maddow and hayes bring

i'd really like to see maddow dig into the deep politics, and i'd love to see a discussion panel an hayes

[nashville_brook]

23. ^^damn iPad keyboard!

[ChisolmTrailDem]

17. God damn republifuck conferderates death panels!!!!! nt

[nashville_brook]

21. They're fighting culture wars with real people and real casualties.

Senator Bill Nelson is actually trying to do something at the Federal level -- it's at the very end of the Orlando Weekly article -- to move those Medicaid Expansion monies into a grant program for public hospitals. it's just too little too late, and there's little hope we'll be able to move and such proposal thru the House.

[johnnyreb]

19. SHAME.

[nashville_brook]

24. there's no such thing in the mind or soul of a Florida Republican

[SmittynMo]

25. The republicants are ruthless

Again, more proof that they could care less about the less fortunate. They have now created their own little special death panel. I can't wait for Rachel tomorrow night. I hope she slams these f*ckers, and calls them out for who they really are, and what they stand for. I hope the GOP will be no more after 2016. This is NOT what this country is about. To be this heartless about our fellow Americans is a sin, and they should pay. Alan Grayson is correct. Don't get sick. I pray for the family she left behind and hope this truly goes national.

[nashville_brook]

28. not 100% sure Maddow will have it tomorrow -- O'Donnell, definitely.

Because of census-year gerrymandering, florida doesn't have a chance of taking back the state house until after 2020 -- the party needs to take a longview here. invest in infrastructure -- support the progressive community on the ground. GOTV in 2014 and 2016.

It's going to be a long hard crawl out of the giant, smoldering hole republicans have left in our state.

[Bandit]

55. Why would Democrats have a better chance after 2020 than they have now?

The Gerry-Mandered lines will not be changed to favor Democrats unless Democrats are in the Majority to change them. To be able to address those Gerry-Mandered districts we MUST elect Democrats BEFORE 2020 or we will have to wait until 2030.

[William769]

29. I am someone who live in Florida.

And I know what these fucking criminals are doing to this State.

Just when I thought I couldn't get more pissed, I am proved wrong once again.

[nashville_brook]

35. i meant to write about this much sooner, but my own outrage fatigue got in the way

we can only take so much outright aggression without needing a break or needing to break something.

[steve2470]

30. big kick and big rec nt

[napkinz]

32. Rick Scott ...

[nashville_brook]

37. ^^perfect!

[stonecutter357]

33. K&R

[napkinz]

34. Hey, Republicans, how many more!

[nashville_brook]

36. ^^great graphics! especially like the "new rule" one!

[napkinz]

39. the "new rule" applies to that other Rick too ... Perry

Executions. Denying health coverage to the poor.

How are these guys pro-life????

[nashville_brook]

40. they are pro-greed. nothing else matters. they're zombies.

[sheshe2]

41. Excellent as always!

Thanks napkinz!

[DirkGently]

47. Excellent. n/t

[SmittynMo]

42. Don't get sick - Original article

http://orlandoweekly.com/news/the-perils-of-florida-s-refusal-to-expand-medicaid-1.1665144

Excerpt from the article:

Congressman Alan Grayson, who received significant criticism for his “Die Quickly” placard, which he released in reaction to Republican obstruction of the ACA, replied more specifically to the case.

“Charlene’s sad and unnecessary death illustrates what I have said all along: For the 1 million of Floridians who cannot afford health care coverage, the Republican health care plan is simply this: ‘Don’t get sick,’” Grayson says. “If you do get sick, and if you cannot afford coverage, the GOP has nothing for you but prayer. The Republicans have no answers, no alternatives, no ideas, no safety nets, no sympathy, no empathy and no compassion. Just these three words: ‘Don’t get sick.’ The GOP’s refusal to expand Medicaid, at no cost to Florida, has put the GOP’s appalling disregard for human life on full display. As far as they’re concerned, if you’re not a fetus, you’re on your own. The Republicans would literally rather watch people like Charlene die than give them the care that they need to stay healthy and alive. It’s disgusting and sadistic.”

Grayson entered Woolrich’s account of Dill’s death – which she published online – into the Congressional Record, even having a representative deliver the document at Dill’s funeral, which was, again, crowd-funded by Woolrich on GoFundMe.com. Woolrich raised $4,000 in less than a week to pay for the funeral.

“I memorialized Charlene’s life and death in the Congressional Record, because the Republicans want to pretend that none of this is happening. That Charlene didn’t die as a result of their callous neglect – that no Floridians will die as a result of their willful refusal to expand Medicaid at no cost,” Grayson says. “But I’m not going to let them forget. I’m not going to let them pretend. This is not a game; this is very real. This is life and death.”

[nashville_brook]

43. thank god for congressman Grayson! "disgusting and sadistic" are good descriptions of FL-GOPers

[DirkGently]

45. Grayson was always right on the "die quickly" thing.

Which is exactly why it so infuriates Republicans. He called them out on what they're actually suggesting.

[nashville_brook]

46. repubs were insane to think pushback on Grayson would make people forget they can't see a doctor

this is a losing narrative for them b/c people are literally dying for not being able to get healthcare. it's not an abstraction.

[DirkGently]

51. They're terrified of government

...meeting people's needs. It undermines the whole narrative that somehow we don't need government, which allows government to serve money instead.

[nashville_brook]

54. that's indeed the bottom line and we have to start dealing with this head-on

as long as it's "unspoken," it's hidden and we're not able to fix it.

[Brigid]

44. I'm just lucky I have found a way to get my meds cheap.

Even my clopidigrel, which is generic plavix but still costly. I get them from a reliable mail-order pharmacy. I also take metoprolol, lisinopril, and furisomide. But what happens if I need more than just meds to keep the ol' ticker running smoothly and the BP under control? I hope this stupid state grows a brain by then and expands medicaid, or I will be in the same boat as Ms. Dill. I may have to move.

[nashville_brook]

48. the medicaid gap likely has a lot of people thinking about moving

the whole state of florida would grind to a halt if the working poor decide they can't afford to live here. we have the highest number of people working the lowest paying jobs anywhere in the country (that's central florida specifically, Disney et al).

[Tsiyu]

49. Kick for Charlene and her babies

[maryellen99]

52. Like I've said before

She is a VICTIM, not the ones in those stupid anti Obamacare ads.

[nashville_brook]

53. [phone]

[me b zola]

56. K&R

[napkinz]

57. definition of sleaze ...

[napkinz]

58. Rev. Al Sharpton just covered the story

nt

[napkinz]

59. .....