# Resolved : Congressional Republicans Are Evil **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 8, 2017, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125 "2017-05-08T13:39:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/101 "2017-05-13T02:41:12Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > This is significant because there is [no difference in mortality](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1202099#t=abstract) between those who have Medicaid and those who are uninsured. I am a bit confused as to how that study supports your claim. From the results given in the abstract: > [@](#): > > Medicaid expansions were associated with a significant reduction in adjusted all-cause mortality (by 19.6 deaths per 100,000 adults, for a relative reduction of 6.1%; P=0.001). Mortality reductions were greatest among older adults, nonwhites, and residents of poorer counties. Expansions increased Medicaid coverage (by 2.2 percentage points, for a relative increase of 24.7%; P=0.01), decreased rates of uninsurance (by 3.2 percentage points, for a relative reduction of 14.7%; P\<0.001), decreased rates of delayed care because of costs (by 2.9 percentage points, for a relative reduction of 21.3%; P=0.002), and increased rates of self-reported health status of “excellent” or “very good” (by 2.2 percentage points, for a relative increase of 3.4%; P=0.04). From the conclusions given in the abstract: > [@](#): > > State Medicaid expansions to cover low-income adults were significantly associated with reduced mortality as well as improved coverage, access to care, and self-reported health. Remember, this is the study that _ **you** _ linked to and claimed supported your views. Whoops…after posting, I see that **Irishman** beat me to pointing this out. Still, it doesn’t hurt to re-emphasize it! ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/102 "2017-05-13T02:42:34Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I’m 40. And nothing you’ve said contradicts my post. Preventative care is important and should be available to everyone. As I’ve said, not having it leads to shorter, more miserable lives. > > I’m not used to Pit talking, do I need to curse more? If you’re saying that the services and treatments available to people who have insurance should also be available to people who do not have insurance, then I agree with you. I call that Universal Health Care, and it is paid for by taxes. Right now, **preventive** services are not available to people who do not have insurance (except sometimes from charitable organizations) so people wait until their (possibly) preventable conditions become acute, and they go to the ER where they may get help or a death sentence. At that point their care may be paid for by tax dollars or by a charitable fund of some kind. SOMEBODY pays for it. I was a professional fund raiser for nonprofits for 40 years, many of those years for a primary care medical clinic. Did I miss your point? Cursing not necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Lucky\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_Mike)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/103 "2017-05-13T03:50:37Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Oh, sure, there are people who think that those who can’t afford health care should die from curable diseases. Just wish they’d step up and say it in so many words. I agree with that one. I too am tired of cowards who believe things and will not admit the negative outcomes of those beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Lucky\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_Mike)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/104 "2017-05-13T03:54:44Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > You’re right. I don’t believe that. Because I can guarantee they believe in healthcare for themselves. If we were to just surround them with people who have a contagious disease that you die from if you are not treated, they would insist on their right to healthcare. > > What they believe is that they themselves are special, and others aren’t. That may be because they can afford things, or something different. But the principle is not that healthcare is not a right. It’s that healthcare is a right only for the deserving, who they happen to be a part of. > > And I am perfectly okay with classifying the “Me and mine before everyone else” principle as not a principle at all. It’s just bigotry. I agree with everything you are saying. But, I do wish to point out that believing you should have healthcare while others should not is not believing healthcare is a human right. It is just believing you are special, and there are a shit ton of Americans who think they are special. Dear God, millions of Trump voters benefited from the ACA. They are just so blinded by partisanship and group identity they will not see it. This does not change the fact though that some people do not think health care is a human right and aspire to the “I have mine, fuck you” mentality. ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Lucky\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_Mike)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/105 "2017-05-13T03:56:51Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > You’re confusing the ACA and the AHCA. The ACA is Obamacare. The AHCA is Trumpcare. You are correct, I used the wrong abbreviation. My bad. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/106 "2017-05-13T16:56:20Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > Feudal Mentality. > > We can’t give anything to you, you’re poor and therefore irresponsible. So we’ll give even more money to your boss and maybe, just maybe, he’ll throw a little something your way. It’s called “trickle down economy”. We piss on you and tell you it’s raining. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/107 "2017-05-13T17:02:20Z")
They are thinking ahead to the future. Once climate change gets a grip and water is one hundred dollars/liter, you will be grateful for your share of Liquid Gold. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/108 "2017-05-14T00:50:47Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I understand and sympathize with the message that not having health insurance is harmful to people and leads to shorter and/or lower-quality lives, but hyperbolic rhetoric does not advance the cause. > > People requiring emergency, life-saving care are not simply allowed to die without having coverage. You’ve got to be shitting me. So you’re saying not a single veteran died waiting in line for care from the VA? Or is that the inverse, where someone technically has coverage but not access to care? > [@](#): > > I spent much of my early adulthood in poverty and was without health insurance in multiple cases where I needed emergency assistance. Emergency assistance is for an acute attack that might kill you right now. It doesn’t help with chronic conditions that can be managed for years or decades with consistent care but lead to quick death if that care is unaffordable. > [@](#): > > No I couldn’t afford regular checkups or other preventative care but that did not put my life in immediate danger and could not have directly resulted in my death. So you didn’t have diabetes, cancer, kidney disease, COPD, or any of a bazillion other “pre-existing conditions”. Just because you only needed acute care to keep from dying doesn’t mean other people’s chronic conditions won’t cause them rapid death. “Oh, but when they go into diabetic acidosis, they’ll get an ambulance and a rush to the ER, so technically they won’t die because they can’t afford medication, they will die because the paramedics are too slow.” Or something. > [@](#): > > A person who has insurance and one who doesn’t have the same mortality rate, 100%. That is a staggering butchering of terminology. Yeah, we’re all going to die, but an infant dying on day 1 and a centurian dying on their one-hundredth birthday are not equivalent situations. > [@](#): > > Insurance does not confer immortality. No shit, Sherlock. Because if it did, the rich would be even more adamant that nobody else should have it. > [@](#): > > So if lacking insurance won’t cause immediate death, and having it doesn’t prevent eventual death, then people claiming that a lack of health insurance kills people are factually incorrect. It’s inaccurate alarmist rhetoric that takes away from any rational argument you form around it. > > So this is just my suggestion, stop with the over-the-top language because the actual problem is dire enough without exaggeration. People who can’t afford the insurance will live shorter, more miserable lives. That’s the situation borne out by facts, stick with it. You seem to be saying if death takes long enough, it doesn’t count. That being able to pay for health care doesn’t affect decisions made in what treatments you can receive. If people are dead sooner because they didn’t have insurance to be able to afford health care, doesn’t that mean that a lack of health insurance killed them? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/109 "2017-05-14T21:15:30Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > 217 House Republicans voted to strip healthcare from millions of American citizens, which will result in thousand of preventable deaths. They did this to facilitate cutting taxes on the richest in our society. > [@Clothahump](#): > > Cite? > [@BobLibDem](#): > > Seriously? You need a cite that fewer people will be covered? Or that not having insurance leads to higher mortality? Don’t be naive. He needs a cite that they did it solely to cut taxes on the richest in our society. In other words, that they did it without so much as a fig leaf of plausible deniability. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/110 "2017-05-14T21:18:30Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > 1. They valued principles over effects: the bill will likely result in actual harm to millions of people for minimal actual benefit. They’re behaving like blinkered ideologues rather than wise stewards of the public trust. > [@RTFirefly](#): > > You call a tax cut of hundreds of billions of dollars for America’s richest people ‘minimal actual benefit’? The Koch brothers beg to differ! 😉 Cite that the Koch Bros. have ever begged for _anything_ in their foul, misbegotten existence? (also, it’s probably more like hundreds of _millions_ of dollars…) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/111 "2017-05-14T21:55:14Z")
> [@Great\_White\_Dope](#): > > **[Running The Numbers On Mortality Rates Suggests Obamacare Could Be Killing People](https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/25/running-numbers-mortality-rates-suggests-obamacare-killing-people/)** > > [snip] > > Facts \> Scare Mongering > [@Irishman](#): > > I realize others have already taken this to task, and this poster is now banned, but I took a look at the chart presented in the article. That is a very distorted presentation. When presenting data, one should include the origin (0,0) in the chart. If one does so with that data, and scales the y-axis (vertical) to the same height as the one of that chart, the rise at the end is just barely perceptible. At the original scale I used when creating the chart, that line appeared to just be a straight, flat line. > > The article is also duplicitous because, while it makes the pseudo-effort to state “correlation does not equal causation”, the entire argument the author is trying to make is that the rise in mortality is directly the result of Obamacare. The article by **Budget Player Cadet** addresses this very well. I have nothing to add at this particular juncture in the thread. I just enjoyed reading the phrase _“this poster is now banned”_, and I wanted to read it again. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/112 "2017-05-15T01:24:33Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Don’t be naive. He needs a cite that they did it solely to cut taxes on the richest in our society. Yeah, they had other motives besides saving the rich money. Like screwing Obama. Removing the mandates that don’t affect the rich (who will have insurance anyway) but do the poor (who can’t afford insurance premiums on their own). (That’s a plus on the poor’s side.) Making the sick and the poor pay more for their healthcare. Making the sick pay a _lot more_ for their healthcare. Helping the insurance companies keep making profits. (The health exchange plans weren’t working, because all the sick people who never had care suddenly got insurance and started getting treated, thus the pool of people in the Obamacare exchange plans were proportionally more sick than regular insurance plans.) Cutting the exchanges, which thereby reduce federal employees and the tax money it takes to run the exchanges (putting a bunch of people out of work in the process, but that’s the trade off for a smaller government). Allowing insurance companies to start limiting options for “pre-exisiting conditions”. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125/113 "2017-05-15T04:54:56Z")
> [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > Are you fucking kidding me? > > By that logic murder doesn’t kill people since they were going to die anyway! A person who gets shot in the head and a person who doesn’t get shot in the head have the same mortality rate, after all: 100%. :smack: No, by that logic, murder still kills people; it’s just that it doesn’t raise the long-term death rate (which is already 100% in any case). His argument is still bollocks, of course. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-congressional-republicans-are-evil/786125.md?page=5)