The Affordable care Act, aka ObamaCare, has done some really wonderful things for many Americans I ran across a story, that needs retelling, about how such care is literally saving a woman’s life. Sadly that story also has a flip side. It’s about how Republicans are trying to kill her, by taking away her care.
When I speak to Jennifer Causor for the first time, she rings with enthusiasm as she describes her new exercise program. It’s a “boot camp” themed program, “which is something I never thought I’d be able to do,” Jenn tells me over the phone. “It is so hard, but it is so awesome!” she proclaims, before describing a time when she was so tired from a kettlebell workout that she actually started crying.
Jenn’s ability to lift kettlebells, or, for that matter, to drive a car or to walk to her own mailbox, is nothing short of miraculous compared to the life she faced just a little more than a year ago. For her entire life, Jenn has lived with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder that caused her lungs to fill with fluid and that still interferes with her digestive system. She takes medicine every time she eats to help her process food.
When Jenn first started exhibiting symptoms, they meant nothing more than “having a cough” and having “to take pills when I eat.” When she was in her 20s, however, the symptoms grew quite severe. She was constantly filling her body with expensive intravenous drugs. “I had to breathe lots of medicine through a nebulizer,” a process that “took hours a day.” Living with cystic fibrosis, Jenn says, was like having two jobs. “It was like, I worked full time. I worked 40 hours . . . but then, again, having CF was like a full-time job within itself.” In 2012, her health took an even worse turn when one of her lungs collapsed and she was hospitalized for a week. Not long after she was released, both of her lungs collapsed and her doctors struggled for two months to keep them inflated. She lived in the hospital that entire time.
In a five month span, however, two things changed that offered Jenn a new chance at life. The first was a double lung transplant. On August 29, 2013, Jenn received two new lungs that were free of cystic fibrosis. Not long thereafter, she drew her first breath as an adult from lungs that were not constantly filling up with choking mucus. Although Jenn will be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life, she can now speak on the phone again. Her husband Eder can touch her face again or kiss her cheek again without triggering a fit of coughing. Jenn is not confined to a hospital anymore. She lifts kettlebells instead.
Five men in Washington could sentence Jenn to the same uncertainty she endured before the Affordable Care Act. They could potentially sentence her to die
The second change came on the first day of 2014 when the most important provisions of the Affordable Care Act took full effect. That meant that, for the first time in her life, Jenn knew that, no matter what happened, she would have health insurance. For Jenn, Obamacare means that insurers must cover her, despite her expensive preexisting condition. And it means that she is not facing a death sentence if she is unable to obtain health insurance through her own job or her husband’s.
Except for the fact that a group of lawyers are trying to take this certainty away from her. Last July, two Republican judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted to defund much of the Affordable Care Act, including provisions which ensure that Jenn’s insurance is affordable. Moreover, although the full DC Circuit recently withdrew this decision and announced that it would rehear the case before a much larger panel of 13 judges, the plaintiffs in this lawsuit have not exactly hidden their desire to get this case before the conservative Roberts Court where four justices already voted once to repeal Obamacare. If the justices ultimately take this case, which is known as Halbig v. Burwell, and if one more of them agrees that Obamacare should be defunded, that could trigger a death spiral that could collapse the law’s health insurance marketplace in much of the country.
Five men in Washington could sentence Jenn to the same uncertainty she endured before the Affordable Care Act. They could potentially sentence her to die…
Inserted from <Think Progress>
Click through for the rest of this extensive, in depth article. Republicans have a plan for Jenn. It’s the RepubliCare Death Benefit!
Save Lives! Get Out The Vote!!
15 Responses to “An ObamaCare Story”
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There are countless people out there in similar situations. The TeapublicanTs want to sentence them all to death. Then there would be less "poor" people around and we wouldn't offend their sensibilites.
This attempt to cancel ObamaCare for Jennifer Causor and so many others like her is appalling, disgusting, inhuman and vile beyond description – how can anyone with even a pretence for a soul and a conscience vote for the Repugs when they approve of such murdering behaviour?!
The Nazis would be proud of these rats who want to cancel ObamaCare for these folk – people who were handicapped and ill ended up at Nazi death camps along with Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, communists, left wingers and members of the Resistance…..
The two dirty little secrets that Rethuglicans don't want anyone to know:
ObamaCare Is Working!
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obamacare-is-working
Insurance Premiums Are Rising LESS than Before ObamaCare – AND In Some States Are Actually COMING DOWN!
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/09/obamacare-now-benefiting-amazing-life-spiral
Wasn't but a few week/months ago I remember Rethuglicans gloating that ObamaCare was going to ensure them having a WAVE election in 2010. Now I don't hear a PEEP from them about ObamaCare
Later today, "The New York Times" reports that under ObamaCare, employer insurance premium experienced a tie for the LOWEST INCREASE since records were kept.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/upshot/latest-good-news-in-health-spending-employer-premiums.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1
Don't you love sendsing Republicans screaming to the outhouse?
Gene on Care2 left such a great comment I want to quote it because I know not everyone who reads this blog has the Care2 links:
"Republicans really don't get it, or they don't care, whichever doesn't matter, both are horrible. For people like Jenn the consequences of repealing the ACA, even the possibility of that, is like living under a death sentence for a crime you know you did not commit. That the entire party can be so heartless is the reason stories like hers need to be told on the campaign trail this fall so that as many of those unfeeling, uncaring buzzards are run out of Washington as possible. They've done nothing for four years but threaten the health and well being of everyone who isn't part of the 1%. It is time they paid their tab. They will certainly in 2016 but it is so important this year that the Senate stay blue to stave off these wolves until we can really clean "house" and Senate in 2016. No one should have to live with the kind of fear this poor woman does – stress alone can kill you and she has far more than her share now. Amazing how dehumanizing the republican party really is. It is as if they think money has a beating heart and nothing and no one else matters."
And tasunka on Care2 says "Dr.Kevorkian would look like mother Theresa next to these clowns." Yes, he does. Dr. Kevorkian only wants death with dignity for people who desperately want it. Republicans want death with no dignity for eveyone who is not filthy rich. Huge difference.
Kudos to Gene!
SiouxZ had a fine wir.
I read through the article, the stories are heartbreaking. It is absurd that these people can take one law out of the whole act to bring it down. Hopefully, that won't happen. Alison is 1 point ahead of Mitch today. Woo hoo
If Halbig wins, so much for "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"!
Now, when did Republicanus/Teabaggers ever think about "context"? That is well beyond their ken!
Canadian universal healthcare is not perfect, but it beats the American system hands down. Unfortunately, Harper and his harlots are trying to take Canadian healthcare closer to the American model. Anything for a buck and damn the consequences.
Your healthcare is better tyhan the ACA.
If humans are causing global warming (and they are), the most expedient way of solving the problem is to reduce the human population by whatever means possible. Every GOP policy put forth in the past 30 years points at this outcome, as do far too many Democratic policies over the same time frame. Our government is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Corporate States of America, eagerly doing the bidding of its corporate masters, who have determined that killing people is a damned sight cheaper option than saving them.
That's not entirely untrue, but don't you think it's overly simplistic?
Sometimes a simple plan is the most effective plan. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, there's a virtual 100% certainty that it's a duck. Americans fought the Nazis in WWII; now, American leaders are the Nazis and American citizens, their victims, are shedding civil rights faster than an old hound dog sheds its hair in summer heat. Simple or not, it is what it is, T.C. I see no other plausible explanations for the U.S. Government's political, social and economic machinations. If you do, please share.
The problem is that you're painting all with the same brush. I freely admit that the Democratic Party is a swamp that we need to drain, but to make it safe to do so, we need to get rid of the viscious Republican alligators. Otherwilse thr democratic institutions we need to drain the swamp will no longer exist.
Thanks all!