The Stupid: It Burns!

I don't know which infuriates me most about the Republican move described in this article: the outright thuggery in continuing the attack on the poor or the rank stupidity of cutting a health care program which saves the government money by giving poor people preventative care. Either/or, I am royally pissed.

Here's the skinny: in their ongoing zeal to roll back President Obama's health care law, the Republicans have targeted drastic cuts to community clinics. Those are the places people without insurance or millions of dollars go to get their children vaccinated, where they go for their own ailments, where the go for their flu shots. These clinics, located all over the country, actually save money for Medicare and Medicaid by providing preventive care so that little problems don't become huge problems clogging up hospitals and emergency rooms.

That apparently doesn't matter. It's health care and it's for the poor.

Community health centers, pioneered by Boston almost a half century ago, are a cornerstone of efforts to expand health care coverage to all Americans while cutting costs. By offering preventive care to poor, uninsured residents, these neighborhood centers reduce the chances these patients will end up in hospital emergency rooms for vastly more expensive treatment, with taxpayers picking up the bill, health analysts say.

“Why would you want to give someone access to more expensive care if you could take care of it in a less expensive way? It makes absolutely, positively no sense on any level,’’ Representative Michael E. Capuano, a Somerville Democrat, said of the GOP efforts. Capuano was a founder of the Congressional Caucus on Community Health Centers.

Republicans characterize their proposed cuts as a necessary piece of their overall effort to rein in government spending. Their approach would also cripple President Obama’s health care overhaul. [Emphasis added]

And that's what's really going on. Make the man look bad. Make him easy to defeat.

Morons. Evil, evil morons.

You are going to wind up costing the taxpayers billions by your stupid vindictiveness.

An increase of visits to health centers under the federal health care overhaul would save $181 billion or more between 2010 and 2019, according to a study last year from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. About $52 billion of the savings would come from federal Medicaid funds and $33 billion from state Medicaid funds. “If people can get good primary care, this means that they can become healthier, so they don’t have to go to the hospital for care, so that we can save money,’’ said Leighton Ku, the study’s lead author.

That apparently doesn't matter to the Republicans. They have more important considerations to tend to.