I will add that they are cutting services in other states right now, as we *speak*, and that are run by Democrats. In Washington State, for example, people have received notices about preventive dentistry and other things mentioned by the article being cut, and Governor Gregoire, in advancing her career by showing what an All-American she is, is now throwing children off the Medicaid roles because they are "illegals."

You wouldn't know they just passed a health care reform bill by the looks of the present. The system is just continuing to get worse.

I keep saying this: Hello? Dems, repugs, it doesn´t matter. The only difference you can hope for when you get one or the other is regarding non-corporate issues. I mean things like abortion or gay rights. Pretty much everything else, including health care, is affected by corporate interests and is not going to change. Where money and power are involved, there is no democracy. I find it frustrating that so many readers of CD identify with Dems and criticise the Repugs. It´s like they still don´t get it. Sorry if I´m hurting anybody´s feelings, but it sure didn´t take long for Obomber to dash all the hopes that we all had for some positive change.

Incidentaly I´m a Canadian. Please forgive me for being so frustrated with you guys. Honest, I have lots of friends that are Americans. I don´t quite remember but I think my health care premiums were somewhere around 650/year. I recently had prostrate surgery and I had to pay about $20.00 extra for some supplies that I needed at home afterwards. Also, I had a choice of Doctors and treatments. I say were about 650 because I now live in Mexico. I am now enrolled with the health care system here. It cost me about $120.00 for a year as I recall.

Please check out this "Democracy Now" interview for one reporter's credible take on the flavor of Arizona politics:

"Tea Party in Sonora": Ken Silverstein of Harper’s Says Arizona is Laboratory for Radical GOP Policies*

* http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/15/tea_party_in_sonora_ken_silverstein

Or: http://bit.ly/9rn71j

"Republican Governor Jan Brewer and her Republican legislature have decided some death is preferable to more debt".

Oh, it goes much, much deeper than that. The goal is the 19th century medical costs and 19th century medicine for the masses. All that high tech stuff with surgery and transplants is so-o-o expensive, don'tcha know? They MAY allow medicare to pay for aspirin but they don't want the government 'saddled' with unwieldy and 'impractical' costs. Babies used to be born in houses, didn't they? Who wants to pay for all those pricey ob-gyns? And an increased mortallity rate among newborns would help the economy by lowering the birth rate, right?
That's how those bastards think.
Of course they reason in their neanderthal brains that the elite can still get high tech medicine because, hey, they 'earned' all their millions to pay for it through hard work on wall street! You know, that place that got bailed out with the tax dollars of the masses. But heaven forbid the tax dollars of the masses be used for the health care of the masses.

FUBAR!

==How many activists have booked their travel for Arizona to hold rallies and chain themselves to the governor's mansion gates or the hospital entrances where the dying have been given their death sentences? How many of Arizona's leaders will step up? Any national leaders?

This doesn't bode well for our future ability to transform our healthcare system from one that values money over human life. If we cannot even gather our collective voice and courage to this trauma, we are more desperately selfish and greedy than we have accused those on Wall Street of so boldly displaying. We're just playing at healthcare justice.==

Donna, this ticks me off, and perhaps also some other colleagues. Perhaps you could benefit from some food for thought so - - here is a smorgasbord.

In some form or other, there has been rationing of =health care= since the prehistorical discovery that extracts of willow and spirea bark -which contain salicylic acid- act as a natural analgesic. When there was just a handful of it, who got some?

As someone who lived in Canada 30 years, and worked in hospitals for 17 of them, I'm aware that each province (10) has its own healthcare system - and not all provinces cover the same medical circumstances and medical procedures. After meeting basic federal standards, it is the right of each province to choose them.

As an exercise, find out the sum total of heart transplant costs in the USA for one year, then imagine that sum of money being available to treat children in Third World countries. Dare we call this =arrogance=?

Here's another - but its simply a Thought Exercise. Brilliant scientists figure out how to attach living heads to recently dead bodies. Hours after the death of some Hollywood Sex Goddess, the head of an extremely wealthy woman is attached - and the gorgeous body reanimates. This leads to widespread street marches by destitute women, angry that their heads were not transplanted to the late Ms. Goddess. "Life is not fair" they chorus.

I recommend to you a longitudinal study completed in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The results of the study were disappointing and medical Canucks don't talk much about it. Researchers followed the health care experience of Winnipeg residents by street blocks, which had a wide disparity of averaged annual income. Although each person received his or her healthcare services from the fine Manitoba UHC, saw the same medical personnel and so forth, common measures of health and longevity did not show serious =leveling of the playing field= between health of the wealthy and the poor. Too many other economic factors impact upon their lives. Yes, it was better than comparable data from the USA.

These comments do not address the Arizona situation specifically.

What these comments say is this: Life is a death sentence. Every living thing dies. Country song lyric: "No matter how we struggle and strive, we never get out of this world alive." So far as we know, the only living organism resenting this verity is H. sapiens who spend their entire lives at two activities: 1) trying to achieve immortality, 2) escaping day-to-day reality by every means possible, even if it causes harm to other living things, and to Earth. Health care reform must be philosophically premised upon this base of human knowledge. Given that - - next.

Trylon

This will be happening across the country soon. It is a matter of economics as state and city economies fail, and file for banckruptcy. The "Build America Bonds" program has lost the federal subsidy that paid 35% of the return on municipal bonds. Large cities will feel it the most. Muni bonds account for 20% of many city budgets. Funds from real estate taxes are down as property values have dropped across the country.
The federal subsidy was omitted from Obama's deal with the Republicans last month. The Republican house will not re-establish the funding as an austerity measure. Many of the larger cities and populous states are democratic.
Things are going to get a lot worse in America before it gets better. Unfortunately public programs like healthcare for the poor will feel it most.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/241172-stay-away-from-muni-bonds

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703296604576005240613153726.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12422021

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-23/build-america-bonds-end-poised-to-batter-muni-market.html

What is it about MEDICARE that people do not understand? What is it about paying taxes that people do not understand? What is it about the common good that people do not understand?

You pay taxes to take care of you and your country. You by your collective, constructive and peaceful petitioning of this government, you demand…or tell them, instruct them, where and what your taxes are to be used for.

Do not complain when the rich and mighty in your country choose for you, and you wave the flag and demand war on other countries and peoples. That is why you have nothing, and will continue to have nothing, until you demand that the resources of this country go into taking care of its people.

Do not listen to the pundits, right or left who say there is NOT enough money for our social services or for our infrastructure to be repaired. There is plenty of money to alleviate all the ills in this country. You are just not paying attention. There has been a “blame-game” devised to divert the anger of the American people and it has worked.

Yesterday nineteen people in Arizona paid for it and six people lost their lives, and now one courageous public servant is fighting for her life.

Arizona, land of the cowboy, the rugged individualist. Arizona, where its every man for himself, where a proud citizen would rather die than ask for another's help. Arizona, where every man is a law unto himself and doesn't think he's beholden to any authority especially federal. Welcome to Arizona where all the psychotics are encouraged to act out especially against those subversives who say that men should live in a society where we consider the needs of others, or work together to build a better life for all. Who ever heard of such a thing. Why if any dag nabbit liberal comes in here and says such things he'll pay for it-you'll see.

Arizona, Texas Oklahoma you don't deserve statehood. We let you into the union way too early. I've given up on you. You're too wild to be a part of anything. We should just wall your states off and let you fight among yourselves. Idiots like you don't deserve citizenship and I don't want any of my tax dollars going into your territory.

I don't see how to evaluate the information in this article without knowing what the survival rate for these non;funded transplants is. What if the survival rate is 0?