Why Conservatives Are Willing to Let People Like Charlene Dill Die

[Billy Jingo]

Why Conservatives Are Willing to Let People Like Charlene Dill Die

Obamacare didn't come with "death panels," like conservatives claimed it would. So, Republican governors and state legislatures formed their own. Until the death of Charlene Dill, the victims of those death panels were invisible.

Conservatives constantly say that poor people are lazy. That hardly applied to Charlene Dill, a 32-year-old mother of three in Orlando, Florida. Dill worked at three different jobs to support herself and her children, and pay for a divorce from her estranged husband.

The working poor are a lot like Charlene Dill. They work in low-wage jobs that don't pay livable wages. Worse, they're punished for working, because they become ineligible for state assistance programs. Charlene Dill earned about $11,000 a year from her three jobs. It doesn't sound like much, but it was actually too much.

Dill's earnings were well below the federal poverty rate -- $23,850 per year for a family of four. But state governments administer Medicaid and set their own eligibility requirements. Dill earned too much to qualify for Florida's Medicaid program, which puts an income cap on eligibility. Dill needed to earn less than $4,535 per year to qualify.

Like millions of Americans before health care reform, Charlene Dill was trapped in the "Red State Donut Hole." She earned too much to qualify for Medicaid, and to little afford private insurance. So, she lived and worked every day with untreated pulmonary stenosis, because she didn't have health insurance.

The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, but opened the door for states to reject the law's expansion of Medicaid. In a show of political opportunism and depraved indifference towards the poor, Republican governors and legislatures in 19 states opted out of the Medicaid expansion.

[Billy Jingo]

Conservatives are willing to let poor and struggling people like Charlene Dill die because they believe poverty itself is a moral failure. Thus saving the Charlene Dills of the world is immoral.

That is an explanation to consider.

[Norm dePlume]

What's that you say? She wasn't lazy? Ah, well, she made bad choices then. That's it. Bad choices.

Always have a backup presumption.

[Michele]

Are Republicans literally killing their constituents by refusing to expand Medicaid? No, but they're letting them die. It's a stretch to say that Charlene Dill died because Florida Republicans rejected the Medicaid expansion. Dill died because of an untreated heart condition. Even if Florida had expanded its Medicaid program, she might still have died. But access to health care, treatment, and medications would have given her a fighting chance.

What a dolt. At least he made a good headline for the tribe to use.

[Novaheart]

I still say that Single Payer is the only workable system. Everyone can pay a sales tax to support it, even tourists. Workers are free to move from job to job to increase earnings without losing meager benefits. People are much more able to go into business for themselves.

Again:

The education of doctors and other medical personnel is subsidized by tax dollars.

The research which produces scientific studies, epidemiology, pharma studies, training and procedures is all supported by tax dollars.

We allow ourselves to be used for the training of medical personal and the proofing of chemical and procedures.

You cannot decide that at the point of delivery all of this is suddenly private property. It just isn't. The same can not be said of a video store or cafe, a tree service or pool cleaner. Those are truly private businesses. Every nickel of Joe's Lawn Service's start up was paid by Joe. No tax dollars were used. Joe didn't go to Mowing School on a scholarship, Pell grant, or subsidized research college enrollment. Joe didn't learn his craft on the lawns of people who were unfortunate enough to end up in the ER. Joe's lawn mower wasn't developed by NIH or Georgetown University Hospital. Joe doesn't get free property taxes.

[Frostbit]

I still say that Single Payer is the only workable system. Everyone can pay a sales tax to support it, even tourists. Workers are free to move from job to job to increase earnings without losing meager benefits. People are much more able to go into business for themselves.

Again:

The education of doctors and other medical personnel is subsidized by tax dollars.

The research which produces scientific studies, epidemiology, pharma studies, training and procedures is all supported by tax dollars.

We allow ourselves to be used for the training of medical personal and the proofing of chemical and procedures.

You cannot decide that at the point of delivery all of this is suddenly private property. It just isn't. The same can not be said of a video store or cafe, a tree service or pool cleaner. Those are truly private businesses. Every nickel of Joe's Lawn Service's start up was paid by Joe. No tax dollars were used. Joe didn't go to Mowing School on a scholarship, Pell grant, or subsidized research college enrollment. Joe didn't learn his craft on the lawns of people who were unfortunate enough to end up in the ER. Joe's lawn mower wasn't developed by NIH or Georgetown University Hospital. Joe doesn't get free property taxes.

I almost wish single payer would happen so I could see your posts about how long it took you to finally get in to see that "raghead muzzie doctor trained in some shithole" because very few intelligent Americans are now willing to go to school for 7-8 years and make less than Joe the lawn cutter.

I just can't wish that on the other people I actually care about.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

I almost wish single payer would happen so I could see your posts about how long it took you to finally get in to see that "raghead muzzie doctor trained in some shithole" because very few intelligent Americans are now willing to go to school for 7-8 years and make less than Joe the lawn cutter.

I just can't wish that on the other people I actually care about.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Apparently a couple of NP's can go big game hunting on what medicaid and medicare pay, so what's the problem?

[gary m]

I almost wish single payer would happen so I could see your posts about how long it took you to finally get in to see that "raghead muzzie doctor trained in some shithole" because very few intelligent Americans are now willing to go to school for 7-8 years and make less than Joe the lawn cutter.

I just can't wish that on the other people I actually care about.

Actually it will more likely be some guy named "Mike" who's last job was working for tech support in New Delhi and began every request with "first you have to re-format your hard drive and reload Windows 95."

[Adam]

There is something very much not right with this story. Actually a lot of somethings.



The story itself is being pushed by a paid political hack, Kathleen Voss Woolrich, who claims, repeatedly, that Charlene was her bestest friend in the whole wide world and that they were completely inseparable and that they were in contact every day. That’s all fine and dandy, but if that’s the case, why is it that Kathleen never once mentions her bestest friend in the whole wide world on her facebook page until after this super-duper close friend died? And then after this friend dies, her wall turns into a complete shrine to this super-duper bestest friend ever and always, complete with a sum total of four pictures of Charlene, one of which implies, dishonestly, that Kathleen and Charlene were friends since childhood. That’s not a picture of the two of them as children; Kathleen is twelve years older than Charlene was). Charlene is not in Kathleen’s friends list, and Kathleen is not in Charlene’s friends list. Charlene never once mentioned Kathleen on her facebook page. That’s some seriously close friendship right there: never once mentioning each other or even acknowledging one another.

Oddly enough (or not), her supposed bestest friend in the whole wide world never gets mentioned in the obit, nor did she bother to leave a note of condolence, even though she allegedly paid for the funeral. We’ll come back to that last bit.

No, Kathleen’s first reaction to her best friend’s sudden death, within a couple of hours, was to take to facebook and blame Republicans for this death. Because, you know, that’s what you do when one of the most important people in your life dies suddenly, without any cause or warning: run to facebook and blame Republicans for it.

So already, it’s pretty obvious that the progenitor of this entire story is a fake who is manufacturing outrage. I’m sure she knew Charlene in some tangential way, but it’s plainly clear that they were anything but very close friends. They lived on opposite sides of town from one another, they were nearly a full generation apart in age, the only thing that they had apparently in common was a few play dates with each other’s kids.



But there's considerably more.

The stories claim that Charlene made only $11,000 per year (some claim only $9,000). That claim is in and of itself suspect. She had three jobs, but (assuming that she only made minimum wage), she only worked less than thirty hours per week ($7.93 (Florida’s minimum wage) X 27 hours X 52 weeks = $11,133.72). That’s hitting the “astoundingly unlikely” button really hard. Most of the articles cite her work solely as cleaning houses and babysitting. Sorry, but that’s not going to feed a family. If that is really the case, then whose fault is that? It sure as shit ain't the Republicans' fault: Harry Reid has dozens of jobs bills sitting on his desk from the House that he refuses to send to the Senate. In other places, they point out that she also worked fast food and at DisneyWorld. So that means that this $11,000 claim is ludicrous on its face. Disney, by the way, is a union shop. Even making the minimum wage in Florida, Charlene would have been working less than fifteen hours per week at each of these jobs. What fast food joint hires someone to only work about 12-13 hours per week? I don't know of any case of Disney hiring someone for so few hours. In short, it's pretty clear that this woman had a lot more income than $11,000 a year. She had enough money that last October, she was able to go out to a Mexican restaurant and drink strawberry margaritas, and she drove all the way to Clearwater to do so, 115 miles each way, with two tolls (a bridge and a toll road) along the way. Not exactly the behavior of someone trying to clothe, house, and feed herself and three kids on less than $1000/month.

She was a “single mother,” which is apparently technically true: according to her facebook page, she got married on May 21, 2007, and she began divorce proceedings on February 27, 2013. She was, however, “in a relationship” as of August 23, 2012, though she does not specify with whom, but one must presume that it was not her husband. But assuming that she was a single mother making only $11,000 per year, how is it that she was able to provide for three children and herself? And, there’s another problem: she has three children, ages 3, 7, and 9. She separated from her husband in 2009. So, she married in 2007, and split up with hubby in 2009. That explains the nine-year-old and the seven-year-old (though that’s pushing it a bit), but it certainly doesn’t explain the three-year-old. How did that happen, if hubby was out of the picture (and was the “last time she had reliable health insurance”)? Either she was hooking back up with a guy from whom she had been estranged for more than two years, or else there’s another baby-daddy in the picture here.



Questions persist.

Florida has a lot of different options for people who need medical help but are too poor. They even have programs for people who allegedly fall into this "doughnut hole." More specific to this situation, they have a program to help people out with prescription drug costs. The specific claim here is that the reason that Charlene died is because she could not get her prescription for her "treatable heart condition."

Why didn’t Charlene’s best friend in the whole wide world give Charlene the money she supposedly so desperately needed for her heart medication? After all, less than a week after her friend died from not being able to get heart medication, Kathleen flew to Tallahassee to lobby for Medicaid expansion, with her fellow paid SEIU protesters. According to this article, that bestest friend in the whole wide world knew that Charlene needed to get refills on her heart medication, and yet Kathleen did nothing about it. Why not give her best friend the money she needed to get those medications? If she can afford airline tickets to fly to Tallahassee and back to protest at the state capitol, then she could afford to give her friend a few bucks to get some heart medication. So why not do so?

And, of course, there are lots of different programs out there by drug companies to help people out with Rx costs.

But to determine whether the state prescription program, or the drug companies' programs, or even this Medicaid expansion, would have done anything to help Charlene, we need to know just what her "treatable heart condition" actually was. Out of all of the articles on this, I can only find one case in which anyone cites just precisely what this "treatable heart condition" was: it comes from her supposed best friend:

“She worked really hard to provide for her kids,” Woolrich said from the lectern, surrounded by supporters holding up Dill’s picture. “She did baby-sitting, cleaned houses, collected cans for recycling and took them to recycling centers and got money for it, and sold vacuum cleaners. Whatever it took. But Charlene had health problems. She had pulmonary stenosis, sepsis from tooth decay, fibromyalgia and a lot of other health issues from these conditions. When she separated from her husband in 2009, that was last time she had reliable health insurance.”

Well, it turns out that only one of these is a "treatable heart condition:" pulmonary stenosis. There's just one problem: the treatment for pulmonary stenosis is surgical, not medicinal. There is and was no prescription for this condition. This is a minor birth defect that interferes with very few people's lives, especially once they have grown. If it does affect them, then they need surgery, not a pill. No prescription was helping Charlene treat this condition. Maybe it was the fibromyalgia? Nope. There is no causal linkage at all between fibromyalgia and any sort of actual heart disorders. The sepsis? MAYBE, but everything I can find says that by the time sepsis from a tooth affects the heart, the patient would be so symptomatic that there's no way this woman could have gone to someone's home to do a Rainbow demonstration. So just what was her "treatable heart condition?"

As it turns out, the SOLE claim that this was the immediate, proximate cause of Charlene's death rests upon Kathleen Voss Woolrich. There is absolutely no corroboration from any other source that this "heart condition" caused Charlene's death. Indeed, we only know that Charlene died, not from what.

So, did Charlene even die from a "treatable heart condition?" Is there ANY actual evidence that her death was preventable at all? Certainly not from the evidence given. Given that it's pretty apparent that Kathleen is far from a trustworthy source, that information needs to come from somewhere else.






And there's another BIG question here. Kathleen claims to have been Charlene's bestest bud in the whole wide world. She was shocked at her friend's death. She claims to have stepped up and managed to fund Charlene's funeral. So, if that's the case, then why did she begin fundraising for her friend's funeral SIX MONTHS BEFORE CHARLENE DIED?












Something very hinky indeed is going on here.

Kathleen was clearly just waiting in the wings for the right "victim" to come along so that she could slap a "victim" label on that dead body. She made this "scandal" happen. She was just waiting for the opportunity to pounce.

Or she actually murdered Charlene.


Only one of the two can be true.





It's ASTOUNDINGLY obvious that this poor woman's unfortunate and untimely death has been completely politicized by a paid political hack, with the backing of SEIU. Speaking of whom: Kathleen claims that she suddenly lost Medicaid, but she's working as a paid political hack for SEIU, and clearly making enough money to fly to her political protests, rather than taking Greyhound. So why isn't SEIU, as an employer, providing Kathleen a top-of-the-line health plan? That's what they're insisting everyone else do, right?

Anyway, this is a completely manufactured outrage by SEIU and a paid political hack who has clearly lied about pretty much every aspect of this whole event. Unfortunately, a young woman has died, and she has left three children behind. I genuinely hope that her children can grow up and lead happy, successful lives. I am very sorry for Charlene's family and their loss. And yes, I am sorry that there are indeed some people who are getting screwed by Obamafail (I'm one of them). But this whole story is completely manufactured bullshit, as is typical of the Left when they need a grave to point at and howl "see? SEE?!?!"



It's Cindy Sheehan all over again, but even more fake and plastic.

[Frostbit]

Why Conservatives Are Willing to Let People Like Charlene Dill Die

Obamacare didn't come with "death panels," like conservatives claimed it would. So, Republican governors and state legislatures formed their own. Until the death of Charlene Dill, the victims of those death panels were invisible.

Conservatives constantly say that poor people are lazy. That hardly applied to Charlene Dill, a 32-year-old mother of three in Orlando, Florida. Dill worked at three different jobs to support herself and her children, and pay for a divorce from her estranged husband.

The working poor are a lot like Charlene Dill. They work in low-wage jobs that don't pay livable wages. Worse, they're punished for working, because they become ineligible for state assistance programs. Charlene Dill earned about $11,000 a year from her three jobs. It doesn't sound like much, but it was actually too much.

Dill's earnings were well below the federal poverty rate -- $23,850 per year for a family of four. But state governments administer Medicaid and set their own eligibility requirements. Dill earned too much to qualify for Florida's Medicaid program, which puts an income cap on eligibility. Dill needed to earn less than $4,535 per year to qualify.

Like millions of Americans before health care reform, Charlene Dill was trapped in the "Red State Donut Hole." She earned too much to qualify for Medicaid, and to little afford private insurance. So, she lived and worked every day with untreated pulmonary stenosis, because she didn't have health insurance.

The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, but opened the door for states to reject the law's expansion of Medicaid. In a show of political opportunism and depraved indifference towards the poor, Republican governors and legislatures in 19 states opted out of the Medicaid expansion.

Do you have a favorite website called bullshit.com or do you find these gems at multiple sites? See Adam's post above.

[scott]

Why Conservatives Are Willing to Let People Like Charlene Dill Die

Obamacare didn't come with "death panels," like conservatives claimed it would. So, Republican governors and state legislatures formed their own. Until the death of Charlene Dill, the victims of those death panels were invisible.

Conservatives constantly say that poor people are lazy. That hardly applied to Charlene Dill, a 32-year-old mother of three in Orlando, Florida. Dill worked at three different jobs to support herself and her children, and pay for a divorce from her estranged husband.

The working poor are a lot like Charlene Dill. They work in low-wage jobs that don't pay livable wages. Worse, they're punished for working, because they become ineligible for state assistance programs. Charlene Dill earned about $11,000 a year from her three jobs. It doesn't sound like much, but it was actually too much.

Dill's earnings were well below the federal poverty rate -- $23,850 per year for a family of four. But state governments administer Medicaid and set their own eligibility requirements. Dill earned too much to qualify for Florida's Medicaid program, which puts an income cap on eligibility. Dill needed to earn less than $4,535 per year to qualify.

Like millions of Americans before health care reform, Charlene Dill was trapped in the "Red State Donut Hole." She earned too much to qualify for Medicaid, and to little afford private insurance. So, she lived and worked every day with untreated pulmonary stenosis, because she didn't have health insurance.

The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, but opened the door for states to reject the law's expansion of Medicaid. In a show of political opportunism and depraved indifference towards the poor, Republican governors and legislatures in 19 states opted out of the Medicaid expansion.

The "Red State Donut Hole" is a myth. I enrolled plenty of people who were originally deemed ineligible for ACA subsidized plans because they were under the income limit but didn't qualify for Medicaid. There was a process to apply for an exemption to the policy. A client of mine quite similar to Ms. Dill got a silver plan plus dental for her and her three kids for $8 per month after subsidies.

She had an incompetent Navigator.

[scott]

Conservatives are willing to let poor and struggling people like Charlene Dill die because they believe poverty itself is a moral failure. Thus saving the Charlene Dills of the world is immoral.

That is an explanation to consider.

No it's not, it's bullshit. SOME people are poor due to their own actions (I'd say MANY), but it's not necessarily a moral failure. But you need your talking point so that the program your folks designed needed situations like in the OP to make political gains.

[Frostbit]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Apparently a couple of NP's can go big game hunting on what medicaid and medicare pay, so what's the problem?

Some wrong assumptions far below your usual level of understanding counselor. We go big game hunting on our investment portfolio.

[Billy Jingo]

No it's not, it's bullshit.

Yea. That would imply they give a rat's ass one way or the other about their fellow human beings.

[Frostbit]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Not for my household professionally counselor. I retire in December and Joyce is already retired. As far as whether the "sky is falling" on the future of healthcare in the USA one only needs to look at the VA as an example of what single payer will provide in the level of service.

A second example is the Indian Health Service. I have first hand exposure to that system as you know. Close to a decade of experience. Beneficiaries can't beat the price of service (free) but I can tall you from experience here in Anchorage where working Natives with insurance have a choice...most seek their healthcare from the private sector and there's a reason.

Apparently a couple of NP's can go big game hunting on what medicaid and medicare pay, so what's the problem?

Neither Joyce nor I were ever NP's. Joyce retired an RN after 39 years in the trenches. I was an RN for 13 years, then returned to school and became a PA. I won't belabor the differences between NP's and PA's. The first 8 years of my PA career was with the IHS and for the first 4 of those years I was paid less than the nurses I worked with. I essentially went back to school, changed professions and took a pay cut. Why? I was living in the bush and bored with the level of nursing care and I wanted a challenge while continuing to live where I wanted while providing care to a populace that provided me a priceless experience in village travel. Perhaps you think otherwise, but it's not all about the money.

The next 7 years I worked Industrial Medicine at an hourly rate but worked two weeks on and two weeks off making about half of what I make now that I'm in Family Practice in the for profit private sector. I just asked our office manager for the percentage of Medicare/Medicaid I see at present, since my income is sufficient and I never really cared about that stat. My practice last year was 19% Medicare/Medicaid.

Those two should never be grouped together then you want to discuss income generation. Medicaid pays about 72% of the fee for service generated by the private sector, Medicare pays about 11%. If a single payer system were to adopt Medicare rates as a reimbursement model many clinics would close due to simple economics. Whether the sky is falling when your personal access to decent medical care is curtailed will be a decision you will have to make. I already know the answer having exposure to the industry in many different venues.

WTF does big game hunting have to do with the topic. Would you feel better if Joyce and I adopted a child instead? I guarantee you have spent well over three times the amount of "big game money" we have spent doing your best to raise HRH.

Lastly, the majority of our household net worth has come from Real Estate purchase/sales, frugal living (aside from big game hunting), and making the correct long-term investment choices. It has zero to do with Medicare/Medicaid.