Donald Rizer doesn’t know it, but I put everything I had into electing President Obama so that Mr. Rizer could have access to affordable health care. And he would have it, as Kevin Drum points out, if not for Bush-appointed Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, and the Republican-led Georgia legislature.
Donald Rizer is a 58 year old man with an aching shoulder that limits how much he can work. And he just lost his job that was paying him only about $800 a month. The cheapest health care plan he can find on the federal exchange is $200 a month, which he clearly cannot afford.
He blames the president.
“Obama,” he said, “he thinks that he’s helping things, but he ain’t.”
The Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act, as written, would have provided 100% of the money needed for the state of Georgia to put Mr. Rizer on Medicaid, and he could have gone and had a doctor take a look at that shoulder. If he made a little more money, the law, as written, would have given Mr. Rizer a subsidy to buy that $200/mo. plan, leaving him to pay no more than 2% of his income. We’re talking about a bill that would probably be less than $30 a month.
But Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the states cannot be compelled to expand Medicaid. And Gov. Nathan Deal decided that he wouldn’t accept free money to expand Medicaid. And the Georgia legislature was just fine with that, even though it means that they’ll have a much harder to time making ends meet and balancing their budget.
Finally, if Mr. Rizer wants to complain about the workability of HealthCare.gov, he can blame Georgian Republicans for that, too, because he wouldn’t have to use it if his own state government had agreed to set up their own exchange.
Donald Rizer is angry, but his anger is misplaced. Rather than complaining about the president who tried to help him, he should be angry with the people who prevented him from being helped.
I sympathize with your frustration, and I’m deeply disappointed that healthcare.gov is so Shitty ( just started functioning for me late this week). I wish the ACA wasn’t modeled on right-wing schemes, but if wishes were nickels I’d be a wealthy man.
These are low-info voters, and they don’t know who to blame. But as the saying goes, “if you’re explaining, you’re losing.”
Hope they fix it soon. I have to essentially lie to afford health care, and can’t afford it anymore than Rizer.
Donald Rizer is angry, but his anger is misplaced. Rather than complaining about the president who tried to help him, he should be angry with the people who prevented him from being helped.
Where does Rizer live? In Atlanta? In a rural area? What, exactly, are Georgia Democrats doing to help Mr. Rizer? I sure hope his Representative isn’t John Barrow or another Dixiecrat asshole.
You make a good point. This would seem to present a huge opportunity for southern Democrats. Time for a populist stand. Will have to be strong because it has to blast through a lot of misinformation and minds filled with cement.
That’s what I was thinking too.
I think he’s living in Rome, near the Tennessee border.
Right. Mr. Rizer lives in Northwest Georgia not far from the Tennessee border. That explains, more than you realize, why he has absolute blinders on. While racial animus isn’t restricted to North Georgia, the southern half has had to, historically speaking, be more accomodating to their African-American brethren. They’ve lived cheek-by-jowl for centuries.
Not so in North Georgia, which spawned the political careers of Newt Gingrich, Phil Gingery,Tom Graves, Paul Broun, and, even Zell Miller, who wasn’t and couldn’t afford to be racist, given he was a Southern Dem. Most of those pro-secession signs and confederate flags were far more pervasive in the Northern third of the State, not withstanding the presence of Atlanta and it’s huge middle-class AA population.
I should amend and say, that is, until 2008.
See my comment. If this guy lives in the Rome area then Gingrey is his Representative.
Rome, eh? That means he has bat guano loon Phil Gingrey as a Congresscritter(for now). And Gingrey’s district is gerrymandered like crazy.
MLK identified the problem half a century ago:
It’s the (n-word)’s fault, obviously.
It’s always so much easier and satisfying to punch down, isn’t it?
Bacon’s Rebellion to today!
I do believe that I’ve been calling this.
Told you that working class White folks would blame the Black man in the White House..
Bet you if you ask a non-White person living in Georgia, they’d know who ACTUALLY was screwing them out of healthcare.
Keep on clinging to that Whiteness, Donald.
Keep on clinging.
But is Mr. Rizer too proud and guarding his dignity to be put on Medicaid?
Something seems pretty set up about this article. Well, by golly, just go into Nathan Deal’s home turf and what d’ya see? Wonder how well Rizer knows Nathan Deal.
When I was unemployed I had the opportunity to go on Medicaid through the Illinois Kidcare program as the caretaker of minor children. I remember filling a prescription at Osco and the (older white woman) pharmacist shouting out, “Your MEDICAID prescription is ready!” Funny, she never shouted out, “Your BLUE CROSS prescription is ready!” None of the Indian pharmacists (that Osco has four unrelated pharmacists all named named Patel, amazing) ever did anything like that.
So, yeah, they make Medicaid a badge of shame.
That Illinois pharmacist should have been fired right quick. Money is money to the pharmacy; chasing Medicaid customers away destroys a healthy percentage of the pharmacy’s income.
Another example of this premise: grocery stores are very upset about last week’s reduction in SNAP benefits. Many business owners are dependent on government programs; they can’t afford to go full Randroid.
Under the pre-ACA rules (which GA is operating under without the Medicaid expansion), he could be one of those millions of very poor adults that aren’t eligible for Medicaid. Or he could just be lying.
What the hell? The article mentions that Mr. Rizer NEEDS SHOULDER SURGERY. If he can’t afford the insurance premiums, he sure as hell can’t afford the surgery. Without the ACA he’d have zero chance of getting his shoulder fixed, so it’s not like he isn’t getting anything for his $200 a month. Who knows, he might even be able to work again.
Yeah, but some uppity Blah man is making him spend $200 a month so he can get shoulder surgery, which is a clear usurpation of his freedoms to go without surgery.
Libruuls are so out of touch with real American values, like the freedom to suffer from shoulder pain with no hope of ever getting the medical treatment needed to fix it.
Just another example of how libruuuls hate America.
Someday, Rizer will be seen with a sign that says, “Keep the government out of my Obamacare!” He will not see the irony.
I don’t really understand this. If he’s unemployed, and because of his shoulder only marginally employable, why isn’t he eligible for Medicaid in the limited, non-expanded way that still exists in Georgia?
I agree with the larger point that ACA was designed to include the Medicaid expansion, but I’m not sure how this applies to this person in particular.
his REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR declined to expand MEDICAID…thus this idiot can’t get it.
but, he blames the BLack man in the White House for what his GOVERNOR and Republican State Legislature won’t do.
you do know that the ‘ awesome’ Governor Krispy Kreme lowered the Medicaid income level down to $6,000 for single folks….WHO the hell possibly qualifies under those terms?
As he’s positioned to easily win re-election, the majority of NJ voters approve of being cruel to the not quite destitute.
In most States, Medicaid eligibility has been limited to poor families with children, the disabled, and those with long-term care needs. So yes, the Medicaid expansion was meant to provide coverage for the misinformed, misinforming Georgian.
The King quote above points out a formative aspect of the problem. When you combine that form of class warfare with The Black Man In The White House, and mix those together with a bad economy for the underclass and poor civic education, it’s a toxic brew.
I’ve grown to believe that in 2013 soft racism is more damaging to society than declared racism. Would Mr. Rizer identify as a racist? Probably not. Is his complete unwillingness to learn that Governor Deal and his Legislature are the ones who are making him suffer caused in part by his racism? Judging by his last quote, the chances are good that the answer is “yes”. The thorough irrationality of his view is hard to explain otherwise. At some point Occam’s Razor has to come into play in cases like these.
Sadly, we don’t know what lies and BS Governor Deal and Rep. Gingrey are peddling to him. He probably doesn’t believe those two would lie to him.
He almost certainly wouldn’t extend such good faith presumptions to Deal and Gingery if they were black.
I thought people above 65 don’t need the exchange. Is this true? Read about it in Emaxhealth, which reported “Consumers wishing to enroll who have no health insurance who want to change plans, are under age 65…”