No, not the health INSURANCE debate.  The debate about actually letting real people see a doctor when necessary.

A new wrinkle:

Seems some people are getting desperate. And the particular person mentioned below doesn’t seem to be in a position to be helped by anything that the President and Congress have passed this year.

Unemployed Michigan woman shoots herself to get health care

Associated Press — Detroit News

Niles, Mich. — An out-of-work Michigan woman shot herself in the hope she’d  receive medical treatment for a shoulder injury.

Kathy Myers says she injured the shoulder a month ago while playing with her dogs.

The 41-year-old Niles resident says she’s been unable to see a specialist because she can’t afford health insurance.

So Myers shot herself on Thursday.

She was released from the hospital a few hours later.

….

The prosecutor’s office is going to decide whether Myers will face charges for firing a weapon within city limits.

More at the link above.

One after another, shortly after a diagnosis of breast cancer, each of the women learned that her health insurance had been canceled. First there was Yenny Hsu, who lived and worked in Los Angeles. Later, Robin Beaton, a registered nurse from Texas. And then, most recently, there was Patricia Relling, a successful art gallery owner and interior designer from Louisville, Kentucky.

None of the women knew about the others. But besides their similar narratives, they had something else in common: Their health insurance carriers were subsidiaries of WellPoint, which has 33.7 million policyholders — more than any other health insurance company in the United States.

The women all paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, none had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.

They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.

Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information. WellPoint declined to comment on the women’s specific cases without a signed waiver from them, citing privacy laws.

Angry? This article isn’t even close to being done. Continue reading this Reuters article hosted on Yahoo.

Repiglican Congressman from Virginia, Eric Cantor, held a press conference yesterday to breathlessly announce that his campaign office had been targeted by gunmen, and that he has been receiving “threatening” emails. Only problem is, he refuses to let anyone see these emails, he refused to answer any questions after his drama queen press conference, and the Richmond, Virginia Police Department released this statement (hat tip to TPM!):

The Richmond Police Department is investigating an act of vandalism at the Reagan Building, 25 E. Main St., Richmond, Virginia. A first floor window was struck by a bullet at approximately 1 a.m. on Tuesday, March 23. The building, which has several tenants including an office used by Congressman Eric Cantor, was unoccupied at the time.

A Richmond Police detective was assigned to the case. A preliminary investigation shows that a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window. The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds. There was no other damage to the room, which is used occasionally for meetings by the congressman.

What this boils down to is some boob fired their gun into the air, and the bullet just happened to find its way to Cantor’s office window. The stray bullet had enough velocity left to break the window, but not the blinds. Fans of the show Mythbusters may recall the episode they did, which examined the myth that bullets fired in the air are fatal when they fall back to Earth. The conclusion?

Bullets fired into the air maintain their lethal capability when they eventually fall back down.

BUSTED / PLAUSIBLE / CONFIRMED

In the case of a bullet fired at a precisely vertical angle (something extremely difficult for a human being to duplicate), the bullet would tumble, lose its spin, and fall at a much slower speed due to terminal velocity and is therefore rendered less than lethal on impact. However, if a bullet is fired upward at a non-vertical angle (a far more probable possibility), it will maintain its spin and will reach a high enough speed to be lethal on impact. Because of this potentiality, firing a gun into the air is illegal in most states, and even in the states that it is legal, it is not recommended by the police. Also the MythBusters were able to identify two people who had been injured by falling bullets, one of them fatally injured. To date, this is the only myth to receive all three ratings at the same time.

It’s only fitting that the party that can’t get a damn thing right, has to make up wild-assed stories about magic bullets. Leave it to the party of NO CLUE to play the victim, after their political tactics have blown up in their face.

Yeah, cry us a river, fraudster!

President Barack Obama dared Republicans on Thursday to try to repeal his newly signed healthcare reform but warned that their effort would backfire as he touted the measure’s benefits.

“If they want to have that fight, I welcome that fight,” Obama said in prepared remarks for delivery in Iowa in his first big speech since enacting the most sweeping new U.S. social policy in decades.

“I don’t believe the American people are going to put the insurance industry back in the driver’s seat. We’ve been there already and we’re not going back,” he said.

“Well, I say go for it,” Obama said, goading his critics. “If these congressmen in Washington want to come here to Iowa and tell small business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest.”

Continue reading this article over at Reuters.

The GOP strategy for reconciliation is pure hardball. Democrats want to pass a clean bill, so Republicans will make Dems vote down politically charged amendments

So far, the GOP has filed 32 amendments. But these 10 are our picks for the most ridiculous:

• Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK): To reduce the cost of providing federally funded prescription drugs by eliminating fraudulent payments and prohibiting coverage of Viagra for child molesters and rapists for drugs intended to induce abortion.
• Vitter: Prohibiting use of funds to fund the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). (Adding to the ridculousness, ACORN folded just this week.)

You can read the rest of TPM’s list here. Wow, these wingnuts sure are stupid!