A warning–I am cranky this morning. If you are allergic to strong language or opinions, move on. There are lots of pictures of kittens on Facebook.
With the latest Trump Care bill, The Republicans just fed us all a shit sandwich that they won’t eat themselves. They made sure to exempt themselves from the Amendment that they just passed–without even acknowledging the utter hypocracy of that stance.
In March, the original TrumpCare bill was pronounced Dead on Arrival and was rejected by Doctors, Hospitals, AARP, and anyone with a knowledge of how our health care system works. It lacked support to be put up for vote because (as it turns out) Republicans determined that it was not cruel enough.
The Republicans fixed that problem: the revised Bill / Amendment is cruel enough to bring a smile to the lips of even the most malicious tea party dude. The ‘old’ bill only cut coverage to 24 million Americans, early predictions are that 129 Million Americans will be uninsurable under the new bill — primarily those who are ill and/or elderly. Some people with a history or heart disease or cancer, or even acne, heartburn, back pain, asthma, hay fever or hives could be rendered uninsurable for life. (A factoid is from the LA Times).
Why are they doing this??? It clearly isn’t because this plan provides such great health care for the American people (some Republicans admit they didn’t even read the damn thing). There appears to be two motivations, the first is to repeal and replace ObamaCare (ACA) at ANY cost, because they despise anything and everything associated with Obama; and secondly because the bill results in a significant tax break — for the wealthiest Americans of course.
In other words: The Republicans are providing a tax cut for the wealthy by gutting health coverage for millions of Americans. If that isn’t a shit sandwich, I don’t know what is.
The silver lining (although I realize shit sandwiches do not have linings and that I have mixed my metaphors)… will be a harsh backlash against Republican House Members in the 2018 elections. When the healthcare bill passed in the House, Democrats sang “na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, hey, hey, goodbye” to GOP members facing reelection in 2018. It is upon all of US to ensure that this prediction holds true.
This is the time for engagement and action. Use your time, your talents, your energy, your dollars and your votes to assure that this bill does not pass the Senate and that sanity will be restored in 2018.