I know a lot of you would prefer I post about TV and comic books and utter trivia but I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around that stuff when I'm not writing (professionally) TV and comic books and utter trivia. I'll get to that but at the moment, I'm appalled at the misinformation and looming tragedies involving the Republican health care plan.
And yes, I know this is not technically a Trump Dump; more like a Paul Ryan Dump. But Trump's the guy who promised that there would be health care for all and it would be better and cheaper and the government would pay for it. That may well turn out to the single greatest lie ever told by an elected official in this country…and one which actually kills a lot of Americans. Trump's support for this new plan has been tepid. He says it's great but he ain't saying it too loudly because he knows it won't pass and if it did, it certainly wouldn't sync up with his pledge. So here we go…
- Sarah Kliff seems to be the go-to expert for understanding what is being proposed. Here, she points out how almost everything Republicans are doing are things they said they hated about Obamacare.
- Jonathan Chait discusses how Paul Ryan can't even pretend that this plan is intended to do anything more than lower taxes for the really, really rich. I have this feeling that at home, if one of Ryan's children fell and broke a leg and someone said, "What do we do about this?", Ryan would say "I'll handle this!" and he'd rush to the floor of the House and try to pass more tax cuts for the rich.
- The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is only non-partisan when it's reporting what you want to hear. When it doesn't, it's a bunch of lying hacks who are biased for the opposition…or at least, that's the defense some use against its scoring. Republicans were trying to get their American Health Care Act passed before the C.B.O. could crunch the numbers on it and report but that's not going to happen. So now, according to articles like this one and this one, they're gearing up to attack the C.B.O. and to maybe try and sell a more favorable scoring by folks who work directly for Trump. Alternative facts, indeed.
- And here's Kevin Drum on why so much of the Republican base is expecting a full-scale repeal of Obamacare and why Ryan and others won't or can't explain to them that that isn't possible.
I dunno how this is going to end. It may mean Obamacare stays in place a lot longer than anyone expects…but the health care business can't function for long with that kind of uncertainty. It may mean the Republicans pass a terrible plan that takes away health insurance for millions and then there will be the backlash against that.
It may mean this battle goes on for months and months and months…but again, the health insurance business needs to know where all this is heading. I see no scenario that is going to make everyone happy because one group won't be happy if the poor and sick do get affordable health care and another won't be happy if they don't. Maybe I should write and think more about TV and comic books and utter trivia…