Sick and Tired

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari Goldstein)

If you're especially sick of the Republican "leadership" in this country since early January, you won't get any help from those in the House, if the health care bill they passed last week is any indication. By now, you probably know at least the abstracts of what it had contained, even though none of the text was released online or anywhere else in advance of the vote and the Congressional Budget Office never reviewed it so they could do an impact report or what it would cost (Roy Blunt, a Republican, said they'd wait for such a report before voting on it in the Senate).

     But we know enough that if every Republican who didn't abstain voted for it, it didn't bode well for the American poor and middle class. It was widely hailed as a massive tax break for the 1%, many of whom (dis)serving in the House. As with the USA PATRIOT Act 15 years ago, it benefited from a lot of Republican dirty tricks amounting to stealth legislation, including the Republicans working until late the night before the vote to change certain provisions.

     But we got the gist of this shadow bill- Those with pre-existing conditions were primarily targeted and would be shoved into the "high risk" pools populated by the jellyfish, sharks and crocodiles of HMO claims adjusters and executives. And now we're hearing the same moth-eaten arguments we'd heard seven and eight years ago when the ACA was being hashed out:

     "Poor people really don't want health care."

     "Why should I have to pay for your insurance?"

     "No one ever died from having no access to health care."

     Fact: Everyone but Christian Scientists wants health care whether it be Medicaid, a job-provided plan or if they're wealthy enough so that they don't need insurance and can pay for it out of pocket. Proof of the ACA's popularity is that, before the House voted on the bill, members of both parties voted in droves to keep their own ObamaCare provisions, while Republicans voted to deny it to everyone not in Congress.

     Fact: Since government employees have the Cadillac of health care plans, who do you think pays for them? John Q. Taxpayer. So when Republicans and other right wingers ask why they should have to pay for someone's health care, ask them why we should have to pay for theirs, especially when they voted to deny us ours?

     Fact: Before the ACA was ratified and signed into law by President Obama in 2010, an estimated 45,000 died in the US every year for lack of access to quality, affordable health care. Alan Grayson said it, I believe it, that settles it. As vastly imperfect as it is, The Affordable Care Act covered millions more Americans who hitherto hadn't had health care and in the seven years it's been on the books we can be reasonably assured it has easily saved lives in six figures.

     But there's a thin sliver of a silver lining in this black cloud- The House bill now goes to the upper chamber. The consensus is that it will have a very uncertain and possibly drawn-out future. House Republicans obviously weren't thinking about this while they were literally high-fiveing each other in the well of the House. In fact, it could be weeks if not months before Senate leaders bring it up for a roll call vote.

     Republicans have a much more slender majority in the higher chamber, 52-48, and, unless Mitch McConnell unloads another nuclear option, it'll be sure to face stiff challenges from Democrats who will gladly filibuster this bill into obsolescence while Trump fumes on Twitter about obstructionist Democrats.