It did not take Fred Upton log to cave. trump waved a cool $8 billion at him and he trotted back to the House of Representatives and took back his honest assessment that Trumpcare would not protect Americans wit pre-existing conditions. He now supports the deeply flawed measure and Trump may have faked the House GOP into passing the measure to kill Obamacare. There are only three problems with this swift reversal.
1. No one knows who will get the money or how one qualifies for it.
2. No one knows how far this fund will go assuming it does not find its way into the deep pockets of the insurance industry,
3.
The bill is still being rushed. Rushed is too modest a word. It is being pushed with enough rapidity to make it unlikely that the Congressional Budget Office will be able to provide what would likely be a huge red flag,
Preexisting conditions are only part of what is endangered
The bill is a license to pick away at Medicaid, preventing its expansion as intended under Obamacare. It offers the very worst health care states additional room to waive anything they like as long as they can provide virtually any excuse they like. It is a license to go back to the days when millions were without insurance they now have. It closes the door to a move toward better coverage and more people insured.
The president needs this one
It should not be forgotten that the reason for urgency is that the president has nothing to claim he has passed save the Gorsuch nomination which was won with the nuclear option which allowed just the GOP to put him in a position to be the majority vote against Rowe v. Wade. It should not be ignored that the destructionist in chief, Steve Bannon is just as influential as ever.
And we should remember that the current exercise, a bad bill fortified by a bribe whose payment will probably be ours to bear, is mainly so the President can crow about zapping Obamacare.
Beware the totalitarian juggernaut
We have a man who has manifested the traits of a totalitarian leader who is anti-democratic, intolerant and against enablement and education, the two foundations of actual help to people.
He is for oil, cars, growth and the augmentation of the fortunes of the rich. He can say $8 billion today and double it tomorrow and take it away on Friday. That may be enough to win back Mr. Upton, to whom I was willing to give serious kudos, but it does not win back people who know health care.
Who is against the bill?
Aside from Democrats the American Medical Association, the American Heart Association and March of Dimes are all resolute in their opposition and there is a broad coalition of health services behind them. Should this pass the House the pressure on the Senate will be huge.
