Welcome to Act Three of The Tragedy of Donald Trump brought to you by James Comey, president-maker. The evidence of that lies in the fact of Comey's professed nausea when he realized he might affect the election. The tummy does not lie. Donald does not have any problem with lies. He never lies. Everything he says is fixed and anyone who challenges him is sad. Act one was the campaign with its alarums and insults. Act two was the first phase of deconstruction led by the other director, Mr. Bannon. Act three is the war part when armies clash and bribes take root and hurt and harm splash all about.
Act 3, scene 1 is Trumpcare possibly passing the House and the crows that emit from the White House should that actually occur.
The facts
I am going to try to squeeze in here a boatload of little facts that Axios has been good enough to put together this morning to tell us where we are on Trumpcare. Here goes. It's from an Axios newsletter called Vitals written by various Axios folk. Surmising the GOP may have the 216 needed to pass the deeply unpopular bill, these reps will be happy to pass the whole mess on to the Senate. What is in the bill? A mess of GOP ideas deemed able to pass muster with enough votes to be done with it. It contains an extra $8 billion of unfunded pork to suggest a concern for those with serious medical problems.
It speeds along with no Congressional Budget Office examination.
What the GOP gets
They get the satisfaction of killing Obamacare, something their constituents may not want. And if the bill becomes law they get to see if competition among insurance companies lowers rates. I am sure the media will be around to report to us if those prices plummet.
The keyword in the law is waivers. Proponents feel this is a good thing. Opponents sense that this will enable individual states to continue an unbroken record of disregard for the poor and vulnerable and seriously ill.
Plunging ahead carries its own risks — short- and long-term https://t.co/Zey2oOC2Ho
— Axios (@axios) May 4, 2017
Summing up
The bill cuts $880 billion from Medicaid.
The bill could leave 24 million uninsured. Obamacare restrictions on messing with preexisting conditions are reduced and imperiled. The GOP opens itself up to heavy criticism for spending money without any regard for actual costs or who pays or how to afford things like subsidies to make up for lost care. We are back before Obamacare. We are taking an imperfect plan that works, kind of, and substituting something we have every reason to believe will be a disaster. One can only hope that one of the casualties will be the GOP.
