2017 May 5^th

The newest iteration of the American Health Care Act has passed the house and has been sent on to the senate. This event was seen as a victory by the house Republicans and it is a victory in this sense: The act is now someone else’s worry, no longer is the house membership under a looking glass to see which member will vote how. That is worth celebrating but the Republicans in the house could not survive without overdoing, so they overdid.

Would you believe these elderly white men held a celebratory beer party on the White House lawn. They were encouraged at every step by President Trump himself who appeared to lead the cheers and, had he not been a tad portly, might have led a victory dance. The scene reminds us of “Animal House.”

OK, so this mess now goes to the senate where the leaders there expect to deconstruct the AHCA and reconstruct it from the ground up, at which point it will be unrecognizable and be sent back to the house…and so round and round it goes.

The Republicans were very careful with this one. We have Ryan on camera in 2009 complaining that his membership had no time to read portions of the ACA before it was voted on and what an awful travesty of good government it was to bring a bill to the floor so prematurely. Now, eight years later, Ryan thinks nothing of bringing a bill to the floor that no one has read.

The Congressional Budget Office has not made its pronouncement about the bill’s cost. That lost at least a couple votes but the Republicans were in such a rush to get this bill out of the house that these normally fiscally conservative people cared nothing for the cost; just get this bill out of the house, they said, and so they did.

None of those considerations that might have caused these conservatives to think about what they were doing was allowed to impede the bill’s progress. If we were to use a sports metaphor it would be like a football team waiting until half time when their opponents had gone into the clubhouse and then running the ball down the field and claiming a touchdown. Desperation produces interesting effects. President Trump had to have a “win” before his 100 days were up and he could define that “win” just as he chose to define it.

Now where are we? The ACA is right where it was; it hasn’t been replaced yet. This AHCA will remove a whopping 75 billion dollars from Medicaid and that will, predictably, go to tax cuts for the wealthy.

You can still get insurance coverage if you already have a serious health condition but that will not be guaranteed by the federal government; it will be up to your state government and certain conditions will apply. In particular, you are not guaranteed that if you already have a health problem that you will be able to afford the insurance available for you. A pot of money has been set aside to help you pay for that insurance but when that’s gone, and it won’t take long, you’re on your own.

If you are an old person your health insurance can now be jacked up a maximum of five times as much as it had cost you before. The ACA cap was three times as much. There isn’t much for the average person to like about the AHCA; there is a great deal for a rich person to like. Of course, maybe President Trump will make us all rich but I wouldn’t bet on that.

 2017 May 5^th

The newest iteration of the American Health Care Act has passed the house and has been sent on to the senate. This event was seen as a victory by the house Republicans and it is a victory in this sense: The act is now someone else’s worry, no longer is the house membership under a looking glass to see which member will vote how. That is worth celebrating but the Republicans in the house could not survive without overdoing, so they overdid.

Would you believe these elderly white men held a celebratory beer party on the White House lawn. They were encouraged at every step by President Trump himself who appeared to lead the cheers and, had he not been a tad portly, might have led a victory dance. The scene reminds us of “Animal House.”

OK, so this mess now goes to the senate where the leaders there expect to deconstruct the AHCA and reconstruct it from the ground up, at which point it will be unrecognizable and be sent back to the house…and so round and round it goes.

The Republicans were very careful with this one. We have Ryan on camera in 2009 complaining that his membership had no time to read portions of the ACA before it was voted on and what an awful travesty of good government it was to bring a bill to the floor so prematurely. Now, eight years later, Ryan thinks nothing of bringing a bill to the floor that no one has read.

The Congressional Budget Office has not made its pronouncement about the bill’s cost. That lost at least a couple votes but the Republicans were in such a rush to get this bill out of the house that these normally fiscally conservative people cared nothing for the cost; just get this bill out of the house, they said, and so they did.

None of those considerations that might have caused these conservatives to think about what they were doing was allowed to impede the bill’s progress. If we were to use a sports metaphor it would be like a football team waiting until half time when their opponents had gone into the clubhouse and then running the ball down the field and claiming a touchdown. Desperation produces interesting effects. President Trump had to have a “win” before his 100 days were up and he could define that “win” just as he chose to define it.

Now where are we? The ACA is right where it was; it hasn’t been replaced yet. This AHCA will remove a whopping 75 billion dollars from Medicaid and that will, predictably, go to tax cuts for the wealthy.

You can still get insurance coverage if you already have a serious health condition but that will not be guaranteed by the federal government; it will be up to your state government and certain conditions will apply. In particular, you are not guaranteed that if you already have a health problem that you will be able to afford the insurance available for you. A pot of money has been set aside to help you pay for that insurance but when that’s gone, and it won’t take long, you’re on your own.

If you are an old person your health insurance can now be jacked up a maximum of five times as much as it had cost you before. The ACA cap was three times as much. There isn’t much for the average person to like about the AHCA; there is a great deal for a rich person to like. Of course, maybe President Trump will make us all rich but I wouldn’t bet on that.

 2017 May 5^th

The newest iteration of the American Health Care Act has passed the house and has been sent on to the senate. This event was seen as a victory by the house Republicans and it is a victory in this sense: The act is now someone else’s worry, no longer is the house membership under a looking glass to see which member will vote how. That is worth celebrating but the Republicans in the house could not survive without overdoing, so they overdid.

Would you believe these elderly white men held a celebratory beer party on the White House lawn. They were encouraged at every step by President Trump himself who appeared to lead the cheers and, had he not been a tad portly, might have led a victory dance. The scene reminds us of “Animal House.”

OK, so this mess now goes to the senate where the leaders there expect to deconstruct the AHCA and reconstruct it from the ground up, at which point it will be unrecognizable and be sent back to the house…and so round and round it goes.

The Republicans were very careful with this one. We have Ryan on camera in 2009 complaining that his membership had no time to read portions of the ACA before it was voted on and what an awful travesty of good government it was to bring a bill to the floor so prematurely. Now, eight years later, Ryan thinks nothing of bringing a bill to the floor that no one has read.

The Congressional Budget Office has not made its pronouncement about the bill’s cost. That lost at least a couple votes but the Republicans were in such a rush to get this bill out of the house that these normally fiscally conservative people cared nothing for the cost; just get this bill out of the house, they said, and so they did.

None of those considerations that might have caused these conservatives to think about what they were doing was allowed to impede the bill’s progress. If we were to use a sports metaphor it would be like a football team waiting until half time when their opponents had gone into the clubhouse and then running the ball down the field and claiming a touchdown. Desperation produces interesting effects. President Trump had to have a “win” before his 100 days were up and he could define that “win” just as he chose to define it.

Now where are we? The ACA is right where it was; it hasn’t been replaced yet. This AHCA will remove a whopping 75 billion dollars from Medicaid and that will, predictably, go to tax cuts for the wealthy.

You can still get insurance coverage if you already have a serious health condition but that will not be guaranteed by the federal government; it will be up to your state government and certain conditions will apply. In particular, you are not guaranteed that if you already have a health problem that you will be able to afford the insurance available for you. A pot of money has been set aside to help you pay for that insurance but when that’s gone, and it won’t take long, you’re on your own.

If you are an old person your health insurance can now be jacked up a maximum of five times as much as it had cost you before. The ACA cap was three times as much. There isn’t much for the average person to like about the AHCA; there is a great deal for a rich person to like. Of course, maybe President Trump will make us all rich but I wouldn’t bet on that.