I haven’t written about the Republican debacle of health care reform for a few months now. In some ways I feel a bit guilty about ignoring this important subject at such a critical time, but I just couldn’t bring myself to deal with all their lies and duplicity on an continual basis. The bastards wore me down. Something happened this weekend, though, that is worth some discussion and analysis, so I decided to unearth their fetid proposed legislation and have another look. One interesting point before we talk about the flying monkey’s trip to the National Governors Association meeting – nothing has really changed in the Republican’s Trumpcare proposal in the months since I last wrote about it. There is still no method for covering preexisting conditions, 22-24 million people will still be dropped from coverage, Medicaid will still be absolutely gutted, and the bill is still all about a huge tax cut for the wealthy. This is all going to happen with the Senate Republican’s bill – the one that was supposed to fix the “cruel” aspects of the House bill. Anyway, onward. . .

As you may be aware, most state Governors, both Democrat and Republican, have been less than enthusiastic about the various versions of Trumpcare that have seen the light of day. You see, the impacts of the $774 billion cut in federal Medicaid funding proposed by the Congressional compassionate conservatives will fall directly on the states. Those cuts will immediately strip Medicaid coverage from 3.3 million Americans, primarily disabled people, senior citizens, and children. 31 of the states would also see their expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare rolled back. Essentially, these rollbacks remove health care from the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society. Governors, for the most part, are aware of what these cuts will mean to their citizens and, more importantly, to their re-election chances. In short, Governors, as a group, are NOT on board with Trumpcare and those Governors have tremendous influence over their state’s Senators who will be voting on this deformity in the next week or so.

Given all that, the Trump administration sent some of its heaviest hitters to the National Governors Association meeting this weekend. It didn’t go well. One Governor described the meeting as “atrocious”. Vice President Mike Pence got the prevaricating off to a flying start with this statement from the podium, “When it comes to Medicaid, not only does the  health care bill expand state flexibility, it ensures that every state has the resources you need to take care of your most vulnerable.” HHS Secretary Tom Price said, “We’re going to be able to cover more individuals on this bill than are currently covered”. Those statements are outright lies. They are not misstatements about the bill’s strengths and weaknesses. They are lies. These men are lying about what will happen to the sick and the poor in this country from their bill. The funny part of all of this is (and there isn’t much that can be called funny here) that each and every Governor in the room knew that they were lying. All the staff in the room knew that they were lying. All the press knew that they were lying. And Pence and Price must have known that the entire audience knew that they were lying as they continued to lie. What kind of  representative government is this?

Both the House and Senate versions of Trumpcare will gut health insurance in this country. Medicaid will be destroyed (a long time goal of Tea Party Republicans) and the poor will have no health care insurance. 22 million people, many of them full time workers, will lose coverage. Fraudulent insurance plans, those with high fees, high deductibles, and little coverage, will once again be allowed. People with pre-existing conditions will no longer be assured decent, affordable health insurance. Even people with employer based plans will be adversely affected – requirements for coverage of certain preventative care procedures and medications will disappear. Lifetime and annual limits on coverage will reappear. The list is practically endless.

The Democrats are saying nothing. They’ve made the decision to let the Republicans be hoisted on their own petards. So, there is no help coming from that quarter.

You see, the problem is that the Republican party has spent the best part of 4 decades crying at the top of their lungs that government is the PROBLEM in this country. They have not passed any important legislation in that time, except tax cuts. For the last 8 years, they have been nothing but an “opposition” party. Their entire political philosophy is diametrically opposed to designing and passing a major piece of social legislation. The current Republicans have neither the will nor the skill to create legislation that competently deals with the difficulties and vagaries of health care in the United States. Their original idea was to buffalo this Obamacare repeal through in the first few weeks after Inauguration Day. They made a two fold miscalculation: 1) Republicans didn’t realize how difficult crafting legislation on this scope would be and 2) they didn’t realize the resistance that would arise when people realized that they were about to lose their hard-won health insurance.

So, what do the Republicans do? They propose 2 poorly written bills, one in the House and one in the Senate. Lie profusely about what those bills will do and will not do. Attempt to delegitimize any opposition, such as the CBO or the press, with vague criticisms and insane tweets (from one particular source). And hope that the American public is tired of all of this and will turn their attention elsewhere while they rob from the poor and give to the rich.

Hey, if you have a chance to give a $900 billion tax cut to our friends, it’s worth the risk. I mean how often do you see poor people anyway? Aren’t they always sick? Do they even vote? Well, not for long cause they’re working on that too.