For eight years, all republicans ever talked about or voted on was repeal and replace Obamacare. As it turns out, their solution is a Dickensian version of healthcare cobbled together in the last few seconds. Worse, the dim-witted republicans who crafted this debacle, gathered together on the White House lawn and in a spectacle of stupidity, feigned the appearance of action while kicking twenty-four million Americans off their healthcare. Republicans have somehow managed to take something that only needed fixing, completely dismantle it and render it useless. Three signature provisions to this legislative masterpiece allows states to opt out of pre-existing coverage, permits insurance companies to raise rates on patients with pre-existing conditions and defunds state expansions of Medicaid. This abomination eliminates protections, cuts hospitalization, doctor visits, maternity, mental health, lab tests, Planned Parenthood, prescriptions and preventative care. However, the real cruelty is designed to reveal itself in just a few years. Once the Obamacare subsidies are replaced the middleclass will struggle to renew insurance policies and state budgets will collapse trying to provide health services to the working poor and the elderly.
The truth is this debacle is simply another tactic in the broader republican strategy to render government agencies weak and ineffective. This is the driving principle behind the republican healthcare bill-to dismantle social insurance like Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid by eroding federal funding and public support over time. As Obama recently stated so eloquently “It actually doesn’t take a lot of courage to aid those who are already powerful, already comfortable and already influential. But it does require some courage to champion the vulnerable and the sick and the infirm.” And that is the difference between actually governing and simply opposing legislation to protect private interests.
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Discussion4 Comments
I agree that the Republicans by all accounts seem to be trying to starve the government financially and dismantle services evolving out of the New Deal era. The direct beneficiaries are the wealthy one-percent who will reap the greatest tax write-offs and refunds and the corporations who will continue to benefit from the Draconian tax laws and labor union destruction. Till now, corporate America has been spared the social costs of plant closings, cut backs, and relocations by largely dropping these expenses on the public sector. If the public sector is financially starved, who will pick up these costs? Most likely no one, so f–k you American workers.
Without the vast number of industrial, high paying, jobs that carried the nation in the past, our economy and society will become even more vulnerable. This is so shortsighted, since our economy has historically depended on consumer purchases for almost 2/3 of GNP. If the vast majority continue to lose ground financially, with or without safety nets, they will be forced to pull back on spending sending the economy into a tail spin.
I agree with your excellent assessment regarding the underlying challenges facing the American economy, particularly your comment that corporate America has been spared the social costs of plant closings, cut-backs and relocations….I would add tax evasion to this deriliction of duty.
Although complicated, I believe there are solutions to these problems however, the corporatocracy and the politicians who carry their water continue to influence our legislation and public opinion by creating false dichotomies, misinformation and meaningless distractions.
The real problem, I believe is democrats and progressives simply don’t show up and vote….Trump is the consequence.
Okay, I’ll accept that. However it is not only about voting. If citizens are not satisfied with the government they have, they need to step up and get educated, take a position and get involved; hold elected officials feet the fire; attend local government meetings and voice concerns. I’ve seen that work in my town. Politicians give lip service to their constituents because we let them by our inattentiveness or lack of interest. Make no mistake, they listen to real numbers, people in the streets over online petitions.
I’m still waiting for a spontaneous taxpayers revolt as Mr Trump directs more of our money toward defense spending making less available for positive economic and future investments in our people.
Where we both agree is freedom isn’t free in a democracy. Refusing to be involved in politics or at least aware of the issues is a dereliction of duty.
Accordingly, fascists love an uneducated populace who are willfully ignorant and subscribe to false patriotism. With the blessing of the politicians in their thrall, the vulture capitalists and free market zealots fear very little today…….except one thing-the collective vote.
In spite of the people having the ability to rise up and demand immediate change, the ruling class has kept the electorate underfed, underpaid, under-insured, over-armed, paranoid and ultimately uninformed. The result is a gullible people who are distracted from the systematic dismantling of the middle class and easily swayed to vote against their own self interest. Maybe, just m a y b e the destructive Trump doctrine will inspire Americans to take notice of the Republican agenda that is merely using Trump as a distraction. As Edward Murrow once said, “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves”