Tag: Obamacare

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The Retreat Becomes a Rout

And, no; I’m not talking about Democratic failures in the face of the Republican onslaught. What’s being routed is common sense, practicality, reason, and stability.

The president has ultimately decided that if Congress is not going to strip health insurance from millions of people, essentially box them into buying policies that have unconscionably sky-high deductibles (because they’ll be the cheapest ones) or do not cover essential services such as addiction, mental health or family planning, then he is going to do that unilaterally.

By executive order.
Which Republicans hated when Obama issued them.
But we know what that was all about.
Don’t we.

And he’s planning on having the Democrats take the blame for it. That’s a retreat from reality, but then again, President Trump lives on the banks of denial, and he’ll continue to blame everyone except himself for the carnage that will follow. Of course, I do agree with the president that insurance companies should not get a payoff or have their profits subsidized with taxpayer money, but that begs the question of why he doesn’t really work with Democrats to construct a public option to compete with them.

Yes, I know the answer lies in a maelström of contradiction, ignorance, bombast and cruelty, but still.

This, though, is just the domestic bomb. The one that could get us all killed is in his actions on North Korea and Iran. By backing away from the Iran deal, and again leaving it to Congress to follow behind him and scoop up the mess, he makes a deal with North Korea that much more remote. After all, why would any dictator look at how we treated Saddam Hussain, Muammar Gaddafi and now Iran, and want to enter into any deal with us, knowing that at any time the president could abrogate or ignore its provisions? Further, Hussain and Gaddafi were killed after giving up their weapons of mass destruction. Kim and the mullahs are smarter than that.

Any astute reader of US foreign policy would also see that what the president says is not always what the policy turns out to be. Many of Trump’s secretaries have had to clarify, which means contradict, what he’s said because what he’s said would start a war. Cooler heads have prevailed, but cooler heads have also been seen rolling on the floor after a combustible president decided that they weren’t showing enough fealty. or at least got caught doing something stupid.

The real problem is that the United States is losing its credibility and its influence in the name of empty nationalism and the belief among Trump’s supporters that he somehow has the country’s best interests at heart. I don’t think he has our best interests and I’m rethinking the notion that he has a heart. What the president has is an insatiable desire to be the story, all day every day. And as we know from the media, that requires ever-expanding story lines, exaggerations and shock.

The system will eventually react. It will not be a pretty sight.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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The Madness Will Last Beyond March

This is what happens when you’ve hitched your political wagon to a semi-trailer that has “Government Sucks” written on the side in patriotic colors. And when the driver of that semi has no political skill, cogent philosophy or enough sense to know that he’s being led by the nose by unrelenting, uncompromising, unapologetic conservative ideologues while his wingman looks like the deer in the headlights. Then you are heading for a monumental crash.

And the GOP did. Big time.

The Seven Year Obamacare Itch could not be scratched with a made-in-China plastic backscratcher or any of the GOP’s well-manicured fingernails. It was stunning and messy and terrible for the country, except for the fact that millions will keep their health insurance. And it’s only the beginning.

This was supposed to be the easy first step towards a better, Republican-led future but it exposed the House of Representatives as a hotbed of contradictions and competing constituencies. You know, the way the framers envisioned government when they created it. They even built in the idea that democratic ideas need to take time, to marinate in the bowl of public consumption, to gain a consensus, to be debated by the populace over the course of months to make sure that the terrible parts are squeezed out. None of that happened with the health care bill. President Know-Nothing thought this would be quick, and since he has no attention span to speak of, he approved of the GOP’s leadership idea that the bill needed to be introduced one week and voted on in the next.

Oopsy.

But the worst was the spectacle of Trump and Ryan throwing publicly approved healthcare provisions overboard with no thought about how a final bill with no protections for those with preexisting conditions, or guaranteed maternity care or no-cost preventive care would play in, well, Peoria and the areas where Trump won the election. There simply was no health or care in the bill. No wonder only 17% of respondents in the latest poll approved of it.

The other issue with the health care bill, though, is more far-reaching. The money saved in this bill was supposed to fund the giant tax-cut-for-the-wealthy that the GOP was going to tackle next. Now there’s no cash in the till, which means that there will need to be more spending cuts. The ultra-conservatives didn’t like government spending for health care, so they sure as heck aren’t going to vote for a tax cut or a trillion dollar infrastructure bill that might explode the deficit and fund Planned Parenthood. The ultras have the power now and they are immune to Trump’s lame threats and simpering appeals for American greatness.

And, of course, there’s the issue of the Republicans actually funding and running a United States that has an Affordable Care Act. If they were smart, they would regroup and find an alternative that would shore up the insurance markets or make sure that elderly people don’t have to pay more for less care or to make insurance portable so that no American would have to worry about losing their insurance simply because they lost their job or move to take care of a family member. You remember family? The Republicans are supposed to be the family party.

Doing any of this would require Democratic acquiescence, which is doable. The question is whether the GOP will actually ask.

Of course, this won’t happen because the president has already said that the healthcare will “explode” and the insurance markets will tank because…he will make sure that this happens. Then he thinks he’s going to blame the Democrats. The GOP owns health care now, and if the law fails it will be because of their actions.

Do keep in mind that it’s still only March. But the madness will last far longer.

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Donald Trump Donald Trump Featured Healthcare

Trump ‘The Great Negotiator’ Stops Negotiating on TrumpCare

Donald Trump, the self praised “great negotiator” walked away from negotiations today demanding a vote on his TrumpDontCare healthcare bill.

Abandoning negotiations, President Donald Trump on Thursday demanded a make-or-break vote on health care legislation in the House, threatening to leave “Obamacare” in place and move on to other issues if Friday’s vote fails.

The risky move, part gamble and part threat, was presented to GOP lawmakers behind closed doors Thursday night after a long and intense day that saw a planned vote on the health care bill scrapped as the legislation remained short of votes amid cascading negotiations among conservative lawmakers, moderates and others.

At the end of it the president had had enough and was ready to vote and move on, whatever the result, Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney told lawmakers.

“‘Negotiations are over, we’d like to vote tomorrow and let’s get this done for the American people.’ That was it,” Rep. Duncan Hunter of California said as he left the meeting, summarizing Mulvaney’s message to lawmakers.

And if the vote fails, Obamacare “stays for now,” Hunter said.

“Let’s vote,” White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said as he left the meeting.

The outcome of Friday’s vote was uncertain. Both conservative and moderate lawmakers claimed the bill lacked votes after a long day of talks.

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White House Cannot Guarantee that Everyone Will Keep Their Healthcare

OXON HILL, MD - FEBRUARY 24: President Donald Trump addresses the crowd during CPAC at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on February 24, 2017 in Oxon Hill, Md. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

They say Obamacare is bad, but it appears this “bad” law is covering more people than the proposed bill coming from the Trump administration. The White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee, cannot or will not guarantee healthcare coverage to every American covered by Obamacare.

Sanders repeatedly dodged the question on ABC’s “This Week,” saying Trump had promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it “with something that’s better.”

Host George Stephanopoulos pressed Sanders on why, if Trump was so intent on replacing the law with something better, the White House couldn’t guarantee that everyone currently with insurance wouldn’t lose it. Sanders said it was “a goal” to make sure people didn’t lose coverage, but she stopped short of saying people would be able to keep their current insurance, or would even be offered similar plans.

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