Repealing the ACA under Trump

[Danny Bateman]

Well, I would assume this gets McCain onboard. He's explicitly tied his support for HC legislation to his Governor's approval of a potential bill. His governor signed off on this one this morning.

 

 

So, I'm going to go ahead an assume that Collins/Murkowski are still No's, because this block grant garbage is far more harmful in terms of premiums and coverage losses than any of the previous bills have been.

 

That leaves... whom to be the third opposition vote? Rand Paul has said he is against this bill, but I don't trust that guy as far as I could throw him. Any serious change he has to toss federal involvement out of healthcare I'd assume he'd take.

 

So who then? Heller is already signed onto the bill.
 

 

 Portman? Capito? There are very few moderate R senators left at this point.

 

We know which way our brave, bold senators from Nebraska will vote. 

 

It's looking like these craven jerks may rush to get this thing passed just under the reconciliation deadline under the safety of having no real CBO score to hold them back & under the guise of "normal order." 

If so, I'm only curious what they will say when the CBO announces this bill will be much more harmful than past iterations. I can only imagine them gleefully saying the CBO is wrong and doesn't know what it's doing.

[NM11046]

Capito, Portman (who is shady af), Alexander & Gardner according to what I've seen by Vox, Slavitt etc.  I think we have to put our hopes in Capito and Alexander.  And the later I don't feel good about.

If we could get half of the husker fans posting about Saturday's game to call their Senators we'd make a hell of an impression.  Just use that negative energy for good, to make a difference!

[Danny Bateman]

The Twitter time machine is amazing.

 

 

[Danny Bateman]

5 hours ago, NM11046 said:

Capito, Portman (who is shady af), Alexander & Gardner according to what I've seen by Vox, Slavitt etc.  I think we have to put our hopes in Capito and Alexander.  And the later I don't feel good about.

If we could get half of the husker fans posting about Saturday's game to call their Senators we'd make a hell of an impression.  Just use that negative energy for good, to make a difference!

 

I think it's increasingly difficult to see Capito & Portman as willing to vote no against this bill after they voted in favor of the initial repeal & replace bill & the skinny repeal.

 

I don't know how one trusts Capito when she says she's holding out because of what their bill does to Americans on Medicaid and still votes for 2 of 3 equally atrocious bills.

 

Portman has already thumbed his governor's eye multiple times on HC, so what's one more? Kasich, by the way, is blasting this go around too:

 

 

Alexander is a bonafide healthcare wonk, but he clings to his conservative vision pretty tightly and is a major critic of the ACA. I have to think if push came to shove he'd opt for a bad conservative repeal, even in lieu of the regular process, over leaving the ACA standing.

 

Gardner is intriguing to me. CO is increasingly blue - he stands to own this vote in a big way if he gives this a thumbs up. One can hope it would lose him his seat. Plus it would lose his state nearly $1B in federal dollars for HC over the next decade! Alexander makes out OK in Tennessee but WV would also lose over half a billion & Ohio would really get hammered losing $2.5B. Notice how this map mostly seems to punish those freeloading blue states? Massive outflow from CA/NY/MA & biggest winner is TX. But some swing states also lose big, such as MI, PA, FL, NV & the aforementioned CO/OH.

That is all ancillary of course, because people will lose access to healthcare and quite literally have to go without under this plan. Many will die. But hey, anything for a GOP win, right?

 

 

[NM11046]

Chris Murphy from CT put together this quick primer on what Graham-Cassidy is:

 

A short primer on all the ways the Graham-Cassidy health care bill is an intellectual and moral garbage truck fire.

 

1. Graham-Cassidy eliminates protections for people who are or ever have been sick. GONE. Insurers are allowed to go back to denying coverage for the sick.

2. Lifetime caps, annual caps, charging older people more - all the greatest hits of Trumpcare are back and in this bill.

3. Medicaid expansion vanishes. Millions will lose insurance, including loads of people with disabilities and children.

4. Premiums go up for everyone by 20% in the first year alone. If you're over age 50 or low income it gets even worse for you after that. 

5. Graham-Cassidy is also a massive funding cut to states. In the next decade, it cuts $4 billion in funding to Connecticut. In order to cope with the cuts, states will either slash programs or raise taxes.

 

Bottom line: Graham-Cassidy is a bill that was written in secret, hurts millions and makes every problem in the health care system worse, not better. It's time for us to mobilize and stop it in its tracks.

[zoogs]

Here's what I've learned: if nothing else, these Republicans are awfully steadfast in their desire to dismantle the gains of the ACA. 

 

Intentions matter. I hope we all remember them, the whole lot of them, for it.

[NM11046]

If any of these are your Senators PLEASE CALL!  Phone lines are quiet and these folks are on the fence.  Calls are carrying more weight than Resistbot faxes:

 

McCain 202-224-2235

Murkowski 202-224-6665

Collins 202-224-2523

Portman 202-224-3353

Capito 202-224-6472

Alexander 202-224-4944

[Danny Bateman]

Block grants are not a good thing, folks. It would allow these conservatives to go home and say they helped inject freedom & choice into your healthcare. They'll probably even say they helped make our HC system more sustainable & save the government a ton of money.

 

But until we get a serious effort to address the underlying reason healthcare costs are climbing out of control, they're merely kicking the can down the road. In this instance, they'd be doing it by putting millions of American heads on the chopping block.

[NM11046]

Got a wife or daughter that might have a baby someday?  Know anybody with cancer?  Autism in your family?  How about Asthma?

 

 

[knapplc]

I follow this guy, and if you have the twitter I highly recommend him.  He just gets it. 

 

 

[Danny Bateman]

In other news, Ron Johnson, one fourth of the quartet pitching this turdburger with his name already on it, is a moron with his head lodged firmly up... somewhere.

 

Koch Bros money is a hell of a drug.

 

 

[QMany]

 

[BigRedBuster]

11 minutes ago, QMany said:

 

 

 

That answer by Roberts is absolutely so unacceptable it's unfathomable that any logical person would buy it......but....unfortunately, there are people who do.

[commando]

17 minutes ago, QMany said:

 

that car wasn't heading for the cliffs edge until trump and the republicans started herding it that way.   

[BigRedBuster]

It may have been driving parallel to the cliff with the wheels hanging over the edge.  But...instead of steering it away from the cliff, they chose to take a hard right turn over the cliff.