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Something Really Really Great

The Republican Party has repeatedly voted to abolish our health care bill for the last seven years, knowing without a doubt that the President would veto the bills.  They assured us that they had great plans to replace "Obama Care" with something really great that would provide better care, cover more people, and save vast amounts of money.

Now they have shown us what they had in mind:  Trump Care.  The Congressional Budget Office said their plan would deprive millions of people care, cost more, and offer less.  And when, in the last day or two, it became apparent that they did not have a majority to enact their plan, they sweetened the deal:  they offered to eliminate outpatient care, emergency services, pregnancy, maternity and newborn care, prescription drugs, pediatric care, and much more.

No deal!, the Republicans said.  No deal!

We cannot even pretend it costs too much.  President Trump has proposed to build a big, beautiful, Berlin wall from the Atlantic to the Pacific along our Mexican border, and that will not only cost billions, but it is a dead end black hole for throwing money into.  So money is not the issue.

The issue is this:  the Republican Party does not want anything to do with providing health care.  They would like to leave that for people to provide for themselves.  "How about a health savings plan?", they ask, as if everybody had plenty of money to sock away just in case they ever needed health care, or a hospital.

After seven years of weasil-words about how much better their plan is, they admitted that even the jerry-built plan they proposed was faulty:  it still had some elements of health care in it, and they proposed to eliminate those, too.

They could not agree, even on that.

But they will be back, they promised, after they have built that wall, overhauled the tax code, rebuilt the already-biggest military machine in the world, and talked to some people they know in Russia.  It will be great!

It will be wise to ask the Congressional Budget Office how many people will lose they health care every time they make a proposal, and what their really great plans will cost, actually.

In the meantime, we may expect them to try to starve our present health care system to death:  walls cost money, you know.  We have to cut something, somewhere, since they also want to cut taxes for the rich.  A really great society has to have really rich people, you know.  The poor we have with us always:  Jesus said that.  It is really rich people we have to provide for.

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