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| People will be beautifully covered ! |
Congressional Republicans and their leader, Donald Trump, are hell-bent on repealing the Affordable Care Act. Repeal is one of the few consistent messages voiced by GOP over the past seven years. It is one of the few ideological tenets holding their party together. They now have the votes. Repeal will be done. Goodbye to Obamacare.
However, what comes after Repeal is unknown. Republican politicians have painted themselves into a corner by their irrational hatred of everything Obama. They have taken steps for Repeal with no Replacement in sight. Last week, we discussed the slim prospects of House and Senate leadership corralling enough Republican votes alone to pass any sort of Replacement. There are too many anti-government nihilists in the GOP to pass any kind of meaningful Replacement program.
Under almost any scenario, some Democratic votes would be needed to pass a Replacement plan. But, that simply ain't happening. Democrats are not disposed to rescue their right-wing colleagues from their self-imposed and avoidable disaster.
On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report on the horrendous human and financial costs of ACA Repeal. Repeal will deny coverage to 18 million additional people in the first year, ballooning to 32 million more uninsured people by 2026. Premium costs will skyrocket over the current projections, shooting up 25% more the first year and doubling current projections by 2026.
This certainly doesn't sound like the rosy plan promised us by Donald Trump. He has variously called his secret scheme a "great" plan, a "terrific" plan, and an "unbelievable" plan. In a Sunday interview, he said that his plan would provide "insurance for everybody". He said the people "will be beautifully covered !"
It also doesn't sound like the rosy plan promised us by Paul Ryan. He has pledged that "no one will be worse-off." During a CNN Town Hall last week, Ryan promised that his replacement will be "something better."
Seeing the slow but inexorable healthcare disaster heading for their party, Republicans are desperate to get Democrats on-board with their awful replacement scheme. They would love to be able to share the blame for huge numbers of new uninsured, ruinous budget deficits, and ballooning premiums. Or in the likely event that no Replacement is actually passed, they would like to be able to accuse "those Democrats" of blocking reform.
In one of his infamous Tweet-storms, Trump pleaded: "It is time for Republicans & Democrats to get together and come up with a healthcare plan that really works- much less expensive and FAR BETTER!"
In a Waukesha Town Hall meeting last Saturday, Congressman Sensenbrenner voiced a similar plea, "Republicans cannot pass a replacement for the ACA on a party line vote, nor do we want to...We do not want it to be a partisan issue." Too bad that Sensenbrenner and his droogs made it a partisan issue long ago by fierce GOP obstruction during initial passage of the law, seven years of single-minded anti-ACA braying, and over 60 party-line votes for repeal.
Democratic Senator Brian Schatz from Hawaii said that his Republican colleagues have approached him to help bail them out-"I think they want a life line because they don't have a plan." Sen. Schatz continued, "They want to be able to claim this is part of a good faith negotiation, but it's simply not.They have no idea what comes next so they want some bipartisan cover for their nonsense behavior."
Republican politicians have rejected our current successful ACA system because of their blind hatred of President Obama. They are calling on Democrats to help bail them out of the mess that they have created for purely partisan reasons. They have broken the system all by themselves. They now own it.
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