Here we go again. Just when we thought that our healthcare system was safe and ready for improvement, Zombie-Trumpcare re-emerged from the crypt. The latest version of the Republican effort to demolish our healthcare system is the Graham-Cassidy-(Heller-Johnson) bill.
Graham-Cassidy will take insurance away from an estimated 32 million Americans. Every major physician and hospital group is against this travesty. Every major organization dedicated to the health of a particular body part or aimed at fighting a specific disease is against it. Retiree organizations, reproductive rights groups, and consumer associations are all against it.
Who is for it? Most Republican politicians are reflexively for killing Obamacare because... Obama! Trump, who is desperate to sign anything that he can declare a "win", is for it. Billionaire GOP donors are for it, in order to free-up money for their promised tax-breaks. But right at the forefront of this drive to demolish our healthcare system is Wisconsin's worst political hack- Gov. Scott Walker.
The Graham-Cassidy provision that has Walker licking his chops sends huge federal sums to the states as block grants. Governors like Walker could spend these billions any way they want, with little control. Somehow, having 50 different insurance systems is supposed to be better than having uniform healthcare standards and laws across the country.
Walker has been involved in this most recent attack on the ACA from the beginning. Rather than working to help the people of Wisconsin, he has spent much of his time trying to take away our healthcare. He traveled to the White House several times since January to lobby against the Affordable Care Act.
Walker attended an emergency White House meeting in July after a previous repeal bill had failed in the Senate. Among the attendees were HHS Secretary Tom Price, Sen. Cassidy, former Sen. Rick Santorum, and the governors of Mississippi, Arizona, and Arkansas. The far-right group soon congealed around the block-grant concept.
In a Breitbart interview (don't worry, I disinfected my keyboard), Walker spoke about the White House meeting and the repeal efforts that became Graham-Cassidy, "I think it's awesome....What a perfect way to kick start a true repeal and replace of Obamacare by sending it back to the states where we’re definitely more effective, more efficient, and more accountable to the people."
In the same interview, Walker said that Graham-Cassidy is a way to head-off a Medicare-for-All system,"...my fear is at some point in the future there will be a decisive push to go the opposite direction and instead of repealing they will push for a government-run single-payer system which would be horrible for people. That is something we have to prevent from happening and I think this gives us our last best effort to do that.” It appears that Scottie's fear is my hope.
Walker is doing everything that he can to take away your healthcare through the atrocious Graham-Cassidy bill. For example, earlier this month, he published an opinion piece, "States Can Fix Obamacare's Mess". The article strongly pushes the right-wing panacea of block grants to the states.
A bipartisan group of governors wrote to Mitch McConnell, asking him to refrain from bringing Graham-Cassidy to the Senate floor. But Walker was having none of that. He sent his own letter, signed by a strictly partisan group of GOP governors, asking for a floor vote on the bill to kill healthcare.
So Walker, who is responsible for the WEDC boondoggle of lost and untracked millions of dollars is asking for control of billions in federal block grants. Walker, who cost hardworking taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by turning-down Medicaid expansion, wants to have complete control over our state healthcare system. Walker, who negotiated the failed Foxconn fiasco, wants us to trust him with our lives.
Walker wants us to believe that a state government, run by kleptocrats like him, Robin Vos, and Scott Fitzgerald will be "more effective, more efficient, and more accountable to the people".
Under Walker, Wisconsin has become a pay-for-play carnival. Organizations seeking favorable treatment by the state inevitably donate to GOP candidates. With Walker's control of billions more in block-grant money, our state will turn into a special-interest feeding frenzy. It's no wonder that the Governor is pushing this block-grant idea so hard.
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