Day 105: Oust Every House Republican in 2018
The GOP’s position on healthcare isn’t merely irresponsible, it’s deadly.
Donald Trump’s approval ratings are in the low 40s. Should this continue into 2018, voters may take out their feelings for him on various Republican members of Congress via failing by association. That’s irrelevant now.
Republicans in the House are planting their own flag on that hill.
They are set to vote on a healthcare bill today that: strips insurance for millions of people, potentially eliminates life time caps that insurers are required to pay out if a policyholder gets too sick (yes, this also includes Americans who receive insurance through an employer) and allows states to do away the requirement for insurance companies to accept patients with preexisting conditions.
Why these three issues are so dangerous:
- Millions of people lose health insurance: Obviously if people lose insurance and get sick and can’t afford to pay exorbitant out-of-pocket rates for healthcare — read: most of the people in the U.S. — they will die.
- Caps are eliminated: If you get sick and have, for example, a $1 million lifetime cap for care, any amount over that during your entire life and you will be paying out-of-pocket for it. Again, revert to number one above for the consequences if you can’t get insured by someone else. And you probably won’t be able to get insured because you’d have a preexisting condition. Which takes us to number three.
- Preexisting conditions are eliminated: If this is eliminated, and you lose insurance for any reason, you’ll basically be uninsurable without the highest of premiums (think at least five or six figures for some conditions). While Congress is trying to create “high-risk pools” for these individuals, the money earmarked for these pools is far too inconsequential. When the pools run dry, revert to number one above for the consequences.
Congress would allow states to let insurance companies deny coverage for “preexisting conditions” such as violent crimes and child birth.
Now, you may think, ‘Well at least the House has done its due diligence on the American Health Care Act. There must be good intentions here, somewhere.’ Nope. In fact, the opposite.
Many House members haven’t read the bill or its most recent amendments. Others, while previously demanding a CBO score for Obamacare, have seemingly found that unnecessary. (The CBO provides cost estimates for the implementation of a bill. It’s not a particularly time-consuming process.)
The bill is wealthy people over everyone else.
The bill is also politics over people. Republicans promised for years that they were going to repeal and replace Obamacare. Now, they want to do that, no matter what the replacement bill looks like. No matter that the bill is polling in the teens. No matter than Trump is promising that things in the bill that just aren’t there. No matter the fact that Trump promised he wouldn’t cut Medicaid and AHCA slashes it by nearly a trillion dollars. No matter that Congress finds the bill so abhorrent that they are carving out a provision where they (and their staffs) are exempt from having their benefits cut for preexisting conditions. Yes, Congress hates this bill so much, they don’t even want to make themselves bound by all the provisions.
A few moderate Republicans are expected to vote against the bill, but it appears that the GOP has the votes to pass the bill. If AHCA passes the House, it’ll go to the Senate who are expected to overhaul it or write their own bill. From there, it’ll go back to the House for approval before hitting Trump’s desk.
But it matters not whether this iteration of AHCA becomes the law. The fact that Republicans in the House are being so callous and allowing it to become a stone’s throw away is plenty.
Oust. Oust them all in 2018.
105 days in, 1357 to go
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