Tag Archives: Trumpcare

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GOP now reaping what it has sown

John Boehner was angry, man. He was furious when he took the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Republican congressman from Ohio was furious that Democrats had pushed a bill that sought to reform health care without even reading the massive piece of legislation.

He bellowed, blustered and berated his “friends” on the Democratic side of the floor for shoving this bill down the throats of their Republican colleagues.

Boehner’s anger was righteous.

The Affordable Care Act became law in 2010. Boehner would eventually become House speaker. He would file a lawsuit to get the law repealed. Speaker Boehner, though, bailed on public service after continuing to fight with the TEA Party wing of his Republican House caucus. He’d had enough.

Then the 2016 election occurred. Donald J. Trump was elected president. He promised to “repeal and replace” the ACA. This past week, the GOP-controlled House approved a bill we’ll call “Trumpcare.” It’s an alternative to the ACA. It passed by just four votes out of 430 cast in the House.

But wait! Did the GOP leadership know what was in the bill? Did they read the legislation? Did their GOP caucus members read it? Do they know all the nuts and bolts of it?

Hah! Hardly.

They’ve repeated the sin of their colleagues. Does it make their effort to “shove it down Democrats’ throats” any more palatable? Not in the least.

Instead, GOP House members are hearing loud and clear from their constituents a ringing message: The folks back home don’t like what they’ve passed and what they have foisted onto the Senate for its consideration.

Meanwhile, the president who has crowed about keeping his campaign pledge now has to persuade the Senate to follow the House’s lead. Trump, the guy with zero government experience or knowledge of how it works on Washington, D.C., is going toĀ recieve yet another lesson in how Congress just doesn’t do the president’s bidding whenever he barks the order.

And those Republican members of the House of Representatives who voted for Trumpcare are going to get a taste of what they sought to deliver to Democrats in 2010.

Payback truly is a bitch … you know?

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Talk to us, Rep. Thornberry

The fellow who represents me in Congress has made his point pretty clear: He doesn’t intend to conduct “town hall meetings” with constituents during these lengthy congressional breaks.

I beg to differ with Rep. Mac Thornberry’s reluctance to speak to groups of his constituents.

The Clarendon Republican lawmakerĀ has just voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to replace it with a Trumpcare version of health care overhaul.

Congress is taking some time off. Its House members and senators have fanned out across the land. Some of them are facing their critics, namely their constituents, who are questioning them about their votes in favor of Trumpcare. Rep. Thornberry, to my knowledge, hasn’t scheduled any such public events.

He ought to rethink his schedule.

Do I expect him to get a dressing down from angry 13th Congressional District constituents? Well, I don’t know. He is considered a lead-pipe cinch for re-election in 2018; his district is as reliably Republican as any in the country. Then again, other GOP House members who are equally safe and secure have been getting pounded by their constituents.

I actually want to applaud those Republicans who have voted for Trumpcare to stand before their “bosses” and explain themselves. I think much less of those who have chosen other pursuits while they are at home, ostensibly tending to “constituent business.”

Thornberry’s been in Congress for a long time now. He took office in 1995. He chairs the House Armed Services Committee. He’s got a big job. He once led a GOP effort to come up with ways to protect us against cyber-crime. I’m hoping whatever he came up with is being employed by our spooks to protect our national security secrets against hackers from, oh, Russia!

However, health care is on people’s minds these days. Even, perhaps, out here in the 13th Congressional District.

We’ve been represented in Congress by someone who has aligned himself with those who want to throw out the Affordable Care Act. The Trumpcare replacement well could cost a lot of Thornberry’s constituents their health insurance.

I believe he owes them a thorough explanation of why he cast one of the House’s “yes” votes.

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‘Nobody dies’ because they lack health care?

U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador needs to have his mouth washed out with soap.

The Idaho Republican went home this week, stood before a town hall crowd, and said this in response to a statement from one of his constituents:

“Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

That was the wrong thing to say, young man.

The Lewiston, Idaho, crowd shouted him down. They hooted, hollered, hissed. Why? The answer is clear: They disagreed with Rep. Labrador’s silly assertion.

Of course people have died because they can’t get health care!

Rep. LabradorĀ had just voted for the Trumpcare proposal that repeals the Affordable Care Act and replaces it with the Republican-crafted alternative. It passed the House by the thinnest of margins, 217-213 and now heads to the Senate, where it’s likely to be torn up, tossed into the trash bin;Ā senators then will write their own version of health care overhaul.

Other lawmakers have gone home and they, too, will get a bellyful of bitching from their constituents over the vote that the House has just cast.

A word to the wise to the rest of them: Don’t repeat Raul Labrador’s silly comment.

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‘Trumpcare’ it will be

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Barack Obama’s critics have relished the opportunity to call his landmark health insurance overhaul legislation “Obamacare.”

I chose a while ago to forgo that term, preferring to call it by its official name: the Affordable Care Act. Any reference to the “Obamacare” would acknowledge that’s the term others have hung on it. The former president himself eventually would refer to the ACA by the term used by his critics.

Obama no longer is in office. Donald J. Trump is now the president. Trump has pushed another piece of legislation. It is called the American Health Care Act.

In the spirit of those who were so highly critical of the president’s predecessor, I am now preferring to refer to the AHCA as “Trumpcare.”

Hey, I am as critical of the current president as Barack H. Obama’s critics were of him. My loathing for Donald J. Trump entitles me, therefore, to refer to his version of health care overhaul as Trumpcare.

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It’s his fault, no … it’s his fault, no …

I don’t know whether to laugh, curse or slap my forehead over what I perceive is transpiring in Washington over the development of this so-called “replacement” of the Affordable Care Act.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and his troops want to call it Trumpcare; the president’s allies want to label it Ryancare.

No one wants to touch the American Health Care Act with a hot poker.

The Congressional Budget Office has given the AHCA a bad “score.” Donald Trump’s budget director says the CBO’s numbers are faulty, that 24 million Americans really and truly won’t lose their insurance if the AHCA becomes law.

Meanwhile, Speaker Ryan is having to fend off the TEA Party wing of his Republican congressional caucus, because they hate the AHCA almost as much as they hate the ACA, which they say was forced down their throats in 2010 by President Obama and those rascally congressional Democrats.

Trumpcare or Ryancare? How about Tryancare?

It doesn’t matter what you call it. The GOP had seven bloody years to come up with an alternative to the ACA. The Republicans were too damn busy trashing the initial health care overhaul and its author — Barack Obama — that they didn’t give nearly enough thought to how they would actually replace it.

Now they have something that no one on their side seems to favor.

I’ll give Republicans credit, though, at least for their “diversity” of thought on this issue. Some of ’em like the AHCA, some of ’em hate it. Isn’t there some middle ground to be discovered here?

I think I know what I want to do. I’ll say a few curse words … under my breath, of course.

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CBO numbers are in: not good for AHCA

Donald Trump promised that no one would lose their health insurance under a re-crafted plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.

The Congressional Budget Office’s verdict? Wrong, Mr. President!

There goes a major campaign promise.

As predicted, the Trump administration dismisses the CBO report, which is supposed to be the gold standard in determining the fiscal viability of sweeping, landmark public policies.

The CBO projects that 24 million more Americans will lose their health insurance by 2026 under the American Health Care Act. Not good, right?

Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Tom Price — a leading criticĀ of the Affordable Care Act — says the CBO report is incomplete and inaccurate. Well, of course he would say that.

As the New York Times has reported: “The much-anticipated judgment by Capitol Hillā€™s official scorekeeper did not back up President Trumpā€™s promise of providing health care for everyone and was likely to fuel the concerns of moderate Republicans. Next year, it said, the number of uninsured Americans would be 14 million higher than expected under current law.”

The president has said “no one” would lose their health insurance. If it were anyone else, I would stand and applaud such a declaration. The problem, though, with this president is that I cannot trust that his word is true, that he’s actually speaking from his heart.

I just do not know any longer when or whether he’s telling the truth.

Therefore, I shall rely on the analyses of others, such as the CBO.

***

One more point …

The White House doesn’t want the AHCA to be nicknamed Trumpcare, much the way the ACA was given the name of President Barack Obama, who signed the ACA into law in 2010 and has become identified as the former president’s signature piece of domestic legislation.

Well, too bad. Trumpcare it is!

The Republican leadership in Congress has crafted it. The president has signed on to it.

Let’s hang the president’s name on it.