GOP about to pass secret health care bill while they think no one's paying attention
After trying and failing — and trying and failing and trying and failing again — to repeal Obamacare, you would think Republicans would let it go and finally move on. Instead, they have quietly been plotting another attempt to destroy health care in America. According to Andy Slavitt, a former aide to President Barack Obama, […]
Instead, they have quietly been plotting another attempt to destroy health care in America. According to Andy Slavitt, a former aide to President Barack Obama, “They’re pretty sure people aren’t paying attention.”
And that’s why they’re on the verge of ramming through a new Senate bill that, according to Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, one of the authors, reportedly has the support of 48 or 49 senators already.
One of those senators? Arizona’s John McCain. After he cast his surprise “no” vote in July, Donald Trump — and other conservatives — railed against him for what they considered the decisive single vote that killed their repeal efforts.
This time, though, McCain is apparently on board with selling out the American people.
The so-called Cassidy-Graham bill is, like all the other Republican attempts at repeal, a disaster. Except that this is particularly extreme, despite the bills’s sponsors disingenuously insisting it’s a “compromise.” It would eliminate Medicaid expansion entirely, as well as insurance subsidies, both of which have expanded health care access to millions of Americans who could not otherwise afford it.
That’s not all. Under this new plan, insurance companies would be allowed to discriminate against pre-existing conditions — something Obamacare prohibits. Because while Republicans don’t think Americans have a right to health care, they believe insurance companies have a right to gouge sick people.
That’s a far cry from the proposal Senate Democrats introduced this week, a “Medicare for All” plan to insure every American for less money. As New Jersey’s Cory Booker, one of the bill’s sponsors said in an exclusive interview with Shareblue Media, “Health care goes to the core of our ideals as a nation. You can’t have life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without health care.”
Republicans don’t see it that way. And while much of the country — and the media — has been focused on the devastation of major hurricanes in the last few weeks, as well as the incessant chaos and ugliness from the White House, the Senate GOP has been scheming to finally achieve their yearslong dream of repealing Obamacare while no one is looking.
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