Trumpcare Is the Culmination of All the GOPs Health-Care Lies
By Jonathan Chait
The Republican Party in its modern incarnation is incapable of writing a decent health-care bill, if we define “decent” to mean both some level of technical competence as well as morally decent. That inability has been clear to the party’s outside critics for many years. Republicans have fervently denied this, and probably believed their own denials. As a result they locked themselves into a course of action that forced them to propose a bill on a deadline. They seem to have realized the impossibility of the task midway through, but, unable to retreat on their commitment, they instead rushed out a plan that is shambolic and cruel.
The best indication of the quality of the plan is that it has drawn almost universal scorn from the health-care-policy community. It’s predictable that experts on the left would dislike Trumpcare. But the right seems barely any more favorable. Conservatives like Peter Suderman, Philip Klein, Bob Laszewski, and Avik Roy, who have spent years savaging Obamacare, are united in their disdain for its replacement.
The artificial role of the House GOP’s self-created deadline played a crucial role in the development of Trumpcare. After the surprising election handed them full control of government, Republicans quickly decided to capitalize on power with a pair of lightning-strike budget assaults. First, they would repeal Obamacare while delaying any consideration of its alternative, perhaps for several years. Having eliminated Obama’s health-care law — and, especially, the taxes on the affluent that helped finance it — the baseline of expected revenue would be lower. This would enable Republicans to then pass another huge tax cut later in the summer, which they could construct in a way to appear not to lose any revenue (and thus, because of arcane but important budgetary rules, be permanent). After passing their tax cut, they could leisurely set out to design a new plan to replace Obamacare.
When Republicans quickly discovered repealing Obamacare without a replacement was wildly unpopular — polling under 20 percent — they had to change strategies. The new approach would force them to pass a repeal-and-replace all at once, so Republicans in Congress could reassure voters they had something in place after taking away Obamacare. But now they had a vastly more complicated task. They had to do something very hard on a schedule that was designed to do something relatively easy. Republicans believe they need both chambers of Congress to pass a repeal and replacement of Obamacare by Easter, in order to keep the legislative schedule on track to allow for the passage of the tax cuts they crave.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/trumpcare-the-culmination-of-all-the-gops-health-care-lies.html
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5 times more than a 30 year old.
They want to screw over their base.
