Today I wanted to write about the Senate health care bill, and then CNN reported there were at least eight people at the infamous July 9, 2016 “dirt on Clinton” meeting. One of those was Rinat Akhmetshin, being described as a Russian ex-counter-intelligence officer. See also “Trump Jr.’s Russia meeting sure sounds like a Russian intelligence operation.”
As far as the Senate health bill is concerned, it’s awful. It does nothing to address the real reasons health care is too expensive in the U.S. It relies on “solutions” that have already been found to not work, like high-risk pools and letting insurance companies sell junk insurance. The Republicans seem to think all they need to do is enable young, healthy people to buy cheap insurance and let everyone else die. Medicaid would be slashed considerably. People with preexisting conditions could be denied coverage at any price. See also:
Paul Waldman, “The new GOP health-care plan is still an abomination.”
Sarah Kliff, “The new Senate health care bill — and the return of preexisting conditions — explained“
“As far as the Senate health bill is concerned, it’s awful”
Agreed no big surprise? The only person I’ve seen make a cogent argument for fixing Obamacare instead of scrapping it was Susan Collins? I’m not sure what the Democratic party strategy is, maybe it’s a secret?
Saw this on another blog, as Junior would say: I love it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWd6XgBVIcg
Next we’re going to be hearing that they had to bring in extra folding chairs to accommodate all of the participants.
Well, one positive from all this is that the greater the number of people involved the more perilous the perjury snares become.
True, everything in health care in this country is screwed up, probably more than we realize. One of the hospitals here in Walla Walla is closing on 7/24. It was established 118 yrs. ago. Also, I read in our local paper that another hospital in the Tri-Cities area, (about 60 miles away) is in financial trouble. We are left with one hospital which may be enough. However, it is part of the Providence Health System which is based in Oregon and our local paper has reported that they are planning on laying off a bunch of employees. We don’t know yet what will happen to all the employees of our closing hospital. I do know that my cardiologist will be leaving, moving to Yakima. So now I am in the position of searching for a new one or as my daughter suggested, since I have no doctor to tell me what to do, I can just run amok. That will probably be easy for me.
I am not affected by what will happen to the “repeal and replace” notion since I have Medicare but I do sympathize with people who will be.
We have two firm ‘no’ votes on the bill. If even one more republican defects, it’s over. The stakes are huge though – only by ripping the guts out of health care can the GOP deliver the on the promise of tax cuts. The question is: will one republican hold out against the pressure?
Doug — Susan Collins is NOT a firm NO unless she parts with her tradition of dithering sympathetically and then caving to Republican “leadership”. Remember all the efforts to rejigger the ACA to curry her favor, after which she still voted against it? We’re gonna get this turkey good and hard.
Well, I’m certainly enjoying this soap opera.. There was a time when I used to look down on people who idled away their lives on the soaps. But now I find I’ve fallen victim to that same addictive behaviour of spending more time engrossed in the life of someone else, either real or fictional, then my own. It kinda gives meaning to the expression of.. get a life.
Every day is a new adventure in watching the mighty Trump with his bullshit and bluster being exposed for the fraud that he is. My hope is being realized in this latest episode where his seeming invincibility in telling lies and finding safety in words of ambiguity is beginning to crumble.
I don’t think his presidency is going to survive the battle ahead.
‘Knot fer nuttin’,’ but of course the meeting between Mr. Ivanka, Paul ManWhatAturd – the ‘Sucker’s’-apparent-point-man’ – Smearful Leader Jr., and what looks like about half of the KGB’s retired Hall-of-Famer’s, ‘sure sounds like a Russki intelligence operation:’
It’s because it was a “potski-luckski-lunchski,’ and you brought what was most most readily, easily, and quickly avalailable to your side:
-Intelligence, fer da Russki’s.
-Dim/Half/Nit/Fuck-witted gullibility, and a desire to please everyone’s least favorite ‘Smearful Leader’ – “The Pant-load Father” – Dumb-‘n-old t-RUMPLE-THIS-sKKKin!
Oy…………..
I didn’t think I could handle any Alex Jones, but the indie folk song delivery system worked. Thanks, Uncledad.
As much as I hate to think it, so many of the people around me won’t change their minds until they face a deadly medical condition. First, of course, they will blame Obama, old habits are hard to break. But after several of their friends and relatives die from something preventable, they may come around. But, i still wouldn’t bet on it.
The evangelicals and their Republican comrades have been telling their base that “they are at war,” for decades now. Sometimes, I think that really is the case. Their golden haired, golden boy sits in the Whitehouse, and as long as he is winning the war against secularism and the liberal agenda, he can do no wrong. They are not thinking straight, and they seldom think at all. “All is fair in love and war,” as the saying goes. They really don’t care about the tactics as long as they win.
One of my right wing friends posted a Federalist Society ready made. It said “I just don’t believe government should be involved in healthcare.” Fine! So does he object to “promoting the general welfare” or “providing for the common defense?” Does he want to give up his medicare? Is he so “pro-life” that he wants to strip medicaid from poor expectant mothers? How about the CDC and NIH? Does he think a decent plague would straighten things out? Maybe some good old fashioned biological warfare? All of these are obvious questions, but, I am sure he is incapable of considering them.
The Republicans seem to think all they need to do is enable young, healthy people to buy cheap insurance and let everyone else die.
And they might be right.
It makes for lousy publicity but it could buy them a lot of votes among the young.
The republicans bet that Medicaid recipients are not people who vote. Whereas they are more afraid of medicare recipients. I hope a few governors stand up and tell the senate that licking the health care can to the states simply is not feasible. Don’t know if thw senate will listen. All I want is a incessant demonstration real and virtual to the vice president’s office calling him dishonest, not Christian and not conservative. His vote is the one that will put this atrocity into motion and he will need to be held accountable.
The young and healthy will not spend money on crappy policies that cover nothing. they will simply go without. Older and sicker will probably feel forced to do the same and even the insurance industry knows it and does not want to lose their business.
On the DJTJR subject, there is really only one question remaining: when will republican voters congressmen and senators quit rationalizing dissembling and excusing an entire campaign and now government that is legally ethically morally guilty and corrupt. What do they know and why do they excuse it? How much money has gone to the right? Why is the NRA and Christian right suddenly in love with Russia? How much are they being paid to turn the US into a billionaire run kleptocracy like Russia?
Slow, lingering deaths, that impoverish the family. It’s not about taxes; it’s about intensifying suffering.
And if Trump goes, the Kingdom of Gilead is waiting in the wings.
“Every day is a new adventure in watching the mighty Trump with his bullshit and bluster being exposed for the fraud that he is”
Swami, I agree, the thing that gets me is how anyone couldn’t see it on day one, I mean I knew he was classless fucking fraud back in the Rosie O’Donnell days! I really believe the thing that the GOPer tea-tards love about him is the fact that he called our first black president an interloper, the GOP loves that shit, they are after all a party of racists, and Trump knows it!
uncledad…They were blinded by frustration and anger at the nonsense and inability of Congress to function. There was also an element of the lynch mob mentality directed against Hillary Clinton and spurred on by Trump’s incessant calls to destroy her. Look back at the Central Park Five episode to see how Trump portrayed himself as a paragon of virtue in publicly calling for the death penalty for the “animals” who supposedly perpetrated that crime. As a New Yorker it was clear given the information available that Trump was dog whistling. He supplanted the word animals for what he was really saying… niggers and spics. Thereby conflating the act of the crime with the color of the skin. Turns out they were innocent but convicted unjustly by a racist system where Trump was screaming the loudest to see them destroyed and make himself appear as the defender of decency.
Even after they were proven to be innocent Trump couldn’t and wouldn’t acknowledge that he was wrong in his calls to have them put to death.
And just one of the reasons I repeatedly refer to Trump as a big bag of shit. I’ve never seen anybody in my life who is as self absorbed as Trump.