House Republicans just passed their newest version of the Soylent Green Act, a.k.a. the American Health Care Act or AHCA. (You know they’re losing their touch when they didn’t get “Job-Creating” or “Freedom” in that title anywhere.)
No Democrats voted for it. In fact, Democrats appeared … amused.
Watch: Democrats chant “Hey Hey Hey Goodbye” to Republicans during House health care vote https://t.co/4gTY2fNK6t
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) May 4, 2017
This bill is hugely unpopular, and if it becomes law it’s going to deliver a world of hurt. Fortunately, it’s going to be much harder to get the bill through the Senate.
No Democrats will vote for a bill to weaken a signature Democratic achievement. And while Senate Republicans are using complex rules to pass a bill with a 51-vote majority, they can only afford to lose two votes.
House Republicans were able to torture the policy into something that won enough votes from the far-right and centrist wings of their conference to pass it in the lower chamber. But the same problems are going to crop up again in the Senate, where a critical mass of senators have already voiced concerns about the bill.
The bill still cuts Medicaid by $800 billion and rolls back Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, which has covered millions of people in states represented by Republican senators. It is still expected to lead to upward of 20 million more Americans being uninsured. It still unwinds popular Obamacare protections for people with preexisting medical conditions.
And the way the House bill is written, it will reduce coverage for people who get their insurance from employers, too. And, one more time, the whole point of this exercise is to take billions of dollars out of health care to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
A couple of commentaries —
WaPo Editorial Board: Betrayal, carelessness, hypocrisy: The GOP health-care bill has it all
Paul Waldman:Â Every Republican who voted for this abomination must be held accountable
Add more links in the comments if you find some good ones.