Thom's blog
The Secret On TrumpCare Is Now Out
The Senate Republican healthcare bill is secret no more. There's just one problem - it's not really a healthcare bill.
Don't let Mitch McConnell fool you.
Contrary to what you might have heard - Senate Republicans DID NOT unveil a healthcare bill yesterday.
They unveiled a tax cut for the rich DISGUISED as a healthcare bill.
Just like the so-called healthcare bill passed by House Republicans last month, the so-called healthcare bill that Senate Republicans unveiled today strips away protections for people with preexisting conditions.
It also does away with the individual mandate and would let insurance companies charge older customers 5 times more than younger customers - a practice currently held to 3 times younger people under Obamacare.
But that's all window-dressing.
The real centerpiece of the Senate Republican bill is the giant tax cut it gives to the rich - a tax cut paid for almost entirely by taking a nine hundred billion dollar chainsaw to Medicaid, as Paul Ryan brags:
"And so yes, it is important that we get this [the health plan] done so that we can do tax reform. Because this bill also takes out about $900 billion in tax increases, the Obamacare tax increases are taken out which makes it $900 billion easier to reform the tax code afterwards. That's why this is really important."
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren put it best today when she called these cuts "blood money:"
"Medicaid is the program in this country that provides health insurance to one in five Americans, to 30 million kids, to nearly two out of every three people in a nursing home. These cuts are blood money. People will die. Let's be very clear. Senate Republicans are paying for tax cuts for the wealthy with American lives"
This is class warfare by any other name, isn't it?
Why are Republicans only for wealth redistribution when it means stealing from the poor, elderly, and disabled to give to the rich?
-Thom
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