http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-senate-hidden-20170623-story.html
Michael Hiltzik reports for the LA Times:
“The Affordable Care Act repeal bill unveiled Thursday by Senate Republicanshas aptly drawn universal scorn from healthcare experts, hospital and physician groups and advocates for patients and the needy. That’s because the bill is a poorly-disguised massive tax cut for the wealthy, paid for by cutting Medicaid — which serves the middle class and the poor — to the bone.
Yet some of the measure’s most egregious, harshest provisions are well-disguised. They’re hidden deep in its underbrush or in the maze of legislative verbiage. We’ve ferreted out some of them and present them here in all their malevolent glory. In this effort we’ve built on ace detective work by Adrianna McIntyre, Nicholas Bagley of the University of Michigan, David Anderson of Duke University and balloon-juice.com, Andy Slavitt, the former head of Medicare and Medicaid in the Obama administration, and
Some of these provisions match those in the House Republicans’ repeal bill passed May 4, and some are even harsher — more “mean,” to use a term President Trump himself applied to the House bill. That bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would cost some 23 million Americans their health coverage by 2026. The Senate bill wouldn’t do much better, and might do worse.”
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Wow, how can members of the “national community” support doing in not only themselves (in many cases) but millions of their fellow citizens? I admit to “not getting it.”
I think it’s likely to pass. Why? Because if you forget the Dem & media “spin,” N/W/S “historic unpopularity,” Trump is still the most popular “active” politician in the US today. The Dems have failed to make any inroads whatsoever into the “Trump base.” And, the GOP is scared that failure to line up behind the Trump agenda will lead to their being punished by “the base.” So, in simple terms, the 60% of Americans who question or oppose the Trump Agenda are being “led around by the nose” by the 35-40% who love him (why is a total mystery). Trump is benefitting from the “leadership void” in American politics, particularly on the Democrats’ side.
PWS
06-23-17