by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Yesterday Senate Republicans backed off in their attempt to take health care away from millions of Americans, a retreat that is, at best, only temporary. Poor Mitch McConnell had too many party defectors to deal with - on both sides of the issue - and could not muster the fifty votes necessary to guarantee passage of the Senate's version of the Trumpcare abomination.
The Senate effort strangely mirrors that of the House where the original bill stalled, underwent a few inconsequential tweaks, and rose from the dead. McConnell, like Speaker Ryan in the House, is not giving up, only regrouping. He will use the extra few days to broker deals, issue threats, and cajole holdout senators as he tries to bring them on board his ship of lies. McConnell did not become known as one of the most evil S.O.B.'s in Washington, DC, by giving up.
Regardless of the finer points of the final bill, one thing appears to be clear even at this point: Republicans are hellbent on killing Medicaid, a program that has been essential in the medical care of millions of Americans for over fifty years.
Half of all pre-natal care and delivery of babies in the United States is funded through Medicaid, and half of America's children receive their medical coverage through the same program. Thousands of our veterans receive medical care through Medicaid, and many senior citizens rely on Medicaid to pay nursing home bills. Medicaid also functions as a health insurance program for many of America's working poor. It is a program that is absolutely imperative for the health care, and indeed for the very survival, of many of our fellow citizens.
Despite the fact that Medicaid covers people we all know and love, the Republican leadership in Congress is hellbent on destroying it - and after Medicaid falls, the other two pillars of our national health and economic security - Medicare and Social Security - will not be far behind. McConnell and Ryan are princely warriors out to correct the villainy of Barack Obama, Lyndon Johnson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. They are on a mission from God.
The Republicans have traditionally used a myth to undercut the need for these social programs. They create an alternative world of "welfare queens" driving Cadillacs and collecting "welfare" checks. In their faux world view healthy people refuse to work because they know they can get "free" money from the government. There are jobs aplenty, if those lazy louts would just take them.
This week Donald Trump's former campaign manager and current personal counselor, Kellyanne Conway, brought that point home when she suggested that anyone who loses Medicaid coverage should just "get a job" - and then, supposedly, they would have insurance coverage.
Kellyanne obviously lives in an alternate universe. If it were that easy, every housekeeper and bellhop in Trump's hotels would have health insurance coverage - and so would every Walmart associate. Instead, those of us forced to live in the real world see good jobs, those that actually do provide health care insurance, heading overseas, unions being broken by greedy employers with the subsequent loss of benefits - like insurance, and a steady stream of jobs being completely eliminated due to advances in technology. The jobs that are left don't offer benefits - regardless of what Kellyanne thinks.
Too many employers are like Donald Trump and fight giving benefits to anyone. When Medicaid is gone, illnesses go untreated and people will die. That's life - and death - in the real world, Kellyanne.
Citizen Journalist
Yesterday Senate Republicans backed off in their attempt to take health care away from millions of Americans, a retreat that is, at best, only temporary. Poor Mitch McConnell had too many party defectors to deal with - on both sides of the issue - and could not muster the fifty votes necessary to guarantee passage of the Senate's version of the Trumpcare abomination.
The Senate effort strangely mirrors that of the House where the original bill stalled, underwent a few inconsequential tweaks, and rose from the dead. McConnell, like Speaker Ryan in the House, is not giving up, only regrouping. He will use the extra few days to broker deals, issue threats, and cajole holdout senators as he tries to bring them on board his ship of lies. McConnell did not become known as one of the most evil S.O.B.'s in Washington, DC, by giving up.
Regardless of the finer points of the final bill, one thing appears to be clear even at this point: Republicans are hellbent on killing Medicaid, a program that has been essential in the medical care of millions of Americans for over fifty years.
Half of all pre-natal care and delivery of babies in the United States is funded through Medicaid, and half of America's children receive their medical coverage through the same program. Thousands of our veterans receive medical care through Medicaid, and many senior citizens rely on Medicaid to pay nursing home bills. Medicaid also functions as a health insurance program for many of America's working poor. It is a program that is absolutely imperative for the health care, and indeed for the very survival, of many of our fellow citizens.
Despite the fact that Medicaid covers people we all know and love, the Republican leadership in Congress is hellbent on destroying it - and after Medicaid falls, the other two pillars of our national health and economic security - Medicare and Social Security - will not be far behind. McConnell and Ryan are princely warriors out to correct the villainy of Barack Obama, Lyndon Johnson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. They are on a mission from God.
The Republicans have traditionally used a myth to undercut the need for these social programs. They create an alternative world of "welfare queens" driving Cadillacs and collecting "welfare" checks. In their faux world view healthy people refuse to work because they know they can get "free" money from the government. There are jobs aplenty, if those lazy louts would just take them.
This week Donald Trump's former campaign manager and current personal counselor, Kellyanne Conway, brought that point home when she suggested that anyone who loses Medicaid coverage should just "get a job" - and then, supposedly, they would have insurance coverage.
Kellyanne obviously lives in an alternate universe. If it were that easy, every housekeeper and bellhop in Trump's hotels would have health insurance coverage - and so would every Walmart associate. Instead, those of us forced to live in the real world see good jobs, those that actually do provide health care insurance, heading overseas, unions being broken by greedy employers with the subsequent loss of benefits - like insurance, and a steady stream of jobs being completely eliminated due to advances in technology. The jobs that are left don't offer benefits - regardless of what Kellyanne thinks.
Too many employers are like Donald Trump and fight giving benefits to anyone. When Medicaid is gone, illnesses go untreated and people will die. That's life - and death - in the real world, Kellyanne.
3 comments:
If only Kellyanne and her allies were in charge of the free world! Oh, wait.....
There is nothing "free" about their world!
I find it difficult to reconcile Kellyanne's rhetoric with anything approaching concern for the human condition.
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