This is an absolute clown show.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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On the plus side, BooMan, you’ll have no shortage of material for the next four years.
It’s not easy frantically tap-dancing in clown shoes.
Would you prefer focus, determination, effectiveness?
(The question is neither rhetorical nor trivial; if, or insofar as, your answer is yes, please tell us why.)
Health care policy is complicated and fraught with extraordinary implications for real people. Even a move to a public option or a single payer program would be complicated and fraught with extraordinary implications for real people.
While this summary does make it sound like the Republican conference is scattered on the issue, it’s actually a relief to hear that in private they’re not dominated by Randians who just want to burn it all down. Unfortunately, the appearance of smidgens of conscience and political sensibilities among their Caucusmembers doesn’t mean we’re going to get good policies out of this mess. It does mean we can mitigate the damage if we do what we need to do in the days, weeks and months ahead, though.
And then the building and rebuilding can start anew.
Reading it, I felt the same way. It looks like they’re scattered and, given the scale of this thing called repeal, it’s looking more and more likely we can win over a couple of votes in the Senate. These guys are politicians. They didn’t get to the Senate or House by being completely obtuse. I’ve no doubt they’d repeal in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it. But people will die and the news coverage and attack ads truly write themselves.
I feel sick to my stomach
My country, ’tis of thee
Sweet land of bigotry….
International medical students end up becoming a high percentage of primary care providers in the US. The lack of primary care physicians (less pay, more hours) is one of the causes of higher health care costs, longer waits, etc.
What amazes me most of all is the extent to which one party has become a repository of sociopathy. Heck, they’re not even trying all that hard to hide it. Evasive and misleading rhetoric is all they got. When people begin dying because they’ve blown up the system, there will be no place to run or hide. Some of them appear to have a sense that you can’t just “repeal and replace” or “repeal and delay”; that there will be consequences and they’ll have to provide real answers or be held accountable. Somehow, I don’t think “FREEDOM!” is gonna cut it.
What concerns me, and by “concerns” I mean “terrifies”, is the scattershot approach these fuckers are attempting to use. Some want tax rebates, which sounds like death to the middle class and the tax code as well, plus these other harebrained ideas about interchanges across state lines and whatever else they are pulling out of desperate thin air.
The fact that they would jeopardize a large part of the population simply out of spite enrages me. They could have come into office with ideas to make the ACA better, to revise and enhance it, fix what didn’t work. They did not have to come in with jackhammers and wrecking balls, pounding their chests like conquerors.
They are desperate to prove how smart and tough they are, but they look like idiots. And we will pay in the end.
Indeed!
However, all those people who get all their news from Fox are going to believe that it’s all Obama’s fault (or maybe Pelosi’s or Hillary Clinton’s fault) when they’re up a creek with no insurance. Plenty of people will be worse off when the GOP gets done with whatever they’re going to do, and lots of Trump voters will know they’re worse off, but will they actually vote for Democrats? A girl can dream, I guess.
Don’t get over confident. Keep the pressure on. Policy making often looks like a shit-show when the curtains are pulled back and repeal is incredibly symbolic for the GOP.
too coarse, ‘r sumthin’?
Cuz it’s accurate regardless.
The dog caught the car and doesn’t know what to do with it.
I see so many complaints, worried posts and condemnations about this. The one clear message that is missing is this has been allowed to happen by “WeThePeople.” It will continue as long as the people allow it to.
The one theme that Trump is helping his opposition on is his pace. By being so extreme on so many side issues he’s using up his political capital – outside the party – at an alarming rate. And he started out with very little as the most unpopular incoming prez-elect.
So when the tough fights come later, the professional pols won’t be siding with a loser.
As they learned from Bush (even though the Democrats didn’t) enough self-inflicted traumas lead to wave elections like 2006 and 2008.
Unfortunately, just like the Democrats used up 10 years of political capital on health care, the Republicans might be willing do something similar on Social Security and Medicare, even if they’re stuck on Obamacare. Plus they have the Supreme Court for the next two generations in all likelihood.