In the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee, Republicans are now confronting healthcare. It’s going something like this:
SENATOR LAMAR ALEXANDER of TENNESSEE: Um…Patty? I didn’t want to tell you this, but we broke the television.
SENATOR PATTY MURRAY of WASHINGTON: What the unholy hell?!?? Are you kidding me??!?
LAMAR: Yeah, um, no. No, I’m not.
PATTY: What’s wrong with it?
LAMAR: Well, it’s smashed.
PATTY: Smashed?!?? Why the hell is it smashed?
LAMAR: See, remember when you told us to be sure to pay the cable bill?
PATTY: Yeah.
LAMAR: We didn’t do it.
PATTY: Figures. So?
LAMAR: We couldn’t watch the ball game.
PATTY: Right.
LAMAR: So, Mitch and Paul and everyone threw bricks at it.
PATTY: You idiots!!
LAMAR: Well, we want to fix it.
PATTY: Yeah, you better.
LAMAR: But we need your help.
PATTY: MY help? Why do you need MY help?
LAMAR: See, we also figured we owed you an apology.
PATTY: Damn straight y’all owe me an apology!
LAMAR: But I can’t get the guys to help pay for a new set unless I promise they won’t have to admit they did anything wrong.
PATTY: You’re kidding, right?
LAMAR: So, what I need is for you to tell them they didn’t do anything wrong.
PATTY: Why would I make a foolish concession like that?
LAMAR: Because otherwise, the television is going to stay smashed.
This is what’s happening in the committee:
In exchange for funding Obamacare’s subsidies to insurers that cover care of low-income people with severe health needs, Republicans are demanding that some of the ACA’s protections and mandates be waived—and have suggested rolling back the requirement that every insurance plan cover essential health benefits like maternity care and mental health treatment.
Now that the Republicans realize they’re stuck with the Affordable Care Act, they realize they can’t just leave it broken. But Republicans also feel like they have to get some kind of concession from the Democrats or they won’t agree to fix it.
Without a concession or a win they can point to, GOP aides and lawmakers have said, it would be hard to get their caucus on board with funding the cost-sharing reduction subsidies or taking other steps to prop up Obamacare’s marketplaces.
“To get a Republican president and a Republican House and a Republican Senate just to vote for more money won’t happen in the next two or three weeks unless there’s some restructuring,” Alexander said.
So, they come to Patty Murray, the ranking member on the committee, and they ask her to help them eliminate maternity coverage and coverage for people with mental health or addiction problems. They tell her that if she doesn’t give them these concessions, they can’t fix what’s wrong with the health care bill. But of course, the things that are wrong with Obamacare are a result of Republican sabotage. They threw a brick at the individual mandate. They threw a brick at Medicaid expansion. They threw a brick at cost-sharing subsidies. They threw a brick at transitional financing. They threw a brick at the public relations enrollment drive. They threw a brick at health care “in person assisters.” They threw a brick at the premium tax credit.
They did everything they could think of to keep enrollment low, premiums high, and the markets unprofitable.
Ironically, they still didn’t manage to destroy the law. It doesn’t need to be replaced, but it does need some repairs.
The only concession the Republicans will get is that they don’t have to say they did anything wrong. All they have to do is patch the thing up and pay the damn cable bill.
And if they can’t do that, hopefully the voters will fix things next November.
So once again:
Old white guy: “Why should I pay for your maternity coverage?”
Everyone else: “Then let’s scrap your prostate coverage.”
Everyone else: And we’ve been waiting for you to use your mental health coverage since W.
And if they can’t do that, hopefully the voters will fix things next November.
As long as the DCCC recruits good candidates and not idiot, Trump wanna-be’s like Mike Parrish.
Of course, the version of the Socratic Dialogue on Health Care which Repubs have been fed, both by the Noise Machine and the useless corporate media goes more like this:
Sen Patty: “Lamar, the TV set still won’t come on. I’ve fiddled with the buttons and antenny for about 6 years. Still nuthin…”
Sen Lamar: “Still? Still? Goddammit Patty, how many times do I have to tell you? That goddam TV is NEVER going to work!! I went over it and over it a hundred times with you, but you just had to buy that thing against my advice and waste all of our retirement money on it! Now you want to throw good money after bad. Think of the kids for once!
Patty: They want a goddam TV! That’s too much to ask? All their friends have ’em! Beautiful, workin’ TVs! And it was was MY money! It worked when we bought it, the man in the store said it worked just fine! I saw you and your cousin Robby Roberts fucking with it the day I bought it, Goddam you!
Lamar: You’ll believe anything some Goddam salesman tells you! Oh he’s a real expert, yessir! And when I tried to take the damn thing back to the store, just cancel the deal and get us out of it, that’s all, you stopped me ev’ry time! Musta tried to return it a hundred fucking times! And Cousin Robby was just folly’ing the instruction manual. The manual said bang on the side of it! That’s all he did, followed instructions, called balls and strikes! Just why ever in hell you think it’s gonna work now? You are certifiable!
Patty: It needs a new knob! A new goddam knob! That’s it!
Lamar: New knob? You imbecile! It needs a whole new tube–at twice the purchase price! Goddammit!!
Etc, etc.
It’s no surprise that Repubs are going to demand major cutbacks to Obamacare in order “repair” the damage they caused to it. Nor will their manifest efforts to sabotage it ever get into the brains of the American boob.
Thanks for showing where the analogy fails to capture that the debate is over having health care as a part of the public infrastructure and making it seem like a trivial decision about kids preferences for entertainment.
A lot of the time, most of the time even, health care is not a discretionary purchase.
Indeed it really is an externalized manifestation of the household economy’s obligation to care in situations where the household caregiver is facing a limit to knowledge or stamina that health care professionals extend.
It is not a commodity for the market economy that can be rationed by ability to pay.
I don’t pretend to follow all this with complete comprehension. They broke it. They want Patty to let them break it more so they can try to fix it. Or something like that.
No way Patty agrees to those conditions. The GOP surely knows that. Is this just another of their elaborate ruses to blame everything on the Dems? They aren’t bargaining in good faith; everyone can see that. Patty is not dumb.
Hopefully the Senate Democratic response (and the response of the two “helpful” GOP ladies) will be “not no but hell no”.
And the consequences of the GOP not doing it is wholly on the GOP and gets known in their districts and states as the GOP’s doing.
Democrats should stop enabling politicians to abuse the GOP’s own constituents without it clearly being noticed because of “bipartisan agreements”.
Democratic waffling here (cough, usual suspects) preserves Republican dominance.
Interesting that that’s their response to Sanders gaining momentum on Medicare for All.