Trumpcare Mark Two

They . . . did it!

House Republicans voted to overturn the Obama health care law wth one vote more than necessary.  This revised bill proposes does everything the failed bill did -  causing 24 million Americans to lose their coverage, using the savings from the bill for a tax cut for the one percent, cutting Medicaid and defunding Planned Parenthood, and increasing premiums on older Americans.

So what's the difference between this bill and the one that failed in March?  This one creates a pool of eight billion dollars to help people with pre-existing conditions, a tweak inserted by Republican Representative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, which has no chance of actually working.

In other words, it doesn't help anyone with pre-existing conditions.  It only pretends to.

"Insurers will take the money and still charge sick people much higher premiums," says former Labor Secretary Robert Reich in explaining MacArthur's tweak. "Or avoid sick people altogether."

I'm furious at a certain party right now.  I mean the Democrats.  They spent Obama's two terms losing one election after another, they refused to even comment on the health care law in their campaigns, they rigged the 2016 primaries and caucuses to nominate the most beatable Democratic candidate for President since Walter Mondale, and they couldn't even pick up a Senate seat in Louisiana or a House seat in Kansas in special elections that were held after Trump won.  They didn't even stop the first Trumpcare bill (public outcry did).

House Democrats started singing the chorus of the sixties classic rock song "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" to Republicans, suggesting that the Republicans would be out the door in the next election, but it's the wussy Democrats who should be shown the door - preferably the door to an empty ten-story elevator shaft.  They are completely useless as a party of the people - they're too busy hanging out at Metropolitan Museum of Art galas or hobnobbing with celebrities who regularly attend them - and the party's national committee has even insisted, responding to a class-action lawsuit brought by Bernie Sanders supporters accusing the Democratic National Committee of fraud in the presidential nomination contest, that it has the right to tip the scales to get the presidential nominee it wants over the choice of the people.    

Time for the Democrats to go the way of the Whigs.

The bright side of the Trumpcare bill?  It's not likely to survive in the Senate.