On today’s BradCast, the GOP health care plan to “repeal and replace” Obamacare has landed with a thud among Democrats and, only somewhat more suprisingly, among so-called conservatives. And, as our guest argues today, that may have been the plan all along. [Audio link to show posted below.]
House Republicans leadership introduced their long awaited health care plan on Capitol Hill late yesterday and we break down the details of it today. But, other than Donald Trump who described it, via Twitter, as “our wonderful new healthcare bill”, the plan does not seem to be going over well in a number of key quarters. Of course, Democrats oppose the new scheme to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (or, “ObamaCare”) and Republicans have yet to have their new plan, dubbed the American Health Care Act, scored by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). So we don’t know how much it will cost or how many people will actually be covered under it (or lose their coverage, thanks to it.)
But, the more important push-back against the new plan appears to be coming from Republican members of Congress and the rightwing policy groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Koch Brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity. They are calling it “ObamaCare-lite” and vowing to block it, as our guest Ryan Grim, Washington Bureau Chief for Huffington Post reports today.
Grim tells me why, based on his reporting, the roll-out — and the plan itself — appears to be such a disaster, and suggests that Republicans, including Speaker Ryan and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have no actual intention of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act at all. “They’re pretending,” he says. “Also they didn’t think they were going to win the election. They didn’t think they were going to catch this car that they’ve been chasing down the road. The problem for them is that Obamacare itself was basically designed by the Heritage Foundation years ago. So it’s almost unfair for them to try to come up with an alternative to the thing that they developed themselves. But they’re the ones who disavowed their original plan, so it’s not that unfair.”
“Paul Ryan is not an idiot. He has the phone numbers for the Koch Brothers, Club for Growth, Freedom Works, Heritage, all these different outfits that piled on it today. So how was this not worked out [in the last 8 years]? It suggests to me that it’s not actually a serious attempt,” Grim explains before detailing why it is not even a safe bet, at this point, to assume that Ryan and McConnell “actually want to pass something” at all.
Also on today’s show: Trump lied about requiring U.S.-made steel in pipelines like KeystoneXL, and France, fearing the possibility of hacking, cancels on-line voting in advance of their upcoming elections…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_RyanCare_RyanGrim_030717.mp3]
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Vault 7?
The GOP healthcare plan (better described as “wealth-care”) amounts to a $600 billion giveaway (tax cut) for the wealthiest that would, for most Americans, take the word “affordable” out of the Affordable Care Act.
While estimates of the number who would lose coverage by reason of an ACA repeal run as high as 18 million, the MSM has largely ignored the deadly consequences of that loss of coverage.
Based upon a 2009 pre-ACA study it is no exaggeration to suggest that Wealth Care will cause some 45,000 Americans to loose their lives each year simply because they can’t afford health insurance.
This from a hypocritical Republican Party which elevated “right to life” in its party platform.
Contrast the above with a single-payer system which not only extends “coverage” to every American but which would save $1.8 trillion over the next decade and benefit 95% of all U.S. households by slashing administrative waste associated with the private health insurance industry ($476 billion per year) and by reducing pharmaceutical prices to European levels ($116 billion per year),