On today’s BradCast: At the end of another hectic (and deadly) week in our now Dysfunctional States of America, Donald Trump has decided to turn his self-loathing and rage over his own failing Presidency into chaos unleashed on the citizens of the nation and the world. [Audio link to show follows below.]
Just hours after his Executive Order on Thursday, issued in hopes of paving the way for worse health care policies to be sold to Americans, the White House announced it would no longer pay subsidies to health insurance companies meant to help cover out-of-pocket medical expenses for low-income citizens. Over the Summer, after months of Trump threatening to cut off the so-called Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments defined by the Affordable Care Act (‘ObamaCare’), the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that doing so would raise premiums by 20%, result in lost health care for 1 million in 2018, and increase the federal deficit by nearly $200 billion over the next decade.
So, of course Trump did it anyway.
The matter now moves to the federal courts, where state Attorneys General have announced they will file suit (along with the insurance companies who will likely do so as well, since they are still legally required to give customers the discounts, whether Trump reimburses them or not) and to Congress, which could pass legislation to mandate the payments be made. We explain what it all means, what Republican lawmakers may do next, and who will be most harmed by the President’s attempted murder of the Affordable Care Act, as he tries to hoax his own gullible voters into believing it was a ‘suicide’.
On Friday, Trump similarly injected even more chaos into U.S. foreign policy by falsely declaring that the seven-nation agreement that prevents Iran from creating nuclear weapons was not in the U.S. interest and that they had violated “the spirit” of the deal. In order to do so, he offered a litany of straight-from-Fox-“News” propaganda about Iran and the deal that would likely embarrass even those from the George W. Bush Administration who falsely sold the case for war in Iraq claiming that they were developing weapons of mass destruction.
That issue, on whether to officially end the long-sought pact — which all other parties (Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia) all agree has been working well — will also now goes to our broken Congress to determine its fate.
But, it’s a Congress with Republicans like Rep. Scott Perry (PA) who accused CNN of “making up” the still-ongoing humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico.
Amidst all of this, one leading Democrat, for what its worth, has an “urgent” idea that might end up saving the world if the otherwise impotent elected members of Congress can ever come to terms with the dysfunction they’ve sown and the monster they’ve given rise to: Take away his nuclear button. Immediately.
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_TrumpChaos_IranNukeDeal_HealthcareCSR_101317.mp3]
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Irrespective of its deficiencies, ObamaCare is the law of the land. President Trump’s effort to deliberately sabotage the ACA, along with his deliberate failure to timely impose sanctions on Russia in accordance to legislation that he, himself, signed into law, amount to egregious breaches of his constitutional duty to “Take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
These amount to abuse of power that is grounds for impeachment.
There are significant differences between a “treaty” and a “deal,” but when the only tool you have is a hammer….
The WhutHouse mole strikes back. The mole herders are happy.