Party time
In a major victory for President Donald Trump, the House has voted to dismantle the pillars of the Affordable Care Act and make sweeping changes to the nation’s health care system.
The bill now heads to the Senate where it faces daunting challenges because of the same ideological splits between conservative and moderate Republicans that nearly killed it in the House.
Trump will hold a celebratory news conference at the White House, and GOP lawmakers are expected to take buses from Capitol Hill after the vote.
Yeah, you celebrate, you pampered rich boy piece of shit. You celebrate the millions of people you’re working hard to consign to premature death, untreated illness and disability, pain, isolation, bankruptcy, fear, misery. You celebrate, you speck of human scum.
tfw your foot hurts but you’re really excited about taking health insurance away from millions to cut taxes on millionaires pic.twitter.com/jawzCIbvbu
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) May 4, 2017
This could actually be the thing that makes Donald’s constituents unhappy. Oh, not at first, since they claim to want it, but when it hits them in the face.
Next stop, Social Security and Medicare – let’s mess with the poor, sick, and old now.
iknklast:
Oh yes. This will hit all those working-class white Trump voters that we’ve been hearing so much hand-wringing about, along with everyone else who relies on the ACA for coverage. But it really should come as a surprise to no one. Republicans have been chomping at the bit to get the ACA repelled since it was passed. That was part of Trump’s campaign platform. It’s a real crying shame that it’s come this far, and that so many people’s healthcare has been put at risk.
Hopefully it won’t pass the Senate. But I also can’t see the Republicans letting this go, either. They want the ACA gone. And they are perfectly willing to cause untold misery to millions of Americans to do so.
I hope the media casts describes it for what it truly is. A bill that provides a tax break to the wealthy, paid for by taking money from the poor. Awful.
Reverse Robin Hood.
I bet that dinky little mobility aid he’s using cost more than many families spend on health care in a year. I bet his insurance paid for it to.
Killing millions of Trump voters is basically the only thing approaching good in this bill. Not looking forward to the indirect hit my therapy and drug bills will take.
The comments on B&W are interesting. Americans are often portrayed as being convinced that the US has the best health system in the world and as a consequence lack any curiosity about other countries’ systems. I wonder if, at last, some Americans are getting the message.
One disastrous mistake that social democrats make is to assume that the conservative ideologues are arguing over health outcomes, they’re not, they really don’t care. They don’t regard health policy as the government’s business.
Blood Knight in Sour Armor.@6
Because I have a debilitating illness I need regular blood transfusions to stay alive. Presumably if I lived in the US I would be bankrupted sooner or later. Luckily for me I live in a country with a ‘socialised’ medical system.
@RJW:
Yeah, and I’d very much want you to be taken care of (and you know, the general population). But considering these disgusting, evil little pricks who voted for that monster consistently vote against their own interests I’d like to them to taste the fruits of their misdeeds; as has been said, ~”the wages of sin are death”.
Blood Knight@9
Yes, I often have the same sentiment, however the problem in this case is ‘collateral damage’ ie the effect on people that didn’t vote for Trump and the children of those who did.
I’m also amazed at the way people vote against their own class interests, it’s an enigma.
RJW;
Because the American Dream is still alive and kicking in the minds of the under-informed and over-optimistic, maybe?
I know a lot of these people. They tell me (loudly and often) that the only deciding factor in their vote is a candidate being pro-life. They simply don’t recognize their own interest. It has been blurred over from years of priests and preachers shouting “Baby Murder!”
They consider what happens to them after they are dead to be more important than what happens to them while they are alive. And they have been convinced that the more misery they have alive, the more joy they will have after they die.
There is simply no answer to that type of argument. Except maybe “Nuh uh”, which somehow doesn’t seem to have much affect. Rational arguments simply can’t cut through, because they’ve been trained that rational arguments are a lie, and the work of evil.
Acolyte of Sagan, @11
Iknklast @ 12
I don’t think that mentality is confined to the US. I’ve spoken to people here in Australia who are struggling economically and who vote for the conservatives, they believe that they’re paying too much tax. That’s their One Big Idea. The obvious fact that conservative governments are enemies of wealthfare, public health and health and safety regulations seems to escape their notice. My guess is that right wing parties represent the class interests of about 25% of any Western population, however because of their allies in the MSM they’re able to con another 25% of the citizens to vote for them.
RJW, but how do they con them? With the promise that ‘you too can have what we have, just pop your cross in the right box’. Of course, when the riches fail to materialise then it’s ‘all those bloody lefties’ fault, next time it’ll work for you, you’ll see’.
Who falls for it every time? The chronically under-informed and over-optimistic.