Trump and the GOP Are Hell-Bent on Making America Sick Again
Earlier this month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tried to turn Donald Trump's signature line – "Make America Great Again" – against him by saying that Trump was trying to "make America sick again." Though Schumer was talking specifically about the Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare, this slogan is becoming increasingly appropriate for the entirety of the GOP platform.
What other conclusion can we reach given the chief policy proposals being put forward by President-elect Trump and the leaders of his Republican Party? There's no definition of "great" that includes millions more people getting sick and dying. Yet, by all measures, everything they're proposing related to health will lead to just that.
Take what Schumer's referring to: Obamacare repeal. Though repeal is far from a certain outcome, the Republican-controlled Congress has taken the initial steps necessary to get rid of President Obama's signature legislative accomplishment. Various Republicans have developed half-baked proposals with which to replace Obamacare, but despite having almost seven years to do so, the party as a whole is as close to coalescing around an alternative plan as they are to finding Jimmy Hoffa's body. In other words, if they do anything, it's going to be repealing Obamacare without quickly replacing it – contrary to what they've recently promised.
What will that mean for Americans? On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office gave us the answer: If Obamacare is repealed, nearly 20 million people will lose their health insurance, in the first year alone. Factoring in the complete loss of Medicaid expansion and marketplace subsidies, that number would increase to 32 million.
If it's not obvious, losing health insurance is not just an inconvenience to Americans, but rather quite serious, if not outright deadly.
An exchange captured last week between Paul Ryan and a constituent illustrates this: Jeff Jeans, who said he was a Republican who'd been opposed to Obamacare because he thought it would shut down his small business, explained to Ryan that, after he was diagnosed with cancer at 49, his life was saved because of the health care law. "Because of the Affordable Care Act, I'm standing here today," he said. "I rely on the Affordable Care Act to be able to purchase my own insurance. ... I want to thank President Obama from the bottom of my heart, because I'd be dead if it weren't for him."
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