Another Inmate Will Be Helping Run The Asylum (Cont.)

In addition to neo- fascist nihilist Donald "Rump" Trump's Social Darwinist pick for Labor Secretary, meet another of today's "crackpots to be invested with authority over life- and- death decisions": Health and Human Services Secretary- designate Rep. Tom "You'll Pay The" Price (Tea Bagger- GA). He's quite the loon on a mission:

The choice, which Trump’s transition team announced on Tuesday morning, would appear to signal Trump’s determination to proceed with a major overhaul of federal health care programs ― including not just Obamacare, which Republicans have sworn to repeal, but also Medicare and Medicaid.

Price, 62, practiced as an orthopedist for about two decades before winning election to the House of Representatives in 2005.

Once in Congress, Price gained notoriety for his right-wing views ― first as chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative lawmakers, and then as a founding member of the Tea Party Caucus. A constant in his career has been a hostility to government interference with the practice of medicine.  [snip]

In 2015, Price was a chief architect of legislation to repeal Obamacare using the budget reconciliation process ― a special legislative procedure, reserved for certain fiscal matters, that is not subject to filibusters in the Senate.

Both the House and Senate passed a version of that bill earlier this year. And while Obama vetoed it, many Republicans are already pushing to use reconciliation as a way to get Obamacare repeal through Congress again in 2017 ― after which Trump, as president, would presumably sign it.

And Price has said he wouldn’t stop with Obamacare. In mid-November, not long after the presidential election, Price said that Republicans could also use reconciliation to change Medicare, as well. [snip] 

Price has also endorsed transforming Medicaid into a “block grant” ― in other words, giving states a fixed sum of money with which to run the program and then reducing the federal government’s spending on it. 

The Affordable Care Act. Medicare. Medicaid. They're going to do trash it all, regardless of (and perhaps because of) the suffering it will cause millions of vulnerable Americans (and to some, like us, who are not in the "gazillionaire" category like Rump's cabinet picks).

We're about to have at least 4 dark years of "elections have consequences" shoved down our throats.

BONUS:  If it's hard to picture what an out- of- the- mainstream kook this guy is, read on.

BONUS II:  Paul Krugman estimates how many Rump voters who have Obamacare just "shot themselves in the face" but, as Steve M. rightly predicts, won't ever blame Republicans.

(Photo: He's going to enjoy taking away your health and human services.)

Morning Read - "Debunking Republican Health Care Myths"

A good read this morning from the New York Times editorial board:

“Disaster.” “Incredible economic burden.” “The biggest job-killer in this country.”

Central to the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz has been the claim that the Affordable Care Act has been a complete failure, and that the only way to save the country from this scourge is to replace it with something they design.

It’s worth examining the big myths they are peddling about the Affordable Care Act and also their ill-conceived plans of what might replace it.

Of course, it's not just Trump and Cruz, it's the entire Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooter's Party that's dedicated to lying about and ultimately killing the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), because they're all about afflicting the afflicted.  

Pols and Pundits: Betting on Obamacare Failing, And Losing

Pardon our indulging in a little more schadenfreude over the success of Obamacare in its first enrollment cycle.  After years of gibberish about "death panels," tripling insurance premiums, beellions being kicked off of their insurance plans, deficit busting, and the end of Freedom in America (courtesy of right-wing media, the Koch brothers and other lying malefactors), we have millions more Americans being covered by affordable health insurance.  While the dead-ender right isn't finished with Obamacare (and will never give up), they may yet pay a price for going all-in on opposing this humane and decent achievement.  Here are snippets of some worthwhile readings:

Greg Sargent:

The announcement of eight million Obamacare sign-ups may finally be enough to jolt commentators into realizing that maybe, just maybe, the Republican plan to build an entire campaign against the law for the next six months might suffer from a few imperfections. The President, for his part, seized on the moment to urge Democratic candidates to stand proudly by the law’s achievements — and to attack Republicans for wanting to strip them away.

Josh Marshall:

On Obamacare, the Republican party has bet big on failure for four years. Now the results are in. And they lost. Big time. 

Of course, substance policy success and political outcomes aren't the same thing. And just as importantly they do not always run on the same time scale. So it is entirely possible. I would say it is likely that the GOP will still derive benefits this November from the core of voters who are extremely upset about Obamacare, extremely motivated to vote and also happen to be the same people who routinely turn out in disproportionate numbers in mid-term elections. But on the core of the policy, which I think there is good reason to believe will align with political outcomes in the future, the results are in. And they lost. 

And, finally, Lucia Graves at the National Journal calls out specific Republican journalists pundits who, in toeing the hyperbolic party line on Obamacare, are seeing their predictions of doom blow up in their smug faces.  The list of numbnuts is much longer than Graves has space or patience to cover, unfortunately =cough= Fox "News" =cough= Krauthammer =cough= Will =cough=.  Of course, the "mainstream media" is/was often complicit in peddling Republican lies in their typical "he-said, she-said" narratives (because,  as NBC's  Chuck Todd has schooled us, it's not the media's job to sort out the truth!). Nonetheless, history will surely and righteously enroll all of them in its Book of Shame.

Time to Play Offense Quote of the Day

"Politicians might panic. But winning football teams just buckle down, slowly take control,  and—above all else—fight. And that’s what the White House needs to do starting right now; not to save its own political neck, but for the millions of people the Affordable Care Act will help and the other millions who have spent years in their various ways organizing for health-care reform." -- Michael Tomasky, writing in The Daily Beast, urging the President, and weak-kneed Dems, to remind us of why affordable health insurance is needed for tens of millions of Americans, including people qualifying for Medicaid under expanded funding (much of which is being turned back by Rethug Governors).

Quote of the Day

"In my experience, it is totally unprecedented to keep challenging a law that's already been passed. The Republicans know that, once this takes place, they're in big trouble because it's going to work."  -- MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who worked on the Massachusetts health insurance reform law (i.e., "Romneycare"), on the desperate attempts by Rethuglicans to derail the Affordable Care Act before it can fully take effect.