Who Are You Going To Believe - Republicans Or Your Lying Eyes?

The Republicans are trying hard -- man, are they trying -- to convince us that the Senate TrumpCare bill does not do what it actually does.

Look closely. Here's the Republican myth, followed by the reality.

(click on charts to enlarge)

Myth (from HHS Secretary Tom "Tax Cuts For The Rich At Any" Price):



Reality (attribution Mark Sumner, Daily Kos)



The Congressional Budget Office scoring also doesn't lie, unlike Republicans.

Make no mistake, folks: they're still coming after Medicaid so they can give the rich a tax cut.

Senate TrumpCare Bill Wildly Unpopular

Apparently, most Americans can identify a shit sandwich when they see one:

Americans broadly disapprove of the Senate GOP's health care bill, and they're unhappy with how Republicans are handling the efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. 

Just 17 percent of those surveyed say they approve of the Senate's health care plan, the Better Care Reconciliation Act. Fifty-five percent say they disapprove, while about a quarter said they hadn't heard enough about the proposal to have an opinion on it. (our emphasis)

Keep the pressure on, folks. This is far from over, regardless of the toxic polls. There are strong, well- financed forces on the far right that want to see this "22 million lose health care so we can give tax cuts to the rich" bill pass.

As Sen. Murphy puts it (below), the best cure for Trump angst is political action.

Monday Reading - The Horror, The Lies And A Test

-- We're soon going to be hearing from the Congressional Budget Office on the impacts of the Senate TrumpCare bill. Here's one preview primarily focused on loss of coverage:

Gary Claxton, the director of the health care marketplace program at the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, said he believed the CBO would predict “15 or more million” would lose coverage. 

The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, estimated in one analysis that between 15 million and 23 million people would lose coverage under the Senate plan. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton touted that estimate on Twitter, writing: “Forget death panels. If Republicans pass this bill, they’re the death party.” [snip] 

“I know we’re going to get a horrific CBO score next week,” MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, who helped design Obamacare, said Sunday on MSNBC. “The CBO score will be horrible, but it won’t be as bad as the House bill, because the Senate is cheating by pushing the damage out by a few years.”

-- E.J. Dionne, Jr., writes about the three biggest lies Republicans are telling about their Senate TrumpCare bill (go check them out), and then concludes:

I hope I never have to write about Lie Four, which would be Republican senators who surely know better — including Susan Collins, Dean Heller, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake, Shelley Moore Capito and Rob Portman — justifying their votes for this monstrosity by claiming that it’s the best they could do. 

Heller signaled doubts about the proposal on Friday, which is a step in the right direction. But only by killing this bill would these senators open the way for reasonable fixes to the ACA. Do they really want to say someday that one of their most important votes in the Senate involved taking health care away from millions of Americans? I would like to believe they are too decent for that. I hope I’m not lying to myself. 

(We hate to be overly cynical, and certainly hope we're wrong, but we think -- after an appropriate level of faux public "concern" and self- flagellation by the above- named Republican Senators -- enough will do as they always do and put party above country and pass the bill, adorned with some face- saving fig leafs.)

-- Jimmy Kimmel reminds another Republican Senator of his pledge that he would honor the "Kimmel test" before voting for a repeal bill:

Reminder for Sen @BillCassidy: Kimmel test is "No family should be denied medical care, emerg or otherwise, because they can’t afford it"

— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) June 25, 2017

Cassidy is also a doctor by profession, so one would "hope" that he would also be guided by the Hippocratic test -- "First do no harm." Of course, there are two other Republican Senators who are doctors (John Barrasso and "self- certified" Rand Paul) who are perfectly willing to overlook that oath in their zeal to pass tax cuts for the rich.

-- A reminder that pressure works, and if these spineless cowards don't feel pressure, they will surely cave. Here's your link to the TrumpCare tool kit. Let your voice be heard.

🚨 Take action TODAY and TOMORROW as if your life depended on it. 🚨

— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) June 26, 2017

Your Three Minute Primer On The Senate TrumpCare Bill

National asset Sen. Chris Murphy (D- CT) lays out the main horrors in the dog's breakfast TrumpCare bill in about three minutes.  For when you're still deciding whether or not to get involved.

What exactly is inside the new Republican health care bill? Let's take a look. pic.twitter.com/ghupisP2Zq

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 23, 2017

Here, once again, is the link to your TrumpCare tool kit.

The Time To Stop TrumpCare Is Now

Folks, if you haven't put the TrumpCare tool kit into practice, time may be running out faster than you think.

Steve Benen clues us in on the tactic Republicans will use to fast track their "tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of keeping America healthy" bill:

... A House Republican told a reporter from The Hill last yesterday that if the Senate bill passes next week, the House will simply pass that version “as is,” sending it on to Donald Trump for a presidential signature. Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), who almost single-handedly rescued his party’s far-right health care initiative, confirmed to a Washington Examiner reporter that there would be no conference committee if the bill clears the Senate. 

This is no small detail. We’re looking at a landscape in which the Senate will vote next week, and if it passes, House Republicans will almost certainly act quickly to rubber-stamp that legislation – at which point, it’s game over. 

At the risk of sounding overdramatic, the next six days will dictate the health security for tens of millions of Americans. If the Republican plan isn’t stopped over the next week, it won’t be stopped at all.  (our emphasis)

Judd Legum has a pretty readable summary of this travesty of a bill, if you want to see what a mean, afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable piece of Republican income redistribution looks like.

Let's get to work!

Today's Cartoon Threefer - Harming Americans

(click on images to enlarge)


(Tom Toles, Washington Post)


(Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune)


(Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Monday Reading

Noah Rothman on why the desperate party- before- country Republican defense of Putin puppet Donald "Rump" Trump won't wash:

To the extent they are interested in protecting the President from his critics, Republicans have settled on a defense for Donald Trump: He has no idea what he's doing. 

That was, at least, how House Speaker Paul Ryan attempted to save Trump from himself. "The President's new at this. He's new at government," Ryan said. "He's not steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI and White Houses." [snip]

The sequence of events that Comey recounted in testimony does not paint a portrait of a naive American President, buffeted by events beyond either his control or ability to comprehend. Comey's assertions crafted the image of a President who was eager to see the investigation into his campaign's conduct speedily concluded on favorable terms, and this directive was reinforced through punitive measures. (our emphasis)

Rump's obsession with protecting former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is a tell to Paul Waldman (and us):

It may be that Trump believes Flynn is the keystone of the Russia scandal, and if he goes down then the scandal will accelerate until it reaches the Oval Office. It may have something to do with some piece of information or relationship we know nothing about. But what's obvious is that Trump is trying very hard to keep Flynn out of harm's way, or to keep him happy. If we can figure out why, we may understand this whole scandal a great deal better. 

Our guesses?  Flynn was operating under Rump's direction in his back- door dealings with Russia and, through his contacts with Russian intelligence, has something on Rump that Rump's very eager to keep hidden =cough= make or break financial leverage =cough= money laundering =cough=.

The Center for American Progress tells us the emerging Republican Obamacare repeal bill in the Senate is a killer:

Recent reports indicate that the emerging Senate version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) may not include the House version’s provision permitting states to waive the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) community rating provision, which prevents insurers from charging sick people higher premiums than healthy people. 

Even without community rating waivers, the Senate bill would still critically weaken protections for people with pre-existing conditions. By allowing states to waive the ACA’s essential health benefits (EHB) requirements, it would enable insurers to effectively screen out sick people by excluding certain services. 

As a result, people with pre-existing conditions in waiver states would face significantly higher costs and find it much harder to find insurance plans that actually covered treatment for even relatively common conditions such as mental health problems or diabetes. (our emphasis)

Not surprising that this bill is being "crafted" behind closed doors by 13 white male Republican Senators.  It kind of fits a pattern of subterfuge that allowed them to gut internet privacy regulations earlier this year:

Congressional Republicans knew their plan was potentially explosive. They wanted to kill landmark privacy regulations that would soon ban Internet providers, such as Comcast and AT&T, from storing and selling customers’ browsing histories without their express consent. 

So after weeks of closed-door debates on Capitol Hill over who would take up the issue first — the House or the Senate — Republican members settled on a secret strategy, according to Hill staff and lobbyists involved in the battle. While the nation was distracted by the House’s pending vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Senate Republicans would schedule a vote to wipe out the new privacy protections. 

On March 23, the measure passed on a straight party-line vote, 50 to 48. Five days later, a majority of House Republicans voted in favor of it, sending it to the White House, where President Trump signed the bill in early April without ceremony or public comment. (our emphasis)

That moment when you find your browsing history has been used to target you, thank a Republican. These are truly the mole people.

Finally, on a broader scale, Infidel has another great link round- up -- something for (almost?) everyone. It's worth your time.