Tweets Of The Day

News item:  Last night at his Bedminster golf club "press conference," moron vector Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump had a HUGE announcement to make:  he would be "pursuing" an executive order making coverage of pre-existing conditions mandatory for insurance companies.  Needless to say, there were plenty of folks happy to point out something about that announcement:

Trump says he's looking at doing an executive order to require health care providers to cover preexisting conditions, which is already the law of the land thanks to the Affordable Care Act he hates so much pic.twitter.com/2EG5iL9DCA

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 7, 2020

Trump has no shame. Tonight, he’s promising an executive order to protect people with pre-existing conditions when that’s already the law. The ACA does just that and he’s been trying to repeal it for years. Shameless!

— Rep. Frank Pallone (@FrankPallone) August 8, 2020

The President must be kidding with this “executive order.”

(1) Pre-existing conditions are *already* covered by law (ACA / “Obamacare”);

(2) Trump administration just argued that the Supreme Court must strike down the entire ACA, including coverage for pre-existing conditions.

— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) August 8, 2020

 

Trump says he's "pursuing" an executive order to require all health insurance companies to "cover all pre-existing conditions for all customers." Trump says, "This has never been done before." (Pre-existing-condition protections currently exist in Obamacare, a law.)

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 7, 2020

 

📣 ANY reporter/media outlet which reports/tweets about Trump's XO "ordering" insurance companies to "cover pre-existing conditions" without mentioning that THE ACA ALREADY DOES THIS and TRUMP IS SUING TO STRIKE DOWN THE ACA is guilty of journalistic malpractice.

— Charles Gaba (@charles_gaba) August 8, 2020

So, after talking for weeks about an imminent health care plan, this is what they come up with?  Is it to provide cover for the Republican Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act in the pending cases, most likely after the election as a final f.u. to Democrats?  Regardless, there are millions of low information voters who might buy this as an "alternative" to the ACA, even though loss of coverage, junk policies and unaffordable premiums would be some of the ways the insurance industry would likely respond in an ACA- free America.

Democrats and the media can't let them get away with this COVID Donnie con job.

Meanwhile, the event turned into more of a mini- rally, with club members ($350,000 membership fee) assembled mostly mask- less and with their wine glasses to cheer COVID Donnie, while no action is taken to help unemployed Americans:

.@joyannreid: "Did you just say members of (Trump's) country club ... are assembling to play the audience so he can have a cheering audience for this press conference?"@JonLemire: "Joy, that is what it appears."#TheReidOut pic.twitter.com/JxRxuQt9RA

— The ReidOut (@thereidout) August 7, 2020

The Party Of Trump On Display In One Lying Ad

The Party of Trump, ladies and gentlemen:  authoritarians, sociopaths, nihilists, bigots, traitors, liars:



 He's already "fixing" it, you cocksplats.

There's no dealing with the likes of these pathologically dishonest Trump- before- party- before- country shitheels. We need a cleansing tidal wave to sweep them from American political life.

Trump's Health Care Sabotage Ramps Up

Sociopathic "f*cking moron" Donald "Rump" Trump thinks he's the smartest guy in any room. Why, he's so clever he'll not only provide incentives for young, healthier people to abandon Affordable Care Act policies, he's going to end the subsidies that allow low income people to afford health insurance!

President Donald Trump plans to halt payments to health insurance companies serving the poorest customers on the Obamacare exchanges, the White House announced Thursday. 

Trump has threatened to withhold these funds, valued at $7 billion this year, since shortly after his election victory last November. The threats alone have roiled the health insurance market, and if he follows through, it promises to be significantly disruptive. Trump will make an announcement Friday, according to Politico, which first reported the news.

By taking this step, the moron thinks he's getting "leverage" with Democrats:

The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped. Dems should call me to fix!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2017

To us, that looks like he's taking the health insurance of millions of Americans hostage while he's slowly strangling it. And only he, the "f*cking moron," can fix it!

With this action, and the action taken yesterday to allow cheap, shorter term "no-surance," Rump is going against the wishes of the vast majority of Americans who want the Affordable Care Act continued and improved, not gutted.  From the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll:

A large share of Americans (78 percent) think President Trump and his administration should do what they can to make the current health care law work while few (17 percent) say they should do what they can to make the law fail so they can replace it later. 

He still apparently thinks he can force Democrats to go along with a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, while shifting the blame for any disruptions or pain to Democrats. Here's Jonathan Chait's take on that:

The trouble is that every plan Trump has supported would throw even more people off their insurance than his sabotage would. There is no political or policy incentive for them [Democrats] to give him political cover for policies to deny Americans health insurance. Their incentive is to highlight the sabotage that he is boasting about, and fight. 

The Medicaid expansion, which accounts for a majority of the law’s coverage gains, remains in place and is not vulnerable to administrative sabotage. Individual consumers are going to experience a lot of financial pain as a result of Trump’s action. As premiums rise in response to the sabotage, the main public recourse will be to replace the Republican-led government with one capable of passing a workable and humane health-care law. (our emphasis)

While we eagerly await Democrats' highlighting the Rump- and- Republican sabotage and the opportunity to vote this collection of nihilist, vicious goons out of office, some States are already setting up a firewall to protect the subsidies, New York and California for starters.  The same groups that opposed Republican efforts to repeal the Act can be counted on to push back on this latest piece of cruelty. Not only is this is a war we can win, it's a war we must win.

Once again into the breach:  Especially, if you have a Republican Senator or Congresscritter, first of all our condolences, but please call their office and tell them you want the cost- sharing reduction payments made under the Affordable Care Act. Look them up here and here. Thank you!

BONUS: "Chuck and Nancy," hopefully chastened by the latest act of Rumpian double- dealing and  sabotage, issued a joint statement:

“Sadly, instead of working to lower health costs for Americans, it seems President Trump will singlehandedly hike Americans’ health premiums. It is a spiteful act of vast, pointless sabotage leveled at working families and the middle class in every corner of America. Make no mistake about it, Trump will try to blame the Affordable Care Act, but this will fall on his back and he will pay the price for it. 

“President Trump has apparently decided to punish the American people for his inability to improve our health care system. Trumpcare collapsed because Americans overwhelmingly recognized the cruelty and higher costs it meant for them and their loved ones.  Now, millions of hard-working American families will suffer just because President Trump wants them to. 

“If these reports are true, the President is walking away from the good faith, bipartisan Alexander-Murray negotiations and risking the health care of millions of Americans.”

"If these reports are true..."  Really, now.

BONUS: Charles Pierce on the vile people going along with this --

This is a philosophical revulsion against the very idea of a social safety net. The president* may be acting out of id-based contempt and bone-deep ignorance. But the support he's getting for his actions from all the people who otherwise are laughing at him behind his back and hoping that he doesn't start World War III in such a way that it can be hung on them in the next election is deliberate and calculated. It is a premeditated catastrophe visited on people whom Paul Ryan believes in the darkness of his soul and in the shadows of his mind do not deserve the help of the government of which they are a part. They just found a useful hatchetman to serve an agenda of ruthless sadism.

(Image:  The damage a "f*cking moron" with a pen can do.)

Tweets Of The Day - TrumpCare Is Here

Now that Trump has signed the Executive Order, #ACA is now Trumpcare. He implemented it unilaterally. He owns the fallout now.

— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) October 12, 2017

Trump's Obamacare exec order tries to undermine literally the most popular part of Obamacare: the part that keeps insurers from screwing you over. People will get screwed over. The question is whether they'll know to blame Trump. https://t.co/8r6WNHZ0xb

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) October 12, 2017

Time To Start Calling It Trumpcare Now?

The campaign of sabotage that moron sociopath Donald "Rump" Trump and his gaggle of despicable goons are carrying out against the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., Obamacare) has taken another step today -- back toward the bad old days:

President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday intended to allow small businesses and potentially individuals to buy a long-disputed type of health insurance that skirts state regulations and Affordable Care Act protections. [snip]

... The order represents Trump’s biggest step to carry out a broad but ill-defined directive he issued his first night in office for agencies to lessen ACA regulations from the Obama administration. 

Critics, who include state insurance commissioners, most of the health-insurance industry and mainstream policy specialists, predict that a proliferation of such health plans will have damaging ripple effects: driving up costs for consumers with serious medical conditions and prompting more insurers to flee the law’s marketplaces. 

The executive order would have to be implemented by Federal regulations and then face challenges in court. Elements, however, could be in place for the 2019 coverage open period.

Vox has detailed the efforts being made by Rump and his fellow degenerates to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, via shortening the open enrollment period and cutting spending on advertising and assistance efforts, all with the goal of reducing participation in ACA plans and triggering a "death spiral" of higher premiums and ever- lower young and healthy enrollees.  So shrinking enrollment is an enormous threat to the viability of the market, and that's why it's the best target of opportunity for these shits.

Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act is supported more strongly than ever, with 52% of Americans viewing it favorably (versus 39% -- i.e., Republicans and possibly some single payer cultists). In another poll from this summer:

... But voters don’t want Trump and the GOP to let the existing insurance market falter if Obamacare remains law. Fifty-nine percent of voters want Congress to make any changes necessary to the Affordable Care Act to ensure it does not fail...

Of course, the compulsion to obliterate anything with the name "Obama" on it, no matter the cost, is what's going on here in the moron's seriously damaged brain, since he's ignorant of policy on any level and can't be bothered to care about the impacts (he's a sociopath after all).

It's been suggested, with the signing of today's egregious executive order, that Rump has taken personal responsibility for the fate of the ACA.  We think that's a reasonable assessment, too. If Rump and Republicans break it now, they own it. Therefore, let us resolve to call the ACA what it is, in "honor" of the moron who has its fate in his tiny hands:  Trumpcare.

Poll: Strong Support For Saving Obamacare, Dodging TrumpCare

The Kaiser Family Foundation has a new poll out that Republicans in Congress would do well to heed:

-- The August Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds that the majority of the public (60 percent) say it is a “good thing” that the Senate did not pass the bill that would have repealed and replaced the ACA. Since then, President Trump has suggested Congress not take on other issues, like tax reform, until it passes a replacement plan for the ACA, but six in ten Americans (62 percent) disagree with this approach, while one-third (34 percent) agree with it. 

--A majority of the public (57 percent) want to see Republicans in Congress work with Democrats to make improvements to the 2010 health care law, while smaller shares say they want to see Republicans in Congress continue working on their own plan to repeal and replace the ACA (21 percent) or move on from health care to work on other priorities (21 percent). However, about half of Republicans and Trump supporters would like to see Republicans in Congress keep working on a plan to repeal the ACA. 

--A large share of Americans (78 percent) think President Trump and his administration should do what they can to make the current health care law work while few (17 percent) say they should do what they can to make the law fail so they can replace it later. About half of Republicans and supporters of President Trump say the Trump administration should do what they can to make the law work (52 percent and 51 percent, respectively) while about four in ten say they should do what they can to make the law fail (40 percent and 39 percent, respectively). Moving forward, a majority of the public (60 percent) says President Trump and Republicans in Congress are responsible for any problems with the ACA.  (our emphasis)

Deranged narcissist Donald "Rump" Trump will find it difficult, if not impossible, to give up his Ahab- like obsession with harpooning the signature legislation of President Obama. Certainly his core of mouth- breathing knuckle- draggers will go over the cliff with him on this or most other issues. Even so, there have been signs that core voters are becoming fewer and less strong in their support. Likewise, with Rump's deranged fixations and his sagging poll numbers, there's reporting indicating that Republican officeholders are less concerned about ignoring him, especially since Rump has shown zero loyalty to Republicans in Congress =cough= Missy McConnell =cough= Dean Heller =cough= Lisa Murkowski =cough. The belief is, fellow deranged mouth- breathers in the House Freedom Caucus aside, Republicans are going to want to proceed on their own shitty agenda, on their timeline, regardless of what Rump has to say. This poll gives more evidence that following Rump's self- interested demands on Obamacare would further seriously impede that agenda.

The Bastards Move Toward Repeal Of The ACA

Well, this happened a short while ago.

The only Republicans voting No on the Motion to Proceed were Sens. Collins and Murkowski. The other weasels (Sens. Heller, Portman, Capito) apparently didn't get their "get out of voting free card" from the despicable Sen. Mitch "Missy" McConnell.  Disgracefully, Sen. John McCain, who receives excellent care through his government health insurance, came back to Washington following his cancer surgery and voted to proceed along with the rest of the knuckle- draggers (hero!) Now, they'll go through the motions of debating Republican bills to repeal or gut Obamacare, an unknown version of which they're expected to vote on:

At least three options appear to be on the table, and each of them might be debated on the Senate floor. 

One is McConnell’s Better Care Reconciliation Act, which the Congressional Budget Office projects would result in 22 million fewer people with health coverage by 2026. It would eliminate many Affordable Care Act provisions and “replace” them with new reforms that would offer less help getting coverage to a smaller number of Americans, and it would cut Medicaid funding by more than one-quarter. 

There’s also the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act ― potentially leading to 32 million more uninsured, according to the budget office ― which would undo central components of the Affordable Care Act without any form of replacement. 

At the eleventh hour, however, another contender appears to have emerged, which has been dubbed a “skinny” repeal bill.

Haven't heard of the "skinny" repeal bill?  The Congressional Budget Office has:

CBO on repealing the individual mandate ("skinny repeal"): 20% premium spike and 15 million uninsured increase.https://t.co/mMOEqnuAIZ

— Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) July 25, 2017

Damn these horrible, slimy, lying, sociopathic bastard weasels to hell.

BONUS: Any West Virginians out there can especially thank Sen. Capito for being a craven coward --

Perhaps the most striking vote was cast by West Virginia's Shelley Moore Capito‏ (R), who assured voters just last week, "I will only vote to proceed to repeal legislation if I am confident there is a replacement plan that addresses my concerns." She appears to have broken her word: there is no replacement plan that addresses her concerns, but Capito voted the way her party told her to on the motion to proceed anyway.

Call: Vote "No" On The Motion To Proceed

If you are reading this and live in West Virginia, Ohio, Nevada, Kentucky, Utah or Alaska, please call these Republican Senators immediately and tell them to vote No on today's Motion to Proceed to a debate on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (h/t Daily Kos):

Senator Dean Heller (NV)

Heller DC: 202-224-6244

Heller Las Vegas: 702-388-6605

Heller Reno: 775-686-5770

Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (West Virginia)

Capito DC: 202-224-6472

Capito Charleston: 304-347-5372

Capito Martinsburg: 304-262-9285

Capito Morgantown: 304-292-2310

Capito Beckely: 304-347-5372

Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio)

Portman DC: 202-224-3353

Portman Columbus:  614-469-6774

Portman Cincinnati: 513-684-3265

Portman Cleveland: 216-522-7095

Portman Toledo: 419-259-3895

Sen. Mike Lee (Utah)

Lee D.C.: 202-224-5444

Lee Salt Lake City: 801-524-5933

Lee St. George: 435-628-5514

Lee Ogden: 801-392-9633

Sen. Rand Paul (Kentucky)

Paul D.C.: 202-224-4343

Paul Bowling Green: 270-782-8303

Senator Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)

Murkowski DC: (202)-224-6665

Murkowski Anchorage: (907) 271-3735

Murkowski Fairbanks: (907) 456-0233

Murkowski Juneau: (907) 586-7277

Murkowski Mat-Su Valley: (907) 376-7665

Murkowski Kenai:  (907) 262-4220

Murkowsi Ketchikan: (907) 225-6880

Jam their phone lines now!

Don't Assume TrumpCare Is Dead

It's dark heart is still beating:

The Senate is debating at least four pieces of legislation. Concessions to the right will make it harder to gain votes in the center, while concessions to the center will make it harder to gain votes on the right. While action continues, it’s nothing more than a death rattle. Nobody quite wants to admit that the repeal drive is dead, and every Republican would sort of prefer to make some other Republican take responsibility for it, but fundamentally the bill is dead. 

Don’t believe it. [snip] 

The real fate of American health care lies with five Republicans — Dean Heller (R-NV), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Rob Portman (R-OH), John Hoeven (R-ND), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — whose behavior since McConnell rolled out BCRA 2.0 has been strange. 

These five all clearly and unambiguously stated that the Medicaid cuts in BCRA 1.0 were too severe. But then McConnell went back to the drawing board and came up with a new piece of legislation that made no changes whatsoever to the Medicaid provision. At that point, you would expect everyone who called the Medicaid provision a deal killer to say no to the new bill. And that is, in fact, what Collins did. But the other five all laid low. 

Once the bill was dead due to objections from the right, the moderates came out of the woodwork and announced their opposition. But the pattern we saw in the House was that once the Freedom Caucus was fully on board with the leadership’s plans, moderates lacked the backbone to actually kill the bill. 

The Senate moderates have the power, right now, to band together and kill the bill by fundamentally rejecting the idea of massive insurance coverage losses. They could cross the aisle and work with Democrats on fixes to stabilize the exchanges. But they keep rather pointedly not doing that.

Maybe it's because they're not "moderates." It's hard not to smell a rat -- 5 rats, in fact. Remember how TrumpCare 1.0 was dead in the House... until it revived and passed?

The Senate TrumpCare bill has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office; it will result in 15 million people losing their health insurance in the first year, and 22 million by 2026. And still, these so- called "moderate" Senate Republicans want to cower in the shadows, hoping they won't be called upon to take a courageous, moral stand.

See those names and states bolded above? If any of them represent you, whether or not you've contacted their office in the past, please contact them and let them know there's no amount of lipstick that will make this pig of a bill look good. Once again, here's your TrumpCare tool kit.

Major Health Insurers Trash Cruz Amendment To Senate TrumpCare Bill

The CEOs of Blue Cross/ Blue Shield Association and America's Health Insurance Plans are trashing the key change (Sen. "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz's "Consumer Freedom Option") to the already despicable Senate Republican tax cut for the rich disguised as an Obamacare repeal and replace bill (click on the tweet, then on embedded letters to enlarge):

BREAKING: In rare joint letter, insurers say Cruz amendment "unworkable in any form" and will lead to "widespread terminations of coverage." pic.twitter.com/hrtKIshIcd

— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) July 15, 2017

These insurer groups join the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the American Cancer Society Network and many other groups in opposing the Senate TrumpCare bill (a fuller list is here).

This is a critical weekend.  The Congressional Budget Office is expected to provide its scoring of the latest version of TrumpCare early next week. That scoring isn't going to be pretty for Republicans, but they're singly focused on giving Putin puppet Donald "Rump" Trump and the richest one percent a "victory," so don't expect horrendous CBO scoring to stop them.

But possibly the majority of the American people can -- but, they have to hear from us.

Here's your TrumpCare tool kit.  'Nuff said.

Latest Senate TrumpCare Bill The Worst Version Yet (UPDATED)

As we await next week's scoring of the latest Senate Republican version of TrumpCare, Ezra Klein has looked at the bill and concludes:

It returns individual insurance markets to the bad old days when insurers competed on insuring the healthy and finding ways to avoid covering the sick. 

There are a host of changes in the new BCRA, most of which leave the fundamental thrust of the legislation intact. But there’s one addition that genuinely changes everything. 

Included in the new bill is a version of Ted Cruz’s amendment allowing insurers to offer plans that don’t comply with Obamacare’s insurance regulations so long as they also offer plans that do comply with Obamacare’s insurance regulations. [snip]

What will happen here is clear: The plans that have to offer decent coverage to anyone who wants it, no matter their health care history, will become a magnet for the old and the sick or the soon-to-be-sick, as they can’t afford, or perhaps can’t even buy, the other plans. That will drive premiums in those plans up, pulling younger, healthier people into the non-compliant plans. [snip] 

This is a very bad idea for anyone who is sick, has been sick, or is likely to get sick. It attacks the core changes Obamacare made to build insurance markets that serve the sick, the well, and, crucially, everyone in between. 

That a large plurality of the Republican Senate will vote for this homicidal bill is proof enough of the void at the center of right- wing politics. Finding three Republican Senators -- three! -- to muster the "moral courage" to vote against their steaming pile of a party seems to be what passes for political drama in Washington these days. There's lots of "concern" affecting the "consciences" of Republican Senators these days -- but those concerns are about their political future rather than the well- being of the American people.

Here's the other weasel game that's being played by the villainous Sen. Mitch "Missy" McConnell to provide cover for his cowardly "moderates:" don't worry about voting for those Medicare cuts; they won't happen because cooler heads will prevail down the road! As the Washington Post notes:

... Moderate [ed. note: Ha!] senators who earlier claimed to have concerns about cutting off poor people have no reasonable justification for supporting this bill. If they vote for it in anticipation that its Medicaid cuts would phase in as planned, they would support a massive blow to low-income people in their states. If they vote for the bill with the calculation that future Congresses would cancel its Medicaid cuts, then their vote would likely equate to support for expanding the national debt, because the Medicaid savings are the major source of financing for the bill’s many tax cuts.

Here and here is what may be going on with some of those so- called "moderates." They're weasels to the core. Be afraid.

We keep saying it over and over:  TrumpCare is not dead until it's dead (and even then, Republicans will try to revisit some form of it until they're no longer in the majority). As Joy Reid noted about getting these weasels to stand up to Trump over the Russia scandal, the only long- term solution is to vote in a Democratic Congress.  But in the short run, please keep the pressure on these Republican Senators (especially if you live in West Virginia, Nevada, Alaska, Arizona, Tennessee or any of the states shown in the TrumpCare tool kit -- and please use it!).

UPDATE:  It's also wildly unpopular (still) and is even getting slammed by a key Republican governor.  Sad!

Today's Tomorrow Cartoon - Choosing To Die Is Freedom!

(click on image to enlarge)


(Tom Tomorrow, via Daily Kos)

This is a critical time for preserving the Affordable Care Act, with the Senate now back in session. Use the TrumpCare tool kit to make sure Republican Senators hear from you.

TrumpCare: Still The Undead

"Trumpcare isn’t dead until it’s dead. But the Senate Republicans look like a group of politicians who have decided they don’t care enough about health-care policy to absorb the political blowback that passing a law snatching insurance from millions of Americans would instigate."  Jonathan Chait, who outlines several reasons the Senate TrumpCare bill is still floundering.

He's right. TrumpCare isn't dead until it's dead. That's why we're asking you again to join us in making your opposition to this hateful, murderous bill clear to your Senator (especially if she or he is a Republican). Here, once again, is the TrumpCare tool kit that can help you do that as easily as possible.  Since Republicans are mostly avoiding holding town hall meetings with their constituents, these contacts are the best way of showing them what "the political blowback" from taking insurance away from tens of millions of Americans looks like.

There's no question these weasels are feeling the pressure. During the current recess, two more Republican senators (Hoeven of North Dakota and Moran of Kansas), having heard from constituents, said the "current bill" is unacceptable. Now, we're cynical enough to entertain the thought that these are positioning strategies so they can claim to have opposed a deeply unpopular bill, but then turn around and vote for a substantially similar bill that's been cosmetically tinkered with by Machiavellian sociopath Sen. Mitch "Missy" McConnell. We need to let them know they won't get away with any of that game- playing.

Thank you!

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.

Two New Polls Confirm Toxicity of Senate TrumpCare Bill

Bolstering findings from an NPR/ PBS Newshour/ Marist poll earlier this week, two more national polls show the vast majority of the public absolutely hates the Senate TrumpCare bill.

Quinnipiac:

Despite its new name and some tweaks, American voters disapprove 58 - 16 percent of the Republican health care plan to replace Obamacare, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. 

USA Today/ Suffolk University:

Just 12% of Americans support the Senate Republican health care plan, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds, amid a roiling debate over whether the GOP will deliver on its signature promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. 

In the survey, taken Saturday through Tuesday, a 53% majority say Congress should either leave the law known as Obamacare alone or work to fix its problems while keeping its framework intact. 

These numbers are great and again prove that most Americans can identify a shit sandwich when they see one. That doesn't mean the sociopaths in the Republican Party still won't try to get the tax cuts for their rich supporters that forms the basis of TrumpCare (and everything else they do, for that matter).

The July 4 recess is a time for all of us to continue to beat the drum about this malevolent effort by Republicans to decimate health care for poor and middle class people in this country. Take time, get active and we can stop this. Once again, here's what you can do.

BONUS:  That NPR poll?  It also had this finding --

... [B]y a 24-point margin, Americans believe former President Barack Obama was, by far, a more effective leader in comparison to Trump, 58 percent to 34 percent. Among independents, there is an even more pronounced 36-point difference, 65 percent to 29 percent.

Sad!

Trump's Fox Friends And TrumpCare

Seth Meyers looks at Republican floundering on TrumpCare, and the dubious "help" being provided by GOP-TV (a.k.a, Fox "News"):



BONUS: The New Yorker gets in on the mockery (illustration by Mavroudis).

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.

Senate Republicans Delay Vote On TrumpCare (UPDATED)

(Susan Walsh, AP)

The Senate won't be voting on the Republican TrumpCare "22 million lose health care so we can give tax cuts to the rich" bill this week after all.  The vote is being postponed until after the July 4 recess due to resistance from within the Republican caucus, some of whom have been hearing from us*, others from their plutocrat backers who want the bill to be more "mean." All 52 Republican Senators are at the White (Supremacist) House this afternoon to get a pep talk/ arm twisting from clueless dimbulb Donald "Rump" Trump, with special attention being paid to weasel caucus members (who should keep in mind what Sen. Lindsey "Huckleberry" Graham noted yesterday, "[I]f you count on the President to have your back, you need to watch it.").

That gives us about 10 days to continue to put the pressure on the weasel caucus, something the TrumpCare tool kit can help you do.

*UPDATE:  The calls/ messages seem to be piling up.  Keep going!

Republican senators’ offices say they’re getting a flood of calls from voters worried about the GOP Obamacare repeal bill, potentially further complicating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s attempt to muscle the legislation through this week.

(Photo: Rump surrounded by weasel caucus members Sens. Dean Heller (NV), Susan Collins (ME) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) at this afternoon's "pep talk.")

Trump Wags The Dog, Media Chases

So, this morning the top news story on the morning shows was the CBO score on the life- threatening Senate TrumpCare bill... haha no!

The Top News was a statement put out by the White (Supremacist) House asserting that Syria's Assad was about to use chemical weapons on his people and the U.S. would respond harshly should that happen, news that caught U.S. military officials off guard (hmmm, curious). No further information or background was forthcoming, leaving us to wonder if this was a "wag the dog" effort to distract from the aforementioned damning CBO analysis of the latest TrumpCare shit sandwich (spoiler alert: we think so!).

(To be clear, we have no doubt whatsoever that the Assad regime would be capable and willing to pull off this kind of a war crime -- again. It's just that the circumstances have the smell of a decomposing rat.)

We recall the last time the regime of nitwit Donald "Rump" Trump used military force in Syria was in early April, about a week after the Russiagate investigation was heating up with the offer of former NSA advisor Michael Flynn to testify in exchange for immunity. You'll also recall several puerile commentators lost their credibility forever by praising Rump for the April 6 cruise missile strike ("he became president last night") and gawking at the cruise missiles being launched. That's just what the Rump regime intended for the media to portray, of course, and they largely got it from them, because there's nothing like a little boom- boom to get these armchair chin strokers excited. (The morning print media may not have had time to react today -- at least the print and on- line versions of the Washington Post are not taking the bait so far.)

This time, it would appear the diversion was to get the CBO score off the tee- vee for a few precious hours, while making Rump look tough vs. the Syrians and their Russian patrons. A win- win for them. Call us cynical, but from the looks of this morning's shows, it looks like the diversion worked.

BONUS:  Steve M. covers the coverup in the wingnut media (so we don't have to).

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