Discussion: Trump’s Cabinet Fractured Over Obamacare Push

It sort of already has.Just not the way Mick thought it would. Turns out the Dems had a ACA rescue plan sitting in a cabinet somewhere and decided yesterday was a good time to unveil it. After Spankies stupid comment about Repubs being the healthcare party it looks like Dems decided to force the Repub congress weasels to put up or shut up. And that was just one gift this administration gave the Dems yesterday. The Education dept also announced they were cutting all funding for Special Olympics and a bunch from autism research among other things. Spanky is the gift that keeps on giving.

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Wonder if Sarah Palin is gonna weigh in on that?

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That would be to much to hope for.

Agreed - just would adjust that last statement:
But Dumb ass Donnie will persevere because ~of the “Obama” in Obamacare.~

or because he is still trying to get revenge on a Dead Guy (which was part of his public rant about him last week).

Either way - this is vengeance on his part - and pure wingnut ideology pushed by Mulvaney using the vengeance triggers to push Trump.

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Fractured? Maybe. Brave and principled and willing to take a firm public stand including resignation? No frickin’ way.

“Republicans in disarray!” said no major media outlet in the US.

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well said

Not arguing your point, but I would add that we could contrast the existing Obamacare with the pre-republican amendment/sabatoge version and see what people choose.

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not true. they will simply transfer to a government beauracracy rather than private. All those new sign ups, regs, etc will need new workers, workers who already are skilled in that kind of paper pushing and terminology.
As for the insurance industry being a kind of welfare - why do i have to let some desk-sitter determine my health care choices? No one on welfare has ever bothered me about my medication being expensive. snooks to that.

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They COULD strengthen it but that would take actual work and precious time away from things like sham votes, silly.

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…and Reagan on a velociraptor

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And Mike Lee stands there looking like Stan Laurel.

Is the State of UT embarrassed yet?? (Answer: Nope.)

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Look on the bright side:

If ObamaCare dies, the whole state of West Virginia will become a cheap supplier of Soylent Green for the US. /s/

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Tough to filter out the coal dust, alas.

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I don’t understand why Mulvaney would want to goad a Democratic House into action. That makes less than no sense to me.

Someone please explain to me how it is that this collection of Keystone Kops is able to maintain support in the high 30s?

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Medicare for All will lose us the election, and I’m hoping our best candidates don’t take the bait. Which I think is what this latest move by Mulvaney (or whoever has Trump’s ear) is all about. It’s a head fake to push the Dem 2020 field further to the left.

Roughly half the people in this country are on private insurance employee health care. They. do. not. want. that replaced by a government program. The insurance companies, the doctors, the hospitals, would also fight it tooth and nail. Even a partial Medicare expansion that wouldn’t touch that half of the population is a heavy lift.

A must-win election is not the time for this. It just hands a loaded grenade to the Republicans. Reinforcing the ACA, and ads and speeches promising to protect those with preexisting conditions is the winning strategy.

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“…while Mulvaney thinks it will goad Congress into action.”

Jumping out of a plane will force us to invent a parachute. This has been Republican SOP since David Stockman’s first budget at the dawn of the Reagan administration. Which is also when the GOP severed its links with its own prudent past, and with reality…

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Prediction: Trump wins this repeal of the ACA (or what remains of Obamacare) and 12 million to 15 million Americans at the bottom lose what remains of their current healthcare coverage. Trump now has Kavanaugh and Gorsuch on the SCOTUS…and they agree to repeal the ACA. McConnell prevents anything and everything passed by Pelosi in the House. The healthcare system returns to the unregulated insurance system of the decade before Max Baucus and Obama…emergency room care across the country goes through the roof.

This repeal will leave millions without coverage but they are low income Americans and they don’t have any political power or even a voice. Gradually, they will overwhelm the care providers and our healthcare market collapses into chaos creating unacceptable pain in the system…so much pain that the populous finally agrees that we need single payer to survive. Medicare for all emerges as the supported choice and gets passed…ETA 2022 or 2023. Change is only supported if that change reduces or solves the source of PAIN…it takes a near disaster for people to support change. We were ready for change in 2008 and 2009…to both break up the big banks and to pass universal healthcare…but Obama and Max Baucus were spineless and establishment figures who never wanted to help the bottom 90%.

Wait, what? We’re gliding too easily over what is an astonishing point in the article:

President Donald Trump’s Cabinet is not united behind the decision to go after Obamacare, with HHS Secretary Alex Azar and Attorney General William Barr — who now has to lead the charge — staunchly against the abrupt policy move.

Think of it: the Justice Department decided to reverse course and ask the 5th Circuit to declare Obamacare unconstitutional, and the Attorney General – the head of the Justice Department – is “staunchly” opposed to that move. So, who made the decision? Who in this Administration determines what the Justice Dept does or doesn’t do?

We haven’t heard the end of this.

The problem with that scenario is that the repeal of the ACA won’t hit everyone with the same impact. Roughly half the population in the USA is on employer-provided health care. By and large, they’re happy with their insurance. There is still an impact there – people afraid to change jobs and lose their health care, the disappearance of protections for preexisting conditions (mandated by the ACA for all insurance). But everyone staying in their jobs will be fine, and the health insurance companies won’t collapse as long as the employers are paying the premiums.

If we ever shift to universal singlepayer health care, some transition for that 50% of the country currently covered by employee health care has to be managed smoothly, and it can’t happen overnight.

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