Early on the day that the U.S. Senate is expected to make another desperate attempt to undermine the embattled Affordable Care Act, it’s unclear what lawmakers are even voting on and whether Republicans can muster a scant 50 votes to move ahead.
This is not America’s government wrangling with health-care reform, this is nothing but vindictive partisan politics led by a president who is the embodiment of spite. Republican senators, including Colorado’s own Cory Gardner, are willing to risk millions of lives and possibly put families and the entire nation on the road to financial ruin to quench their rancor for former President Barack Obama and the Democrats who imposed Obamacare on the nation.
Polls consistently show that an overwhelming majority of Americans do not want what the Republicans are trying to do, and it’s unclear day by day, even hour by hour, what that really is.
Experts across the industry, including patient advocates for all kinds of populations, have vociferously warned that what Republicans are offering is a prescription for disaster.
By cutting insurance subsidies, especially for older Americans, by cutting Medicaid and by allowing insurance companies to gouge customers more than they even have, a disrupted system will doom rural hospitals across the country and flood the system with uninsured patients from all walks of life.
Even as you read this, Republicans have drawn in Arizona Sen. John McCain, who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer. McCain is returning to the Senate today to try and push the ill-conceived and dangerous GOP push to strike back at Obama and Democrats over the finish line. The irony of McCain’s part in this scam is rich. A man who will now receive the best and most expensive medical treatment available to anyone on the planet, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers and shored up by his own personal wealth, is poised to further restrict that medical care for millions of Americans on the proven fallacy that what Republicans are talking about is somehow better.
Democrats are not blameless here. Many have dug in, refusing to consider any option that might repeal Obamacare, even if it then replaces it with the same thing under a different name. Americans don’t care if lawmakers call it WhoCares as long as it provides affordable and effective access to health care.
Tuesday’s GOP brinkmanship highlights the political madness in Washington, where our own elected representatives are not only poised, but eager, to undermine our wellbeing for the sake of winning a political argument. Call and email your representative right now and demand they kill the argument for today and instead create a bi-partisan commission from both houses to first fix the Affordable Care Act and then offer plans for long-term strategies.
It’s critical that the Senate stop this dangerous, irrelevant race to give Republicans a hallow and ultimately suicidal political victory. Demand a thoughtful, effective, bi-partisan answer to the country’s health-care quagmire.