Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
Today is a big day for President Donald Trump and with any good fortune it will be a frustrating and miserable day for the president as congress is expected to vote on Trumpcare, the idiotic replacement for Obummercare that is only very slightly better than the awful program it is trying to replace.
Worse yet, one of the few useful provisions of Trumpcare has just been stricken from the bill before it goes to a vote; one that would have allowed the Treasury Department to coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security to verify that no tax credits for healthcare were going to illegal immigrants who don’t pay taxes and are therefore a total net drain on all taxpayers. Keeping them out of our pockets should be any government’s top priority – after all if a government doesn’t protect its citizens from foreign plunder, what good is it? About as good as a government that abets and enables the plunder of its citizens by foreigners; which is exactly what we have now.
“In a largely procedural move, it was dropped from the bill after the Senate Parliamentarian determined that the Senate Finance Committee, which handles tax credits under the bill, does not have purview over the Department of Homeland Security,” Reuters reported.
In a rare display of backbone and intelligence, many republicans are backing away from Trumpcare, at least one as a result of the aforementioned procedural nonsense.
“‘I am concerned that the bill lacks sufficient safeguards for verifying whether or not an individual applying for health care tax credits is lawfully in this country and eligible to receive them,’ said the Pennsylvania lawmaker,” Reuters quoted republican Lou Barletta as saying in explanation of why he could no longer support the bill.
The closest thing to “good guys” in Washington D.C., the so-called House Freedom Caucus – a group of republicans with some concept of fiscal conservatism – has opposed the bill from the outset.
“’The opposition is still strong. They don’t have the votes to pass this tomorrow. We believe that they need to start over,’ Representative Mark Meadows told reporters after a meeting of his group following earlier talks at the White House,” Reuters reported yesterday.
Of course, I’d have preferred Meadows advise Trump and the rest of the GOP to “give up” on replacing Obummercare instead of to “start over,” on another boondoggle of a program.
There are doctors who want to treat people. There are people who need treating. There are insurance companies that came into existence to make the process more affordable for patients, and would like to be able to carry on working in that regard. Then, the government slithered its way into the mix, over years managing to position itself between the patient and doctor, doctor and insurer; and patient and insurer at every turn – driving up costs for all. Now, government is trying to fix the problem only it could have, an indeed did, create in the first place.
“Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, ‘See, if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk,’” – Harry Browne, author, Libertarian candidate for President, 1996.
Today, the same government that made healthcare unaffordable by regulating and taxing the ever-loving hell out of every aspect of it, is going to fix the “Affordable Care Act,” – which only made healthcare more expensive for productive people – and somehow make healthcare less expensive using all the same means and methods government has used for decades to make it prohibitively expensive.
I’m sure it’ll work this time, just like they assure us it will. Just like they did last time it didn’t work.
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