A Request For Horror Stories Leads To Love Stories.

Screenshot.

The Indiana Republican Party had the bright idea to set up their FB to ask constituents for their ACA horror stories, but it backfired most spectacularly. There was plenty of horror, but it was splattered all over those rethuglicans who though they were being so clever.

The Indiana Republican Party has requested that the state’s constituents share their “horror stories” with ObamaCare, the Indianapolis Star reported Tuesday.

“What’s your Obamacare horror story? Let us know,” the GOP party wrote in a Facebook post as it sought to collect negative stories about the Affordable Care Act, such as higher premiums or insurance companies leaving the market.

Many of the people respondents, however, flooded them with stories about how the healthcare law has positively affected their lives.

“My sister finally has access to affordable quality care and treatment for her diabetes,” one person wrote, according to the news outlet.

“My father’s small business was able to insure its employees for the first time ever. #thanksObama,” another said.

Another person claimed that “the only horror in the story is that Republicans might take it away.”

Rethugs should seriously give up on the trying to be clever business, it never works out. The Hill has the story.

In yet an even more embarrassing move by the GOP geniuses, they decided to tweet out what they thought were cutting remarks and questions to assorted democrats, asking them where their healthcare plan was. In this effort, they included the Clintons, neither of whom hold office at the moment. I would have thought that much hadn’t escaped them. Naturally, the Twitterati have been merciless, if more than a bit exasperated. Raw Story has the full story and assorted tweets.

Oh, Trumpholes.

A rather large “oops” on the part of Trumpholes yesterday. Apparently, every 4th of July, NPR reads the entire Declaration of Independence. So far, so good, if you like that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the next thing NPR did was to tweet out the whole text line by line, and the Trumpholes took exception to it, thinking it was yet another horrible leftist move which was saying terrible things about the Tiny Tyrant.

D.G. Davies, replying to @NPR: So, NPR is calling for revolution. Interesting way to condone violence while trying to sound “patriotic”. Your implications are clear.

Parker Molloy: NPR tweeted out the entire Declaration of Independence, and wow…uh…the responses are…something.

Via Raw Story, where you can see more of the tweets in question. Raw Story also has an interesting article up about a young reporter who turned a bit of the Declaration of Independence into petition form, and tried to get people to sign it in 1951. One person signed it, having recognized the origin. All the other people accused him of perpetrating a commie plot.

The Tiny Tyrant: A Metaphor for Independence.

Doug Wead speaks to Fox News (screen grab).

“I see the election of Donald Trump is a wonderful metaphor for Independence Day,” Doug Wead told Fox News over the weekend. “The media said who we should vote for, Wall Street told us, old money told us, Hollywood told us. Everybody said, ‘Here’s who you should vote for.’ And those stubborn independent Americans said, ‘I believe we’ll take the other guy, thank you.’”

According to Wead’s biography, he attended Central Bible College in Illinois for two years before dropping out. He later received an honorary doctorate from Oral Roberts University.

Is anyone at all surprised that the Regime historian isn’t a historian? No, faux-historian, most all those stubborn, independent Americans did not take the other guy. You’d be talking about the morons who make up the electoral college, but I doubt you know much about that. And no, it doesn’t matter one iota what the Founding Thieves would have thought of the Tiny Tyrant. They are long dead, not relevant, and such speculation is mere projection. Offered with no more comment, because this is the stupid that will kill us all. Video at the link.

Via Raw Story.

Thoroughly Modern … Trump.

Donald J. Trump: “My use of social media is not Presidential – it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. Make America Great Again!”

FFS. I don’t even, I, uh.

Via Raw Story, which also has select responses.

Sunday Facepalm.

The Tiny Tyrant was busy spending a fucktonne of taxpayer money in some useless flying about. He held the first “freedom rally” at the Kennedy Center. Now, I would have thought, what with being on the verge of National Fireworks and Stupidity Day, there would have been much jingoistic glurge over our precious freedoms tossed about, but there was a Trump curveball in this July freedom fest – the war on christmas!

Donald Trump spent an extra $400,000 of taxpayer dollars to fly from Washington, D.C. to his resort in New Jersey then back to Washington again for “the first ever Freedom Rally” at the Kennedy Center Saturday. During his speech, Trump decided “freedom” meant celebrating Christmas in July.

Trump began his speech by attacking the media and touting his election win, as he is known to do.

He went on to involved [sic sb invoked?] the memory of Benjamin Franklin and noted that at the Constitutional Convention, Franklin reminded his fellow delegates to “bow their head in prayer. I remind you, we’re going to start saying Merry Christmas again.”

Yep. It’s barely July, and at this point, I’d dearly like to see xmas stomped into the ground, scraped up, and tossed into a convenient abyss somewhere. The crass commercialism of it all is bad enough, and it’s beyond bad enough that every fucking year, the xmas panic has to begin earlier and earlier, and then there are all the fucking idiotic christians who are just convinced they are being horribly persecuted if everyone doesn’t go around shouting “merry xmas!” Some christians get it right, when they point out that the whole business of christmas isn’t christian at all, but they are far and few in between. The majority of christians “celebrate” the same commercialized pressure of gifting gone mad, forcing family together, and traditional overeating as everyone else, there isn’t any sort of sacred difference. This insistence that a majority are being disrespected by people saying anything other than “merry xmas” is absurd, at best, and it serves well to highlight the fucking idiocy of so many christian conservatives.

For years, I used to respond to “merry xmases” with “merry giftmas” or “merry mixmush” and people would always laugh. The ‘giftmas’ was always appreciated. That’s what it is, and if devout theists eschew the commercialized crap and do indeed celebrate their particular god[s], that’s fine, who cares? Why would they give a shit over a greeting? Truth be told, I’ve always been surprised over this manufactured drama, because if I were a christian, I think I’d resent people using my particular god as a banal greeting, especially one which typifies the worst sort of commercialized greed.

The comments came after Trump asked veterans to stand for recognition. he told the veterans that he was “handed a mess, believe me,” alluding to the previous administration. Trump has pledged to fix the Veterans Administration but this far he’s only signed an executive order that allows federal employees to be fired more easily.

“My administration will always support and defend your religious liberty. As long as I am President, no one is going to stop you from practicing your faith or from preaching what is in your heart,” Trump continued.

Oh yes, religious liberty! As long as you’re the right religion. There’s going to be much more of such shit from the Tiny Tyrant, because the hysterical idiots of christendom are the only corner still solidly backing him, as they have not given up on their Theocalypse yet. Fuck your religion. Fuck your gods. Fuck you, too. I want nothing to do with it, and I don’t care what you do at home or in church, but instead of constantly looking for ways you are being “persecuted”, it might be nice for once is you pay attention to all the people you’re busy oppressing.

Trump closed his speech to encouraging chants and assured supporters, “For those that are curious, we will build the wall.”

And there’s the anemic close. The wall has gone to being a footnote, while the “war on christmas” is the headline.

Via Raw Story. Video at the link.

ObDisclosure: We do celebrate Ratmas (One, Two). The rats love it, and it’s traditional.

Voter Fraud Commission: Beyond Stupid.

As with all things Tiny Tyrant, incompetency and stupidity rule. Politico has the story on how the so-called commission on voter fraud is open to yet more hacking, and would provide a goldmine for those with cybercrime on their mind.

Cybersecurity specialists are warning that President Donald Trump’s voter-fraud commission may unintentionally expose voter data to even more hacking and digital manipulation.

Their concerns stem from a letter the commission sent to every state this week, asking for full voter rolls and vowing to make the information “available to the public.” The requested information includes full names, addresses, birth dates, political party and, most notably, the last four digits of Social Security numbers. The commission is also seeking data such as voter history, felony convictions and military service records.

Digital security experts say the commission’s request would centralize and lay bare a valuable cache of information that cyber criminals could use for identity theft scams — or that foreign spies could leverage for disinformation schemes.

“It is beyond stupid,” said Nicholas Weaver, a computer science professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

“The bigger the purse, the more effort folks would spend to get at it,” said Joe Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a digital advocacy group. “And in this case, this is such a high-profile and not-so-competent tech operation that we’re likely to see the hacktivists and pranksters take shots at it.”

Indeed, by Friday night, over 20 states — from California to Mississippi to Virginia — had indicated they would not comply with the request, with several citing privacy laws and expressing unease about aggregating voter data.

[…]

Experts also criticized the commission’s two options for states to submit their data: via a White House email address and a Pentagon-run file-hosting service.

“Email is the worst; it’s like sending all your postal mail using postcards instead of letters in envelope,” Hall said. “It’s one of the harder methods of communication to secure.”

The commission’s alternative option, a file-hosting service run by a branch of the Army, isn’t currently configured to properly encrypt web traffic, which Hall said was “a massive red flag for their ability to properly secure other forms of secure file transfer.”

The perceived digital security miscues left many specialists stunned.

“Nothing about this letter appears to take information security into account,” said Matthew Green, a computer science professor and cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins University. “If I didn’t know this letter was real, I would assume it was a clever spearphishing campaign.”

When it comes to my state, I’m afraid to look, but I’m sure they are being compliant. Yet another thing to worry about. Politico has the full story.

The Death of A Trumpian Paradise.

Politico has an excellent story up about the Colorado Springs experiment. The town elected a real-estate maven, with no political experience at all, who promised to make Colorado Springs great, just run it like a business. Sound familiar? In most respects, Steve Bach is just like a certain Tiny Tyrant. Bach also made much hay out of the whole “jobs, jobs, jobs!” business, which did not pan out in the slightest. This is a good lesson, because this is the road the whole damn country is going down, and it is going to fail, spectacularly. People rarely want to employ sense when it comes to money, and this is particularly true of Americans, who are always looking for a whole lot of something for nothing.

For a city, like the country at large, that was hurting economically, Steve Bach seemed like a man with an answer. What he promised sounded radically simple: Wasteful government is the root of the pain, and if you just run government like the best businesses, the pain will go away. Easy. Because he had never held office and because he actually had been a successful entrepreneur, people were inclined to believe he really could reinvent the way a city was governed.

The city’s experiment was fascinating because it offered a chance to observe some of the most extreme conservative principles in action in a real-world laboratory. Producers from “60 Minutes” flew out to talk with the town’s leaders. The New York Times found a woman in a dark trailer park pawning her flat screen TV to buy a shotgun for protection. “This American Life” did a segment portraying Springs citizens as the ultimate anti-tax zealots, willing to pay $125 in a new “Adopt a Streetlight” program to illuminate their own neighborhoods, but not willing to spend the same to do so for the entire city. “I’ll take care of mine” was the gist of what one council member heard from a resident when she confronted him with this fact.

That’s where Colorado Springs was frozen in the consciousness of the country—a city determined to redefine the role of government, led by a sharp-elbowed businessman who didn’t care whom he offended along the way (not unlike a certain president). But it has been five years since “This American Life” packed up its mics. A lot has changed in that time, not least of which is that the local economy, which nearly drowned the city like a concrete block tied around its balance sheet, is buoyant once again. Sales tax revenue has made the books plump with surplus. Enough to turn those famous streetlights back on. Seven years after the experiment began, the verdict is in—and it’s not at all what its architects planned.

One of the lessons: There’s a real cost to saving money.

Take the streetlights. Turning them off had saved the city about $1.25 million. What had not made the national news stories was what had happened while those lights were off. Copper thieves, emboldened by the opportunity to work without fear of electrocution, had worked overtime scavenging wire. Some, the City Council learned, had even dressed up as utility workers and pried open the boxes at the base of streetlights in broad daylight. Keeping the lights off might have saved some money in the short term, but the cost to fix what had been stolen ran to some $5 million.

[…]

There has been a lot of this kind of reckoning over the past half-decade. From crisis came a desire for disruption. From disruption came, well, too much disruption. And from that came a full-circle return to professional politicians. Including one—a beloved mayor and respected bureaucrat who was short-listed to replace James Comey as FBI director—who is so persuasive he has gotten Colorado Springs residents to do something the outside world assumed they were not capable of: Five years after its moment in the spotlight, revenue is so high that the same voters who refused to keep the lights on have overwhelmingly approved ballot measures allowing the city to not only keep some of its extra tax money, but impose new taxes as well.

In the process, many residents of Colorado Springs, but especially the men and women most committed to making the city thrive, have learned a few other lessons. That perpetual chaos can be exhausting. That the value of the status quo rises with the budget’s bottom line. And that it helps when the people responsible for running the city are actually talking with one another. All it took was a few years running an experiment that everyone involved seems happy is over.

Politico has the full story, recommended reading.

The Amazon Washington Post and Internet Taxes!!1!

Donald J. Trump: “The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!”

Y’know, at this point, I’d be relieved to find out that Donny is doing some serious drugs. File under Tiny Tyrant What The Fuck.

Via Twitter.

The Tiny Tyrant’s Campaign Scam.

The Trump International Hotel at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, is seen in Washington on Dec. 21, 2016. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

It should be more than obvious by now that Trump never wanted to actually be president. He sucks at the job, to say the very least. He’s a fucking idiot who doesn’t have the slightest idea of what he’s doing, he’s incapable of learning, and doesn’t have the sense to surround himself with sane, responsible, knowledgeable people. He did get one thing right: campaigning. He could go out, be himself, an empty void of narcissism and hate, and discovered people in fear of losing their white privilege would cheer. He also discovered that campaigning was a great scam. So, he’s doing what he’s capable of doing, going back to the scamming. Ignoring that whole pesky president business, he’ll be hosting a re-election fundraiser tonight. If there’s a better argument for stripping obscenely people of their wealth, I don’t what it is. This might all be fun and power games for them, but it’s a different story for all of us out here on the ground.

If there’s anything President Donald Trump loves more than his business empire, it’s being a candidate on the campaign trial. Wednesday night, he’ll combine both roles as he hosts his first reelection fundraiser, the earliest of any sitting president.

The fundraiser, which people have paid anywhere from $35,000 to upwards of $110,000 to attend, will be held at Trump’s second residence along Pennsylvania Avenue — the Trump International Hotel.

Trump International has become one Trump’s most glaring conflicts of interest, visible from the White House lawn. When he signed a 60-year lease with the General Services Administration in 2013, he signed a contract that contains a clause that reads:

No member or delegate to Congress, or elected official of the Government of the United States or the Government of the District of Columbia, shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.

In March the GSA released a letter saying the Trump Organization is in “full compliance” with the lease, largely because he moved his business interests from the hotel into a trust. However as ProPublica reported in April, the trust is handled by Trump’s children and he is the sole beneficiary, able to remove funds from the trust without disclosing it to the public.

Being in a continuous campaign mode is profitable. In 2000, Trump speculated that he could “be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it,” and there is evidence to support the claim that he has profited off of both the campaign and the presidency. When Trump initially set up his campaign headquarters at Trump Tower, he prided himself on being self-funded with a low-cost operation. He later quadrupled the rent to $169,758 after he began receiving funds from donors even though he employed less staff than in the months prior.

The pattern of profiteering off his initial run is continuing into his reelection campaign. According to FEC filings, the Trump campaign has sent $274,000 in rent to his offices in Trump Tower, even though his reelection campaign only employs 20 people. That works out to about $91,000 a month, which is more than half of what he paid at the height of his campaign when 168 employees were on payroll.

So donors who are paying upwards of $110,000 to attend Wednesday night’s even for Trump’s reelection campaign, are also funneling funds back to Trump twice. First, through the Trump hotel for the space, food and drinks. Second, the money that’s left over will go to Trump’s campaign expenses, which includes rent at Trump Tower. Because he still retains ownership, any event hosted at a Trump Organization Property by Trump the president, also benefits Trump the businessman.

Trump has also found ways to leverage the presidency to advance his business interests outside of his campaign.

Think Progress has the full run down on the scam.

The Wisdom of Rick Joyner, Fucking Idiot.

 

WISDOM IN THREE PARTS:

Part I:

A. Back off and let those men who want to marry men, marry men.
B. Allow those women who want to marry women, marry women.
C. Allow those folks who want to abort their babies, abort their babies.

In three generations, there will be no more Democrats.

Part II:
10 Poorest Cities in America (How did it happen?)
City, State, % of People Below the Poverty Level

1. Detroit, MI 32.5%
2. Buffalo, NY 29.9%
3. Cincinnati, OH 27.8%
4. Cleveland, OH 27.0%
5. Miami, FL 26.9%
5. St. Louis, MO 26.8%
7. El Paso, TX 26.4%
8. Milwaukee, WI 26.2%
9. Philadelphia, PA 25.1%
10. Newark, NJ 24.2%

What do these top ten cities (over 250,000 pop.) with the highest poverty rate all have in common?

Detroit, MI – (1st on poverty rate list) hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1961

Buffalo, NY – (2nd) hasn’t elected one since 1954

Cincinnati, OH – (3rd) not since 1984

Cleveland, OH – (4th) not since 1989

Miami, FL – (5th) has never had a Republican mayor

St. Louis, MO – (6th) not since 1949

El Paso, TX – (7th) has never had a Republican mayor

Milwaukee, WI – (8th) not since 1908

Philadelphia, PA – (9th) not since 1952

Newark, NJ – (10th) not since 1907

Einstein once said, ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
It is the poor who habitually elect Democrats… yet they are still POOR.

Part III:

“You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”
~Abraham Lincoln

“Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him had better take a much
closer look at the American Indian.”
~Henry Ford

Okay, all this idiocy can be distilled right down to: kill off all political parties except for conservative republican, always support the rich, and if you’re poor, go fuck yourself, because that’s your fault, natch. I’ll just briefly note that a good many white people on the poor side of life voted for the Tiny Tyrant, and many of them are now crying in their beer, because he hasn’t done one thing for them. At least the ones bright enough to figure out what a scam it all is. That last quote by Ford is pernicious, to say the least. After a partially successful genocide, and massive theft, no, the government didn’t do much for Indians, because they were busy stealing every fucking thing they could, and really didn’t want those inconvenient leftovers getting in the way. This would be Joyner’s way of expressing that ol’ white supremacy: white is might is right, yessir.

Let’s take a brief look at what some of those brilliant republicans have been saying about all us peons:

Paul Ryan says people just don’t want insurance, that’s all.  All those millions who would lose healthcare, ah, that’s their choice.

The Regime has threatened the insurance of low income people if Trumpcare isn’t passed, but hey, they care about you, they really do!

Sen. Ron Johnson explained how people with pre-existing conditions don’t deserve health coverage, because it’s like crashing a car.

Rep. Pete Olsen was laughing over prenatal and maternity care, pointing out that since people with those nifty X chromosomes didn’t need that shit, why should they pay for it?

Now, the vote on Trumpcare has been canceled. (Yay!) Don’t get over excited though, because this is far from over, and McConnell will not give up easily, nor will Ryan, Trump, or all the other empty bags of flesh who are utterly devoid of empathy.

Yes, I’m sure we are all so darn impressed with how republicans care for people, especially those pesky poor people. Rick Joyner’s “wisdom” can be found here.

Angel Dust.

No, not that kind of angel dust. This would be Jehovah blessed, gold dust, from angels. Angel dandruff. Whatever it might be, it’s got Lance Wallnau all kinds of high, as he descends further into the well of weirdness. Naturally, the angeldruff is gold, what better colour for money-grubbing members of the Religious Reich?

Right-wing preacher Lance Wallnau posted a video on his Facebook page yesterday recounting a meeting he had just attended that had such a strong presence of the Lord that he left literally covered in angelic gold dust.

Wallnau said he had recently joined with several “Seven Mountains” activists in Bend, Oregon, at a meeting where “I literally could feel the rush of God in the room, the hair stood up right on the back of your neck.”

On top of that, Wallnau said he also kept “getting this gold dust and glitter on my face” because of the presence of angels.

“That stuff is real,” he said. “It’s like angels were in the room.”

So, gold glitter is real. Yeah, that’s not news. Glitter is one of the most evil things on the planet, y’know. Can’t get rid of it. Years later, you’ll still be picking bits of glitter out of wherever. If Jehovah is a glitter peddler, oh, that’s bad news, dude. So, it was like angels were in the room, or angels were in the room? Because there are lots of stories about fairy dust and pixie dust, and so on. Could have been socialist pixies droppin’ the glitter bomb on you, Lance. Never know. Probably should track those ‘angels’ down and interrogate them.

These angels are on assignment to take control of the media for Jesus, Wallnau said, which is why “the New York Times and CNN [are] in such deep doo-doo and what’s happening with Hollywood and Johnny Depp and Bill Maher and all the big mouths and the crazies as they’re running their mouths; God is literally taking the wheels off of the chariot of pharaoh as he’s trying to persecute what God is doing” through President Trump.

I kinda think it’s your god emperor Trump who is in “deep doo-doo”. I will grant you the crazies are running their mouths, you fellas in the Religious Reich seem to be utterly incapable of shutting up, even when the slightest reflection would tell you yeah, maybe I should keep that to myself. So all of media, from journalism to television/movies to idiot preachers on the net, that’s pharaoh? Hmm. Do you really want to bring that up, Lance? Jehovah doesn’t have a good track record with chariots, seeing as they confounded him to the core. That brings us back to iron, which seems to have a nasty effect on your god. In many of the old stories about magical beings, iron is inimical to them. So, combined with the glitter, I’d say there’s a suspicion your god is some sort of evil elvish being. Don’t listen, Lance, the elves just want to play with you! I recommend reading Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett. Don’t worry, the witches are the good kind.

There’s video at the link for those who might want to watch. Via RWW.

No More Reading On Planes?

Hrag Vartanian.

Oh, the TSA has come up with yet another of their unbelievably stupid ideas, and naturally, are quite enthused about it. All books and all paper of any kind will be pulled for extra scrutiny. Given the collective brain power of the TSA, this most likely means that a very high number of potential passengers will not be making their flight, but be locked up in a back room somewhere, while the crafty TSA agents attempt to figure out the reading material.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is testing new requirements that would oblige travelers to remove books and other paper goods from their carry-on baggage when going through airport security. The new proposal hasn’t gone into effect, though the TSA, which is an agency of the US Department of Homeland Security, has tested it at airports, including in early May, when screeners at a Kansas City airport “forced passengers to remove all paper from bags, down to notepads,” according to Wall Street Journal; The Sacramento Bee reported that the TSA also tested this policy in Sacramento.

[…]

TSA agents already have the authority to search what they want, and anyone who has been subject to extra screenings will know that notebooks and other books are often flipped through by agents, who sometimes even read their pages. That was the experience of artist Kameelah Janan Rashid, who was removed from a plane on her way to Istanbul in 2015. Yet this new policy, as outlined by Stanley, “would lead to more routine and systematic exposure and, inevitably, greater scrutiny of passengers’ reading materials in the course of the screening process.”

Henry Reichman, professor emeritus of history at California State University at East Bay and chair of the American Association of University Professors’ Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, told Inside Higher Ed that the screening change was troubling:

Academics are unsurprisingly big readers, and since we don’t simply read for pleasure, we often read materials with which we disagree or which may be seen by others as offensive. […] For instance, a scholar studying terrorism and its roots may well be reading — and potentially carrying on a plane — books that others might see as endorsing terrorism. In addition, because scholarship is international, I suspect academics are more likely than others to be reading and carrying material in foreign languages, which might arouse some suspicion. … Finally, academics (as well as editors and journalists) may well be carrying pre-publication materials — drafts for peer review or comment, etc. — and these could raise special concerns.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said in an interview with Fox News Sunday last month that the department “might and likely will” expand the new carry-on policy.

The Full Story is at Hyperallergic.

The Death of Medicaid.

Al Franken at The BookExpo2017 in New York City, 6/1/17. CREDIT: Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx.

Getting back to the Fuck You Care Plan, which gets worse at every small reveal. The denials over medicaid come in fast and furious, from evasive denials to outright lies, but the bottom line is quite simple: money will go into select filthy rich pockets; medicaid will be dead in few short years.

The bill would in fact massively cut Medicaid, threatening to completely phase out the program as we currently know it. The legislation would roll back Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, starting in four short years. It would also make deeper cuts to Medicaid by placing “per capita caps” on the program such that states will receive only a set amount of money for each recipient, no matter how much their care actually costs.

Andy Slavitt, who ran Medicaid in the Obama administration, said on Twitter that “the main event in the Senate bill is the destruction of Medicaid,” characterizing it as “far, far worse than even the House bill.” And the House bill, as scored by the Congressional Budget Office, would leave 23 million more people without coverage.

But Trump administration officials presented alternative facts on Sunday.

Full story here.

Monday morning on MSNBC, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) countered Roy’s argument. He noted that the tax cuts that Trumpcare would deliver to the richest 400 taxpayers would pay for 750,000 people to be on Medicaid. Franken didn’t rely on a single study but cited the more comprehensive analysis of recent research on Medicaid published in NEJM. These researchers found that for every 750,000 people who lose Medicaid coverage, 1,000 to 2,000 people would die.

Franken actually understates the case. The NEJM cited a recent study estimating that Medicaid expansion has saved one life for every 239 to 319 people covered. That means enrolling 750,000 people in Medicaid could actually save 2,300 to 3,100 lives.

Full story here.