I’m almost afraid to go to sleep at night any more. The rats are busy, busy, busy, plotting destruction.
Last night, while most of us were unconscious, the Republican senate pulled some procedural games to allow them to act unilaterally. They really are determined to destroy people’s health insurance.
Thursday’s Senate procedural vote will set up special budget rules that will allow the repeal vote to take place with a simple majority in the 100-member Senate, instead of the 60 votes required to move most legislation.
That means Republicans, who control 52 seats, can push through repeal legislation without Democratic cooperation. They’re also discussing whether there are some elements of a replacement bill that could get through at the same time with a simple majority. But for many elements of a new health care law, Republicans are likely to need 60 votes and Democratic support, and at this point the two parties aren’t even talking.
They also discussed what they don’t like about the Affordable Care Act. Among the things they definitely want to kill are preexisting conditions protections, the ability for young adults to stay on their parents’ plan, and, of course, contraception. Those all sound like wonderful things to me, and I can’t understand how anyone can think we ought to dispose of them, so the logic escapes me — the drumbeat of hatred for all things Obama has led to people voting to demolish even those accomplishments that help them.
Oh, and also, Trump is going to announce his Supreme Court pick within two weeks.
We are so fucked. And by “we”, I mean all of the American people, including those who voted for these Republican scum.
(Important: Even if you stay awake all night, wide-eyed and staring in terror, the Republicans are still going to do everything they can to ruin your life and the lives of your children. You might as well try to get some sleep.)
I’d say “we” also includes people all over the world whose lives will continue to be destroyed by the ravages of climate change, our wars for oil (by proxy or otherwise) and bu$iness as u$ual.
I wonder how many of those republican voters have pre-existing conditions? I am willing to bet a whole lot of them.
Cheryl Berube @3:
Not to worry. They have insurance through the Affordable Care Act, not ObamaCare, so they are safe.
Sadly, I am not kidding. I have seen this online, and I have had discussions about this with people in meat space.
Yep. Your conservatives hated the last 150 years or so and they will force the world back.
I once read a Sci-Fi book where the USA were the corrupt fascist regime you’re heading for, but in that book the world put a kind of force field around you to contain your horrors. That sounds like Utopia now.
Giliell: That does sound like utopia…especially if I can be outside the force field. I’m thinking Costa Rica, or maybe Spain.
@3
PZ actually made a post about that a few days ago.
OT: Haha wow my family is fucked we all have expensive pre-existing conditions
How is this possible that 52 people can vote to change the 60-vote requirement? Why isn’t this just always done? Why didn’t the Democrats use it when they had a 59 seat majority, but not quite 60?
As a Canuck, I’d also worry about Drumpf’s tweets upsetting the North Korean ruler to further his own nuclear ambitions than it would otherwise be, the tense relations between the US and Saudi Arabia being upset, and the increased push of sympathizers towards groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda being further increased (thanks to increased open Muslim hatred in the US) and unchecked (thanks to planned cutbacks to the CIA and to Homeland Security). Throw in the ever increasing lust for conquest of foreign lands by Russia and China further upsetting the balance, the realization that a lot of major Canadian cities would be directly affected by a nuclear exchange with the US, and the knowledge that 8 minutes is all that separates Drumpf’s desire to push “the button” and him pushing “the button”, and there goes my sleep for the next 4 years. The only upside is the ridiculous low prices of buying stuff from the US, thanks to the plummeting US dollar causing my country’s currency to soar by comparison.
By all means get some sleep.
But also draw up a survival plan. Be proactive.
1. The GOP has a long history of wrecking the economy, dating back to Hoover and the Great Depression. And ending with Bush and the Great Recession.
The Trump disaster is already taking shape. They plan massive deficits.
This can touch off inflation.
They will also unleash Wall Street and the banks to do what they always do. Make money like it is 1929, crash the economy, and send the taxpayers a bill for the bailout.
It won’t happen fast. It took Bush 7 years to wreck the economy.
2. Resist. Vote, Organize. Donate to your causes. History isn’t on their side.
3. Whatever else you can think of.
First question; can the democratic members of congress fight this somehow? What about if we sent in more petitions to get them to back off?
Second question: how possible would it be for those states that still want health care assistance to implement replacement programs?
@Giliell
Hopefully, you and other people in Germany like you can stop something like this from happening in your own country. Don’t let the far right come to power anywhere else.
1. It’s not impossible. Most states have some sort of social safety net health care programs.
2. But they can’t do much. These days, state budgets are stretched beyond the breaking point.
They don’t have the money.
emergence
I’m trying, believe me. While the extreme right is growing (or at least becoming more visible, we’ve had a far right contingent of 20-25% of the adult population for years, for decades), there’s also still a broad consensus that this is bad and also that there are some rules that apply to the political process.
Other than that, I’m looking into digging out the cellar below the basement again…
Are there any statistics on how many Trumpkins this is going to kill off vs decent people? I hope the numbers are in our favor for the next election.
jaybee @ #7: How is this possible that 52 people can vote to change the 60-vote requirement? […] Why didn’t the Democrats use it
The short answer is because the Democrats in the Senate are weak and stupid.
The 60 vote requirement only exists at all due to historical inertia, and can be removed by 51 senators at the beginning of any congress after the election, or at any time via a procedural motion. There’s nothing in the constitution to support it.
The Senate Democrats, however, were pathetically unwilling to ruffle feathers or exert their power under Obama, because they were afraid of breaking with tradition and being criticized by the right-wing media. Add to that their belief that the 60 vote majority would serve them well next time the Republicans were ascendant, and that the Republicans would work with them in a bipartisan way at some point.
The current Republican maneuvering is ostensibly within the bounds of the 60 vote system — basically, one bill per year (it’s supposed to be the budget) is allowed to bypass the 60 votes, to avoid the very important budget from being tied up by partisan squabbling. Instead, they’ve designated repealing the ACA as the budget measure. Done.
There’s nothing stopping the Republicans from just removing the filibuster entirely at any time, though.
back in the day I was partly convinced by the call of “turn on tune in and drop out” and while I and we did survive the intervening years I am not so sure about that now.
I will admit that back then I did not know many (any) with whom I shared an understanding of reality with being a reason and science based understanding. Feeling rather helpless in the face of the prevailing awareness around at the time it made some sense but that was long ago and far away. While I can still watch events unfold I am not so content to be merely a spectator as I was then. What actions I will engage in I have not decided on yet. I can see now that there are many who also share a reason and evidence based approach to reality so I see the possibility of actually having a positive influence on events.
The fools have invaded full force the seats of power and they think that because the system they were born in allowed them a brief window of opportunity to do some things and make themselves wealthy that it was something they did and their beliefs are some how real regardless of any evidence to the contrary. Always things change and they are changing now no belief can stop it.
uncle frogy
I’m terrified of losing my health insurance, though I can hope against hope that WA will keep some kind of state health insurance for childless people.
I guess the Republicans *want* me to go crazy or die. Oh, and so do half of my relatives, apparently.
I have to admit, I’ve been pulling out some of the older bits of my musical repertoire; stuff from the 1950s and 1960s – things like Flanders & Swann’s “Twenty Tons of TNT”; or the “Merry Little Minuet” (Kingston Trio); or even Tom Lehrer’s classic “We Will All Go Together When We Go”. The interesting bit is how seldom the lyrics need updating – and by how little they require it when they do.
At least I’m of Generation X, and for me this is just a case of reverting to the old Cold War mindset, from the days of MAD, where we were all just one daft presidential “joke” away from destruction. (Funny how things you outgrew as a teenager come back into fashion, isn’t it?) The ones I feel sorry for are the kids of Generation Y, and the Millennials – the ones who grew up after the Berlin Wall fell, and to whom this is all new territory.
A state could pretty easily import the ACA locally to keep the insurance coverage it has now.
The one thing it can’t do is move federal taxes towards the subsidy programs. It would need to find its own money for that.
Numerobis @#19:
States like Washington and California already run their own health exchanges, and Medicaid is administered by the state.
The taxes are in principle the immediate problem, which because these states contribute more to the overall budget then red states, would in theory end up being more or less revenue neutral.
The problem with that is that the federal government runs off of deficit spending, and can basically ignore short term economic issues. States can’t do that: they actually have to run their finances “like a family budget” (to quote the wingnuts), which means state budgets get trashed whenever there’s an economic downturn, right when social services demand goes up.
In other words, states have trouble providing good government for the same reason libertarian wingnuttery is stupid.
… and of course add to that that the Republicans want to cripple state insurance regulators as part of their policy.
I’m ok in terms of not having any pre-existing conditions or major medical issues, but we will once again be tethered to work with insurance coverage because my wife would die within months without insurance (and we’d be broke to boot).
I hate this feeling, and I’m really starting to hate republicans on a violent level…which is not good for me.
@Elladan:
I live in WA, at least for now. (I was in the psych ward five times over the past year and am taking a medical leave from grad school.)
Do you think Washington would be able to keep expanded Medicaid without the federal funding? I mean Medicaid being available to childless adults.
@JP: Realistically? It seems difficult. The state is a weird mix of liberalism and dumb reflexive anti-tax small-government idiocy.
Any such program would need to pass new taxes, and probably a citizen initiative to raise the money — which would get huge push back from the dumb anti-tax crowd.
Add to that the problem that the state’s tax system is extremely regressive, so you’d get some push back from liberal types who are sick of rich people getting off without paying their share.
Who knows? Theoretically it’s possible.
I’ve always been one to one up, to hyperbole them.
Outlaw all emergency Departments and then, let them have their way.
Figure out how that’d blow up in their faces, in a New York minute.
Just creatively phrase it.
Elladan:
“Revenue neutral” I’m not seeing. The state’s citizens hand over money to the federal government; it then currently hands money to the state. If ACA is repealed, then the fed stops handing over the ACA-related money to the state. That means the state would need to levy taxes — quite a lot of taxes, in fact.
numerobis @ #26:
The ACA was created to be deficit neutral, so it’s paid for by a number of random and fairly nonsensical taxes. If it was repealed (as opposed to simply cancelling the parts that help people) then those random taxes would also be repealed.
That said, the taxes are pretty random and nonsensical. For example, part of the revenue comes from people (and businesses theoretically) paying the penalty for not getting health coverage. The only really good part seems to be a tax on rich people.
So that’s what I mean by it theoretically being neutral for richer states to enact something similar: they could raise taxes in similar ways. On the other hand, the current CBO projection has the ACA costing about double what those random taxes actually raise.
The whole ACA isn’t that expensive overall. If you take the current CBO projection of about $110B and apply it per capita, just off the top of my head that’s about $1.5B for Washington State, compared to the state’s existing $47B or so budget.