I have had a little meme for a while that is funny because it’s true: Progressives protest war and torture; Conservatives protest health care and science.
Seldom has this been more true than today:
House GOP’s Obamacare Replacement Will Make Coverage Unaffordable For Millions — Otherwise, It’s Great
Avik Roy / ForbesThat’s not an ironic headline. Leading House Republicans have included a number of transformative and consequential reforms in their American Health Care Act, the full text of which was published Monday evening. But those reforms are overshadowed by the bill’s stubborn desire to make health insurance unaffordable for millions of Americans, and trap millions more in poverty. Can such a bill garner the near-universal Republican support it will need to pass Congress?
As someone whose life was literally saved by Obamacare, I find the sheer callousness of the conservative response obscene. I am not going to go into the weeds here, but …
CNBC among others estimate that 10 million Americans will lose their health insurance under the current plan, as written.
There was a grand Super-duper conservative press conference this afternoon in Washington, DC, in front of the capitol where conservatives (libertarians, actually) puled and whined that the plan that would strip ten million of coverage (and send them into the wilderness to die) was unacceptable because it was way too compassionate, and that THIRTY million should be sent to that selfsame wilderness (the number of Americans, myself included, who were finally able to obtain insurance — for life-threatening conditions, etc.) to suffer for not having been born rich or lucky.
It was one thing to have screeched when this was just a hypothetical. It is quite another to protest the saving of lives when the program has already been enacted AND in force for several years. They repeat the old lies about “death spirals” without once mentioning that they have done everything in their power NOT to plug any leaks in an untested skiff — something that all seasoned lawmakers knew was going to be needed. It was needed with Social Security; it was needed with Medicare; it was needed with Medicaid.
They knew that. But their antipathy towards the “pre-conditioned” and the poor has been such that we have grown inured to the obscene and demonic spectacle of “conservatives” screaming that (in essence) NOT ENOUGH AMERICANS ARE DYING, because the almighty imaginary dollar in someone’s fantasized wallet has been TAKEN to support these moochers, these evil children, undeserving poor, despised elderly and irresponsibly ill.
And then they wander off hilariously to tell everybody what “Christians” they are. Just like the majority of evangelical pastors in their pulpits.
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. ~ Matthew 25:40*
[* A very popular verse on Sundays, seldom heard or acted on Monday through Saturday.]
So, let me give you the secular numbers you need.
If you want to kick 10 million off health care, you would be saying, in essence, get rid of EVERYBODY in one of the following states:
#8 Georgia 10,310,371 9,688,681 9 North Carolina 10,146,788 9,535,692 10 Michigan 9,928,301 9,884,129 11 New Jersey 8,944,469 8,791,936
The first number is the July 1, 2016 population estimate, the second is the 2010 Census number.
So: who do you hate more: George, North Carolina, Michigan or New Jersey? More importantly, who do the Republicans hate more?
Or, if the “conservative” (libertarians) have their way, you could remove the residents of these states from all health care:
1 California 39,250,017 37,254,503 2 Texas 27,862,596 25,146,105 3 Florida 20,612,439 18,804,623 4 New York 19,745,289 19,378,087
You couldn’t quite doom everybody in California, BUT, if you chose Florida OR New York, you could add one of the states from the FIRST list, you know, one from Column A, and one from Column B, a sort of restaurant menu of death. How’s that for compassionate conservatism?
You either have a heart or you don’t. I can’t help you with that here, but I CAN help you visualize which states’ entire populations would represent the number of human beings, AMERICANS, who would be thrown to the tender mercies of maybe making it to an emergency room (assuming THAT law isn’t rescinded as well).
In the former case, you’d be behind the 12 million Hitler had exterminated. In the latter case, you’d be well ahead of the historians’ consensus of 20 million killed by Stalin.
And this is political behavior that is considered ‘moral’ by a large number of Americans.
Courage.
Cross posted from his vorpal sword.
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.