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The GOP Health Care Bill Is Getting Creamed, and Trump Has No Idea What Is In It

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | March 8, 2017 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | March 8, 2017 |

This week, Paul Ryan and the Republican House of Representatives unveiled their new health plan. I’m not going to get into the details of it again, but it’s sufficient to say that it’s much shorter than the ACA, it f*cks over poor people, and both moderate Republicans and hardline Republicans hate it.

But Donald Trump has decided that this is his bill. He’s decided to use the bully pulpit to back it. Trump has decided to make this bill a signature one for his White House. He’s all in, folks. In fact, he’s warned Republicans that if they don’t pass the bill, there will be an “electoral bloodbath” in the midterms.

There’s just one thing: He doesn’t appear to know what’s in the bill. From the NYTimes:

“We’re going to do something that’s great, and I am proud to support the replacement plan released by the House of Representatives,” Mr. Trump said. “This will be a plan where you can choose your doctor, and this will be a plan where you can choose your plan. And you know what the plan is. This is the plan. It’s a complicated process, but actually it’s very simple, it’s called good health care.”

Has Donald Trump read the bill? Because this is not what he promised last month:

“We’re going to take care of them. We’re going to take care of them. We have to take care of them. Now, that’s not single payer. That’s not anything. That’s just human decency … You will end up with great health care for a fraction of the price and that will take place immediately after we go in. Immediately! Fast! Quick!”

This is not that. Under this bill, it will reduce overall coverage, deductibles will increase, and Medicaid expansion will be phased out. Millions will lose health insurance and the private insurance market may go under. But Paul Ryan ain’t care!

You know who else doesn’t like it? Old people, who vote Republican at much larger rates:

AARP, in fact, has come out against it hard.

“Medicaid cuts could impact people of all ages and put at risk the health and safety of 17.4 million children and adults with disabilities and seniors by eliminating much needed services that allow individuals to live independently in their homes and communities. This harmful legislation would make health care less secure and less affordable.”

The S&P says that around 10 million people will lose coverage, although it will boost profits in the insurance industry, and that’s apparently what Paul Ryan cares about the most.

So, basically, the bill mostly affects old, poor people, otherwise known as “a disproportionate number of Trump voters.” So, about the bloodbath in the midterms?

Hell, even Ann Coulter is like, “Fuck this!”

Apparently, Paul Ryan thought he could get it through with a provision that literally cuts taxes for companies paying CEOs more than $500,000 a year, which is insane (Trump and his Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price, are feigning ignorance of that provision, and it’s odd that they haven’t seen it since the bill is only 60 pages long).

You know who else doesn’t support it? Breitbart and Drudge, although they’re casting blame on Paul Ryan instead of their man, Donald Trump.

According to the New Yorker, the only way this thing gets through is if Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell speed it through before growing criticism kills it.

If Ryan can rush and muscle it through the House and Mitch McConnell can do the same in the Senate, it might end up on Trump’s desk. But the more scrutiny this House bill is subjected to, the more likely it is to share the fate of most efforts at health-care reform and die somewhere on its journey to the Senate, and perhaps long before then.

With a growing number of Republicans coming out against it, however, that’s not likely to happen. In fact, Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas is already trying to put the brakes on: “I think we’re moving a little bit too quickly on health care reform. This is a big issue,” he told MSNBC this morning.

The bill is two days old, and it’s already falling apart and along with it, Trump’s hope for a signature deal. In fact, there is some suggestion that Trump may be starting to distance himself from it slightly: Kellyanne Conway was making the rounds this morning insisting that the bill not be called Trumpcare.

Make him own it, right along with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.



Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba.