Trumpcare a Health Scare for Trump Voters -The iPINIONS Journal

Repealing and replacing Obamacare was the signature promise of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Therefore, you’d think the bill to implement it would augur well for the poor white folks who compose his base.

Well, think again:

In [Grant County, Nebraska], the President won over 93 percent of the vote in the last election. But Grant County is also a place that has benefited hugely from the Affordable Care Act [(ACA) a.k.a. Obamacare]. …

Now, under the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, many Grant County residents would suffer steep cuts to the tax credits they’ve come to rely on. It’s a nationwide pattern: Some of the harshest consequences of the GOP’s health bill would fall on rural Republican strongholds — precisely the voters who helped elect Trump.

(Washington Post, March 13, 2017)

This report stemmed from the highly anticipated “score” of the Republican plan (the American Health Care Act (AHCA)), which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released on Monday.

I imagine you’ve heard quite enough of the political bickering it triggered. But two CBO findings are worth highlighting:

This Republican healthcare bill will grant billions in tax relief to rich people.
It will strip healthcare coverage from 24 million poor people.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats wasted little time denouncing, even mocking, the AHCA as furthering a social and moral code that smacks of “Robin Hood in reverse.”

The CBO score shows just how empty the president’s promises, that everyone will be covered and costs will go down, have been,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. ‘This should be a looming stop sign for the Republicans’ repeal effort.’

(New York Times, March 13, 2017)

Truth be told, this Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare was in a legislative death spiral long before Monday. Nothing betrays this quite like Trump deflecting Democratic attempts to brand it “Trumpcare.” This, after all, is the TRUMP who has shamelessly branded everything from luxury hotels to cheap steaks with his name.

Mind you, his deflection probably has something to do with this:

According to new poll numbers, universal approval of [Obamacare] is higher than ever with 50 percent of Americans stating ‘no confidence’ in Republicans’ ability to create a replacement.

(NBC News, January 17, 2017)

Still, Republicans spent seven years vowing — as an article of socio-political and healthcare faith — to repeal Obamacare. Therefore, it speaks volumes about their unhinged opposition to it that, at this moment of reckoning, conservative Republicans are as opposed to their replacement plan as yellow dog Democrats.

The fiercest opposition is coming from some of the most conservative Republicans in Congress who have labeled the new legislation ‘Obamacare Lite’ and ‘Obamacare 2.0.’ …

The conservative backlash also does not reflect reservations among more moderate members of the party. Healthcare experts widely agree that the GOP plan would result in millions losing coverage – an outcome that some Republicans are reticent to try to defend to their constituents back home.

(CNN, March 8, 2017)

Apropos of which, I wrote many commentaries sounding alarms for those poor white folks “back home” – who Trump was misleading to vote against their own interest. They include “Trump for President?! Don’t Be a Sucker,” April 8, 2011, “On Syria (and almost every other issue) the American People Are Insolent, Ignorant, Idiots,” September 10, 2013, “In Defense of Obamacare Adviser’s Claim about Stupidity of the American Voter,” November 19, 2014, and “Trumpasites Already Gagging on Big Lies (a.k.a. ‘Alternative Facts’) and Outrageous Pledges They Swallowed,” January 30, 2017.

Unfortunately, these Trumpletons are so uninformed, they’re just figuring out that Obamacare, which they detest as a socialist conspiracy the Muslim Obama led to take away their country, and the Affordable Care Act, which they hail for guaranteeing their right to healthcare, are in fact the same thing.

In any event, here are excerpts from two of those commentaries. They reinforce my contention that the Trump phenomenon says far more about the stupid people who voted for him than the brazen hucksterism of Donald J. Trump.

From “New Hampshire Primary Proved One-Third of Republicans Are Gullible Fools,” February 12, 2016:

Trump’s supporters are, for the most part, the same poor, uninsured white folks who are so “angry” with Obama, they support rich, insured politicians who are hell-bent on repealing the healthcare Obama provided for them. They are the same blue-color, white folks who act as if they have more in common with a white-color billionaire like Trump than fellow blue-color blacks and Hispanics.

From “WTF! President-elect Donald J. Trump?! America. What. Have. You. Done.” November 10, 2016:

Hence, chances are very good that his presidency will prove a far greater disappointment to his rabid supporters than his enraged detractors.

That said, Republicans would do well to abandon their ill-fated plan and enlist Democrats to pass legislation that repairs Obamacare — in ways Obama himself spent much of his presidency urging the Republican-controlled Congress to do. Of course, the popularity of that (saving-grace/face) legislation would be such that shyster Trump would surely brand it Trumpcare to feather his legacy.

But there’s nothing quite so foolish as foolish pride. And Trump voters are brimming with it. Therefore, even if Trumpcare succeeded in stripping them of their healthcare coverage, they would probably thank him before admitting that his remedy for healthcare reform, like his remedy for nearly everything, is just Trump-brand snake oil