It’s all very hush-hush
Paul Krugman is scathing about the Republican senators’ super-secret take-away-health-care bill.
Last month House Republicans rammed through one of the worst, cruelest pieces of legislation in history. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the American Health Care Act would take coverage away from 23 million Americans, and send premiums soaring for millions more, especially older workers with relatively low incomes.
This bill is, as it should be, wildly unpopular. Nonetheless, Republican Senate leaders are now trying to ram through their own version of the A.H.C.A., one that, all reports suggest, will differ only in minor, cosmetic ways. And they’re trying to do it in total secrecy. It appears that there won’t be any committee hearings before the bill goes to the floor. Nor are senators receiving draft text, or anything beyond a skeletal outline. Some have reportedly seen PowerPoint presentations, but the “slides are flashed across the screens so quickly that they can hardly be committed to memory.”
Clearly, the goal is to pass legislation that will have devastating effects on tens of millions of Americans without giving those expected to pass it, let alone the general public, any real chance to understand what they’re voting for. There are even suggestions that Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, might exploit loopholes in the rules to prevent any discussion on the Senate floor.
Evil, isn’t it.
When it comes to the Republican replacement for Obamacare, however, it’s not just the process that’s secretive; so is the purpose. Vox.com asked eight Republican senators what problem the legislation is supposed to solve, and how it’s supposed to solve it. Not one offered a coherent answer.
Of course, none brought up the one obvious payoff to taking health care away from millions: a big tax cut for the wealthy.
It’s their One True Thing – keep making the extremely rich even richer. It’s a bonus to get to fuck over the poor and middling to do it, but the core goal is to keep feeding more billions to the billionaires.
This shouldn’t even be an effective tactic; any reasonable person would simply vote against legislation that they had been prevented from reading.
Sadly, they are in short supply.
Well, Holms, most of the time the Senators don’t read the bills anyway. They rely on their staff to keep them informed, and also on lobbyists (!?!). Someone else tells them how they should vote, and they show up and vote the way they are expected to by whatever interest has been interested enough to persevere on the issue, and possibly to sink money into the re-election campaign.
What, me? Cynical? Oh, dear, is it that obvious?