Showing posts with label Benefit Cuts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Benefit Cuts. Show all posts

Friday, August 16, 2019

Trump Administration: The Huddled Masses Can Go Fuck Themselves

Posted by Rude One

Let's get one thing straight here right off: If you are a legal immigrant in nearly every other country in the world, you are allowed to participate in that country's national health system. You're paying for the benefit through your taxes and other fees, and, goddamnit, just like everyone else legally in the country, you don't have to worry about paying much of anything else for your medical care. Nothing will be held against you. Nothing will turn you into a "public charge" or whatever fuckin' term for "undesirable" you want to use. And that's because most every other country in the world is not filled with ignorant savages who think that calling health care a "right" is akin to mass enslavement by socialists.

We in the United States happen to live in a country that is, in fact, filled with brutish idiots who would rather die in a ditch of a treatable disease than have a government-run health insurance system for everyone. So that means that only the poorest of the poor get to be on Medicaid, and then you're considered on welfare and a burden to the state. And that means that, unlike every other civilized nation, if you're a legal immigrant, the American government wants to hold it against you if you have a shitty job that doesn't provide health insurance (like, say, in a chicken processing plant) and need help so the flu doesn't financially ruin you.

We are a nation run by sadists who get off on hurting the poor. So, in the new rule, "Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds," published yesterday in the Federal Register, taking advantage of a whole bunch of government programs meant to, you know, help you survive could result in you getting booted from the country.

See, previously, "'public charge' has been interpreted to mean a person who is 'primarily dependent on the Government for subsistence, as demonstrated by either the receipt of public cash assistance for income maintenance or institutionalization for long-term care at Government expense.'" Yeah, we didn't take into consideration "an alien's reliance on or receipt of non-cash benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps; Medicaid; and housing vouchers and other housing subsidies."

But that was before motherfuckers took over and decided to redefine shit that didn't need redefining unless you are a motherfucker.  Here's the new shit: "DHS is revising its interpretation of 'public charge' to incorporate consideration of such benefits, and to better ensure that aliens subject to the public charge inadmissibility ground are self-sufficient, i.e., do not depend on public resources to meet their needs, but rather rely on their own capabilities, as well as the resources of family members, sponsors, and private organizations." Wow, sounds almost logical, no? Except it's just fucking cruel for so many reasons. Keep reading.

"This rule redefines the term 'public charge' to mean an alien who receives one or more designated public benefits for more than 12 months in the aggregate within any 36-month period (such that, for instance, receipt of two benefits in one month counts as two months). This rule defines the term 'public benefit' to include cash benefits for income maintenance, SNAP, most forms of Medicaid, Section 8 Housing Assistance under the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program, Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance, and certain other forms of subsidized housing."

The fuckery is deep in this, but let's put this simply. Let's say you're an immigrant who has been in the country for a few years totally legally. All of a sudden., you lose your job when the restaurant where you're waiting tables or, hell, the office where you're working closes. For four months, you need to go on Medicaid, you need SNAP, and you need housing assistance. That's it. You can be denied a green card for circumstances completely beyond your control unless you starve, go homeless, and let yourself be sick.

This has been one of the pet projects of presidential adviser and man most likely piss in your swimming pool, Stephen Miller, whose head is essentially shaped like a white hood. It's racism that is so plain, it's almost laughable. Yes, let's punish those who want to come to the United States and work our shittiest jobs so rich pukes can get richer. Yes, let's make them pay sales taxes and other shit that prop up our economy. And by all fucking means, let's take the income taxes of people who may have paid them for years before needing some government assistance.

In the UK, if you are a legal immigrant, once you receive your National Insurance number, you have access to many (not all) financial benefits, starting with the National Health Service. You can apply for Employment and Support Allowance, in case you are too ill or disabled to work. You can apply for a Carer's Allowance if you are forced to stay home because you must care for someone. You can get housing credits, maternity leave pay, and retirement income. And it's specifically because you've been paying into the national insurance while living in the UK that you are eligible. In the United States, it doesn't matter how much you've paid. Go fuck yourself in your old country if you need Medicaid for over a year.

Of course, the demented dullards of the Trump administration are all on board. Acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that verminous cockscab Ken Cuccinelli, couldn't even fake it when he completely undercut the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty, ignoring the "huddled masses" and "wretched refuse" part. And then he insisted that the poem was about Europeans, which, really, just sodomize your ass with a burning cross at that point.

As for resident Ignoramus Q. Shiteater, when asked about the rule and Cuccinelli yesterday, he said, " I don’t think it’s fair to have the American taxpayer paying for people to come into the United States...I am tired of seeing our taxpayer paying for people to come into the country and immediately go onto welfare and various other things.  So I think we’re doing it right." We should point out that not only are the taxpayers of the country paying for the months and months of vacation he has taken, but a good chunk of that taxpayer money is going straight into his business coffers and his own pockets.

Frankly, it's pretty fucking clear who should be booted from the country for being a public charge.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Republicans Will Hurt You More Than 100 Caravans of Immigrants

Posted by Rude One

You have to be a special kind of son of a bitch to look at filthy, exhausted people wearing rags and desperately trying to get somewhere they won't be raped, tortured, murdered, or forced into gangs or where they won't watch their children starve to death, and think, "Fuckin' stop them because they gotta be terrorists." You gotta be a particular type of motherfucker if you exploit those families, those mothers, those fathers, those children in order to whip a horde of idiots into an orgy of xenophobia and racism where a perverse, heaving mass of flesh, all sweat and pimples and whiteness, so much whiteness, pumps and sucks, fucking themselves until they reach an undulating roar of intolerance.

Goddamn, the stink.

At each of his rallies of the damned, resident Donald Trump, a lump of cow shit with bits of undigested hay stuck in it, has been that son of a bitch and that motherfucker, frothing in a Mussolini-esque squawk about the immigrants and the vile Democrats who allowed this to happen and the depraved leaders of Honduras and Guatemala and Mexico who have not halted the march of the immigrants. Jesus, how the mob of Trumpistas lap it up like semen spooged straight from Jesus's circumcised dick, fighting over each other for who can ingest the last precious drops as Trump does his dance with the ghost of Hitler, demonizing, condemning, promising violence, stopping just short of advocating violence himself, but ensuring that the mob's adoring hatred will drive them to the voting booths to protect him, protect the future he has promised, the white future, the rich future, when the nation is Mar-a-Lago and you're either a member or you're staring in longingly from the gate.

Trump has mastered the art of layering lie upon lie, creating a shit parfait of lies, the essence of his entire career. He told the gathered villagers in Houston last night to get their pitchforks and torches ready for the "caravan" of immigrants traveling to the United States border with Mexico because "I think the Democrats had something to do with it and now they're saying I think we made a big mistake because people are seeing how bad it is...look, that is an assault on our country and in that caravan you have some very bad people. You have some very bad people and we can't let that happen to our country." Yes, the president of the United States, with no evidence at all, is saying that the opposition party is behind a mass of immigrants who are hiding evildoers. He said earlier in the day that, if you search the thousands of immigrants walking over 1000 miles, "You’re going to find MS-13, you’re going to find Middle Eastern, you’re going to find everything."

Many of the Hondurans and others are fleeing from vicious gangs who have threatened to kill them or their families, who have killed family members, who have taken over communities. You think that they'd want open gang members to be along with them? Or are they in disguise as young children being carried by their parents? And, as for Middle Easterners, you think that immigrants who want to start a new life are totally fine covering up for terrorists? They'd probably be able to tell the difference between a Saudi and a Guatemalan.

You know what would happen if those immigrants were treated like asylum seekers and refugees ought to be treated in the supposed wealthiest, greatest, mostest wonderfulest, sexiest nation in the history of the earth and universe forever? The adults would get jobs. They'd open businesses. The kids would go to school. They'd all create safe communities if they didn't have to worry about ICE coming in to tear their worlds apart. They'd want to become Americans if our shit system for allowing that wasn't hopelessly backlogged and broken. They would barely be a blip in the immigration radar.

Some would commit crimes, sure, but, statistically, at a lower rate than citizens. And a few might join a gang because that's just how the world goes. But the vast majority just want a goddamn life and a chance for their kids to survive and thrive and they are willing to fucking walk 1,500 miles for the barest thread of hope. (And, by the way, the caravan is just inside Mexico. Walking nonstop, it'd be at least two months before they got to the border, unless George Soros provides them with some helicopters, so everyone just calm the fuck down.)

Even if every single one of the immigrants were let into the United States, it would have no effect on your life (unless you work in resettlement or enforcement). They're not all gonna settle in your neighborhood. Some would live with family already here. The rest would be dispersed to different areas. The most you might see is a new family moving in next door. If that frightens you, well, you're a fucking dumbass and aren't worth talking to.

You know what will have an effect on your life? If Republicans continue to run the government without any check on their power, Mitch McConnell has vowed to go after Medicare and Social Security cuts to help pay for the tax cuts for the greedy, wealthy pig fuckers who fund our fraught and frayed political system. That's a real goddamned threat to you and your family.

If Republicans keep both the House and Senate, they have vowed to try again to overturn the Affordable Care Act, even as they blatantly lie about protecting the pre-existing conditions exemption. That's a real goddamned threat to you and your health.

If Democrats lose in the midterms, we'll fall even further behind on anything to slow climate change as even supposedly smart Republicans have come down on the "Well, the climate is changing, sure, but we don't know what causes it" side of the bullshit (even though we totally know what causes it). That's a real goddamned threat to you and safety and security and property.


You know what's not a threat to you, your family, your health, your safety, your security, and your property? The fucking caravan of immigrants in Mexico right now. If you give an actual shit about protecting your ass, you'll get rid of the people who have flat-out promised to do shit to kill you.

Vote for Democrats like your ass depends on it.

Monday, October 22, 2018

Republicans want to take away your Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid

By Laurence Lewis

Mitch McConnell is disappointed:
After instituting a $1.5 trillion tax cut and signing off on a $675 billion budget for the Department of Defense, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the only way to lower the record-high federal deficit would be to cut entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
"It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem," McConnell said of the deficit, which grew 17 percent to $779 billion in fiscal year 2018. McConnell explained to Bloomberg that "it’s a bipartisan problem: Unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doing anything to adjust those programs to the demographics of America in the future." The deficit has increased 77 percent since McConnell became majority leader in 2015.
New Treasury Department analysis on Monday revealed that corporate tax cuts had a significant impact on the deficit this year. Federal revenue rose by 0.04 percent in 2018, a nearly 100 percent decrease on last year’s 1.5 percent. In fiscal year 2018, tax receipts on corporate income fell to $205 billion from $297 billion in 2017.
The Republican tax cuts for the wealthy gutted federal revenues and exploded the deficit, just as the CBO said they would, but it's not the Republicans' problem. That's Republican logic for you. And of course their solution isn’t to undo the damage they inflicted but to inflict more. By gutting the budget. McConnell has some very specific spending targets:
McConnell said it would be “very difficult to do entitlement reform, and we’re talking about Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid,” with one party in charge of Congress and the White House.
“I think it’s pretty safe to say that entitlement changes, which is the real driver of the debt by any objective standard, may well be difficult if not impossible to achieve when you have unified government,” McConnell said.
Trying to follow his train of thought makes the brain hurt. He's saying he wants to slash Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, but he can't because his party controls all the branches of government. Democrats have no interest in destroying these popular and enormously beneficial programs, but somehow McConnell can only get it done with their help. The point seems to be that in order for an unpopular and disastrous Republican agenda to be enacted, Democrats need to be elected. Which may be his way of saying that if you don't want an unpopular and disastrous Republican agenda you need to keep Republicans in power.

Did I mention that trying to follow his train of thought makes the brain hurt?

But the point is clear. However he gets it done, he wants it done. Whatever the politics, his policy goal is to gut funding for Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. And as for his reference to any objective standard as to the driver of the debt, well he seems to have a different standard of objectivity than reality. That the Republican tax cuts for the wealthy would explode the deficit was known all along. Both before they were passed:
The House Republican tax plan may have a deficit problem.
The GOP bill including some changes would increase federal budget deficits by $1.7 trillion over 10 years, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That includes money for additional debt service payments due to the bill.
Under the plan, U.S. debt would rise to 97.1 percent of gross domestic product in 2027, up from 91.2 percent under current CBO projections.
And after:
The deficit - the amount that Washington’s spending exceeds its revenues - will expand to $804 billion in fiscal 2018, which ends on Sept. 30, up from $665 billion in fiscal 2017, CBO said.
The national debt is on track to approach 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2028, said the nonpartisan CBO, which analyzes legislation for Congress.
“That amount is far greater than the debt in any year since just after World War II,” CBO said, adding that the debt is now about 77 percent of GDP, a measure of the size of the economy. The Republican tax legislation, passed by Congress without Democratic support, along with a recent bipartisan $1.3 trillion spending package, are expected to drive economic growth faster than initially expected, CBO said.
Of course, McConnell was lying about it all along:
Nearly a year ago, as the debate over Republican tax breaks for the wealthy was near its end, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insisted that the tax cuts didn’t need to be paid for – because they’d pay for themselves.
“I not only don’t think it will increase the deficit, I think it will be beyond revenue neutral,” McConnell said in December 2017. “In other words, I think it will produce more than enough to fill that gap.”
Whether the GOP leader actually believed his own rhetoric is an open question, but either way, we now know the Kentucky senator’s claim was spectacularly wrong. The Republican tax breaks have, as Democrats and those familiar with arithmetic predicted, sent the nation’s budget deficit soaring.
And just last month the Republican House of Representatives was pushing through yet another round of tax cuts:
A second round of Republican tax cuts would add an additional $3.2 trillion to the federal deficit over a decade, according to a new report released by a centrist think-tank...
The GOP’s “tax reform 2.0” would make permanent many of the individual and estate tax provisions in the tax law Republicans passed last fall, which the Congressional Budget Office said would already add about $1.9 trillion to the deficit, factoring for interest costs.
The second round of cuts would cost $631 billion before 2028 and an additional $3.15 trillion in the decade after that, according to the Tax Policy Center. The finding was somewhat larger than the $2.4 trillion cost over 10 years projected by the Tax Foundation, a conservative think-tank.
The first round of Republican tax cuts for the wealthy exploded the deficit, leading the Republican Senate leader to call for cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, and the Republicans already are pushing for yet more tax cuts for the wealthy, which would further explode the deficit, undoubtedly leading to more Republican calls for more cuts to Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and absolutely anything else that serves the interests of anyone other than the wealthy beneficiaries of the Republican tax cuts. For decades, this has been the Republican Party’s dream. If they retain control of Congress they can make it happen. As I wrote eight years ago, just don't call it class warfare:
It's not class warfare. Don't you dare call it class warfare. The Republicans may relentlessly pursue policies that favor the wealthy and hurt everyone else, but it most emphatically is not class warfare. The arbiters of appropriate political discourse will be most put out if you call it class warfare. You will not be welcome in the Village. You will not be invited to appear on the Sunday talk shows.
Class warfare is such an ugly term. To begin with, it suggests that we are a socially stratified nation, and that such stratification is at least to some degree based on money. Money is dirty. One shouldn't discuss money in polite conversation. And it's important that we be polite. And everyone knows that we are a melting pot. Everyone is capable of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, and don't even consider questioning the physics when there is neither a fulcrum nor a point of leverage. This is America. The land of opportunity.
Republican policies that hurt the less affluent and favor those that need no favors is not class warfare, but to discuss Republican policies that hurt the less affluent and favor those that need no favors is class warfare. The pundits will say so. The policies themselves are not class warfare, but raising awareness about them is.
This isn't new. It's a pattern. It's the basis of the Republican Party’s economic history. As I wrote more than seven years ago:
Ronald Reagan used the deficit as an issue when he ran against President Carter. As president, Reagan ran up the largest deficit in U.S. history. The Republicans of his era talked a lot about a Balanced Budget Amendment, while consistently voting to run up the largest deficit in U.S. history. Reagan's successor, the heir to the Bush dynasty, outdid his mentor by running up an even larger deficit. President Clinton raised taxes, eliminated the deficit and created a surplus, and just coincidentally oversaw an enormous economic expansion and near full employment. The next heir to the Bush dynasty cut taxes, eviscerated the Clinton surplus, and outdid both his father and Reagan by breaking their records for creating the largest deficits in U.S. history. He also all but broke the economy. This isn't complicated. This isn't difficult to explain.
Republicans never did actually care about deficits. They cut taxes, explode deficits, then use those deficits as a rationale to cut government spending. It's not complicated. It never has been complicated. It has, in fact, been transparent all along. And it's transparent now.

Underneath his bizarre, Byzantine gaslighting, McConnell revealed the Republicans' ultimate goal. He wants to blame the Democrats for what his policies have wrought, and he wants to make the Democrats complicit in his further goals of wreaking further economic havoc. But the Democrats want no part of it. But cut through the misdirections and circumlocutions, and one thread of truth runs through McConnell's rhetoric. He admitted what he wants to do. He admitted what the Republican Party wants to do. And make no mistake that if they retain control of Congress, Republicans will push it through. They will blame its disastrous consequences on Democrats, but it is their agenda. More tax cuts for the wealthy. More cavernous deficits. And their ultimate goal: eviscerating Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.

So much is at stake in next month's elections, and it's sometimes hard to focus when Trump, McConnell and the Republicans are burning down the republic in so many ways, but don't lose sight of this one. The existence of Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid are on the ballot this November.

Because the Republicans want to destroy them.

Friday, October 19, 2018

GOP Hypocrisy On Health Care

Republicans are talking up pre-existing conditions protections on the campaign trail after working for years to repeal health care. Lawrence discusses with Jared Bernstein and Ron Klain.

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Trump handed off the VA to three Mar-a-Lago fat cats who have been running it in secret

Saturday, December 16, 2017

Republican Congressman Who Mocked Sick People As Immoral Announces He Has Cancer

Republican Congressman Mo Brooks from Alabama recently announced on the House floor that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and was greeted with the utmost sympathy from his fellow members of Congress.

But just a few months ago, this same man said during an interview with CNN that people who lead good lives don’t get sick because they do everything right.

He also wants to deny millions of Americans the same healthcare benefits that he receives.

His diagnosis is sad for him and his family, but his actions as a Congressman are absolutely disgusting. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.



Friday, December 15, 2017

The Republicans Are What We Thought They Were

First, they pass tax cuts and run up the deficit. Then, they use the deficit to ‘prove’ spending is out of control, and start slashing entitlement programs.



You’re surprised at Bob Corker? Really? Please. Yes, he’s a deficit hawk. And he’s a senator who has, from time to time, made some effort to work in a bipartisan fashion.

But come on. He’s a Republican. He likes tax cuts. He believes, as they all do, in supply-side economic theory. And he has donors and constituents in Tennessee who wanted this. See what he said in defending his switch from no to yes on the GOP tax bill: He changed because of “many conversations over the past several days with individuals from both sides of the aisle across Tennessee and around the country.” In other words, rich people.

Besides, he’s not going to buck the team. Not on something like this. There’s a history here. Read Robert Kaiser’s great book Act of Congress, about how the Dodd-Frank bill became law. Corker was working with Chris Dodd. In absolute good faith! But Corker couldn’t—or wouldn’t—bring any other GOP senators along with him. A crucial defection, incidentally, was Richard Shelby, whom we’re praising this week for helping to save us from Sen. Roy Moore. Corker ultimately voted against it.

Marco Rubio? That was a joke from the start. He seems to have gotten a portion of what he wanted on the child tax credit. Rubio called the changed that leadership agreed to a “solid step.” We all know what words like that mean. They mean: Well, it kinda sucks, but it’s enough for me to save face, especially with Americans for Tax Reform and Club for Growth and all these other people threatening to find someone to primary my ass if I vote no.

Like the coach said, the Republicans are who we thought they were. So it’s done. Or is going to be.

As I wrote in The New York Times Friday, it’s the second most unpopular piece of major domestic legislation of the last 27 years. The first most unpopular? The attempt to repeal Obamacare earlier this year. Nice work, 115th Congress!

You think this is bad, think about what’s next. What’s next are cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and other domestic spending programs. Because this is the Republican formula:



1. Pass massive tax cuts for the top 1 percent.


2. Run up the deficit.

3. A year or two later go, “Oh my God, look at the deficit! This proves that spending is just out of control!”

4. Start taking the axe to entitlement programs and the domestic discretionary budget.

That’s how it works, ever since supply-side became part of conversation. Ronald Reagan cut taxes and ran up deficits like mad, tripling, quadrupling them over Jimmy Carter’s level. George H.W. Bush raised taxes a little, but the economy was so in the doldrums that the deficit was still bad. Along came Bill Clinton, who had to fix it. He raised taxes. He did investments. He got the economy humming. He eliminated the deficit. Gave George W. Bush a surplus.

Then Dubya cut taxes. Twice. And started two unfunded-mandate wars. Up shot the deficit again. Ach, they all said! These deficits. We must cut spending. And bring Social Security under control.

But they never did cut spending, and popular will against Bush’s Social Security privatization scheme was so strong that that one died on the vine fast. Meanwhile they turned the banking system into a casino, and that crashed.

Then came Barack Obama, who, again, had to fix it. He wasn’t able to, quite enough, because his stimulus package should have been much larger than political realities allowed. But he did reduce the deficit substantially. As a percentage of GDP, it went from the 10 percent Bush handed him to around 2.5 percent. And he oversaw 75 consecutive months of job growth. He handed Donald Trump exactly the economy that 14 months ago Trump was saying was a disaster but now is saying is beautiful.

That’s the cycle, folks. That’s how it works. And now, thanks to the GOP, we’re about to open another gash in the deficit. They’ll try to slash away, but I hope and think that by and large they won’t succeed, because if you thought this tax bill was unpopular, wait till you see what happens when they start openly talking about tinkering with people’s nursing home care (Medicaid), prescription drug benefits (Medicare), and fixed pension distributions (Social Security).

And so a Democrat may well get elected in 2021, inheriting a mess from Trump. A deficit. Maybe a bad economy. And it will be on the Democrat to fix it again. And he or she will. But only to a point.

The Republicans, then in opposition, will obstruct and not allow the next Democrat to really fix things, because Republicans will know deep down that public investment would fix the economy, but they’ll rail against it on the grounds that it will… increase the deficit! So they will try to engineer things so that the recovery is tepid, so they can get the Democrat out and cut taxes for the rich one more time and balloon the deficit and start the whole grim process again.

That’s the game. It feels like we’re fated to play it for the next 50 years.

There’s one way out. The next time the Democrats are in power, they need to really turn the tables on tax reform. Not nip and tuck, but really fundamentally do something different. This isn’t the place for all the details. Maybe some future columns. But that will be the only way to break the pattern. They can’t do anything about what Congress is about to do. But they can smash the glass next time they have the hammer, and they’d better do it.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Trump can't hold President Obama's jock strap

Trump, Chieftain of Spite

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Bill Cassidy just won't stop lying about his healthcare bill

By Laura Clawson


THIBODAUX, LA - FEBRUARY 23:  Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) speaks during a town hall meeting on February 23, 2017 in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Cassidy spoke on a wide range of issues including healthcare, jobs and government spending.  (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)
Bill Cassidy
“This guy, Bill Cassidy, just lied right to my face,” Jimmy Kimmel said on Tuesday night. And on Wednesday morning, Cassidy did a lot more lying about his healthcare plan. He lied on CNN:
“I’m sorry he does not understand,” Cassidy said of Kimmel. “Under Graham Cassidy Heller Johnson, more people will have coverage, and we protect those with preexisting conditions. States like Maine, Virginia, Florida, Missouri — there will be billions more dollars to provide health insurance coverage for those in those states who have been passed by by Obamacare, and we protect those with preexisting conditions.”
He lied on MSNBC:
“There will be more people covered under the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson amendment than are under status quo and we protect those with pre-existing conditions,” Cassidy said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
And the reality that Kimmel laid out so clearly—that Cassidy’s bill simply does not live up to the tests he set himself and will hurt a lot of people—remains:
That statement, similar to one Cassidy also made on CNN, is virtually impossible to defend. The Graham-Cassidy proposal, which Republicans are rushing to take up for a floor vote next week, calls for reducing federal spending on health care through two sets of changes. [...]
As for Cassidy’s other claim, that his bill would protect people with pre-existing conditions, that’s not true, at least in the sense most people would understand it. The bill would very explicitly allow states to waive existing rules, which the Affordable Care Act put in place, prohibiting insurers from charging higher premiums to people based on their medical status. With that flexibility, insurers could make coverage prohibitively expensive for people with a variety of medical conditions, from diabetes to cancer.
Cassidy wants to make his bill seem different from the wildly unpopular Republican bills that failed, but the only thing that’s really different is that this time, Republicans are up against a Sept. 30 deadline for repealing Obamacare and the pressure to get on board will be that much more intense. This bill will still gut the Medicaid expansion that’s gotten so many people the health coverage they need and it will still weaken protections for pre-existing conditions and essential health benefits and much more. He lies, he lies, he lies—and he lies in the service of harming millions of Americans.

Another Obamacare repeal bill?! It’s time to jam the congressional phone lines again. Call your senator at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to vote NO on any repeal bill.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Fresh Health Care Fuckery: Your McCain Praise Was Probably Wasted

Posted by Rude One

Ah, remember when Mighty Maverick John McCain was the mighty maverick hero last time there was a vote on a bullshit health care "reform" bill with his mighty mavericky thumbs-down?

Remember the ejaculations of praise for this irascible cockhead doing something decent just to fuck with Donald Trump? Remember his slobber-coated speech where he said of the Senate, "Let's trust each other. Let's return to regular order"? Remember how he insisted, "Let the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee under Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray hold hearings, try to report a bill out of committee with contributions from both sides. Then bring it to the floor for amendment and debate"?

Yeah, fuck all that noise. Now that the new spiked dildo of health care, the Graham-Cassidy-etc bill, is threatening to be rammed up the hemorrhoidal anus of the American people, with just about every fucking terrible thing as the last attempt intact, McCain said that he wanted to hear from Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona. Ducey had opposed the previous Trumpcare bill because it dicked over Arizonans on expanded Medicaid. Now Ducey has said he supports Graham-Cassidy-who-the-fuck-cares, even though the aforementioned dicking remains, and McCain has tweeted that he's still feeling cranky about the process but is "inclined" to support the bill.

And even if McCain ends up going thumbs-down again, fuck him for even contemplating an upraised thumb. Either you've got principles or you don't, motherfucker.

In all the time the GOP has had, since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, since the election, since the failure of the "Fuck You, We Don't Care If You Die Bankrupt" bill in July, they have not made a case for repeal except "We said we'd do it." It's like a bunch of morons promising to light their farts if their favorite team wins a championship. The only people who wanna see that are other morons. Right now, we're down to 8.8% of Americans without health insurance, and a good number of those are because of the assholes in Republican states not expanding Medicaid.

Who does this bill help? It's faith-based legislation. Republicans say that Obamacare is making you suffer, so, if you're GOP-inclined, you believe it's making you suffer (even if it's paying for your chemo or psoriasis medication). And you have staked your entire political belief system on your investment in this bullshit. You'd rather die a miserable death than admit that you were always the mark for a bunch of low-rent Barnums. This way to the amazing egress, idiots. Grab a snipe on your way.

I wrote last week about the remarkable care I received in the UK for free. I was in the middle of the fourth largest city in the country, and every complaint I've heard about single-payer was rendered utterly and completely false.

Yet here we are, unable to even agree that tens of millions of people, including those with pre-existing conditions, who are now covered by the Affordable Care Act, deserve to be treated as human beings. What a stupid goddamned society we've built. It's repulsive. It's disgusting. It's immoral. And yet so many of our dumb fellow citizens think this is the way things ought to be.

The cruelest trick that capitalists ever played on Americans was making them believe they didn't need everyone else. Our fake rugged individualism will be our undoing.

And for those of us who do give a shit about our fellow Americans, it's once more to the phones to make Senators fear for their careers.

Friday, July 28, 2017

Cartoon Roundup





























'Skinny Repeal' Defeated, Thanks To Democrats And Senators McCain, Murkowski And Collins

By Karoli Kuns





























Tonight, Senator John McCain just paid red don back for his 'I like people who weren't captured' shit.

He was the third vote, with Senators Collins and Murkowski to kill the skinny bill.
I don't know what happens next.
---
All eight pages of the Trojan Horse "Health Care Freedom Act" have been published.

I could tell you what's in them, but the thing is, Senators don't want this to become law. They don't want the House to rubber-stamp this. This is just a placeholder to send over to the House so they can convene a conference committee, which will surely fail.

And when it fails, this will pass. So I guess that means you should know what's in it.
  • Repeals individual mandate, effective January 1, 2017.
  • Allows some tinkering by states to Essential Health Benefits
  • Repeals device tax
  • Defunds Planned Parenthood
  • Raises limits to Health Savings Accounts
This bill will immediately increase premiums by 20 percent across the whole marketplace -- not just individual but also employer markets. It will also take away access for 16-17 million people.

I'm afraid (as are many of the health care experts I follow) that this will pass. I will update this post with more as it's available.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

John McCain Is The Perfect American Lie

John McCain Is Neither A Maverick Nor A Hero - He's A Coward


Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Another Big Republican Lie On The ACA: They Can Give You Something Better

Posted by Rude One

We know that Republicans have lied nonstop about the Affordable Care Act ever since it was passed into law by a Democratic-led Congress and signed by the Negro President.

We know that Republicans are stuck because the ACA is mostly based on Massachusetts's Romneycare and both come from plans from the conservative Heritage Foundation.

We know that Republicans lied and continue to lie about the effects of the AHCA and then the BCRA, the House and Senate versions of their "repeal and replace" bills.

But there is one more thing, one more set of lies, that is responsible for sticking a shiv into the GOP's dream of murdering a bunch of poor people so rich people can be richer.

See, Republicans keep trying to put the blame for the fix they're in on American voters. "We have to keep our promises to the American people," Republicans say. "We won the last three elections by promising to repeal and replace Obamacare," they whine like a dog that caught a cat only to realize it was a fucking mountain lion. Yeah, they're right. Voters did put Republicans in power over the promise of getting rid of the Obamacare horror and torture or whatever drama queen word you wanna use. But, and this is important, they only wanted to get rid of it because Republicans said they'd do better. Or, to put it another way, they lied about what they could do for people if the Affordable Care Act was overturned.

Senator after senator told you how you were enslaved by Obamacare and that the GOP would set you free. John McCain proclaimed, "Families in Arizona and across the country should have the power to make their own medical decisions – not Washington bureaucrats. This bill puts patients and doctors back in charge of their health care by fully repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a free-market approach that strengthens the quality and accessibility of care." John Thune promised, "It’s time to repeal this law and replace it with something that works. And that’s precisely what we’re going to do."

Others got even more explicit. For instance, here's Wyoming Senator John Barrasso (campaign slogan: "If you can't trust a man whose name includes the phrase 'bare ass,' who can you trust?"), from a speech he gave on the floor of the Senate in November, shortly after the election: "First of all, nobody is talking about taking people off of insurance without a replacement plan in place." Except that's exactly what they talked about. While Republicans will constantly mention how President Obama said, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" (which, to be fair, was an absurd promise), they simply aren't owning that they got voters all excited about this new fantasy health care plan where they wouldn't lose coverage despite repealing the very law that gave them coverage.

In fact, when you get to what President Donald Trump said, Republicans were promising something amazing. Put aside that Trump repeatedly said he wouldn't cut Medicaid and then, immediately after inauguration, put out a plan to cut Medicaid. Trump and his people consistently promised that Americans would have better health insurance coverage, that all Americans would be covered, and that it would cost them less in premiums and deductibles. He literally said this: "You will end up with great health care for a fraction of the price." And he told Americans that we would have a "beautiful picture" in the future of health care.

Republicans like to say that Democrats promise that they'll give people "free stuff" and that people on government programs like Medicaid are "moochers." But Republicans didn't win on the Obamacare issue because people didn't want free stuff. They didn't win because they said they would take away their health insurance. They won because they promised people more free stuff and better free stuff.

In other words, they lied. But voters believed them. They wanted to mooch more.

And the vast majority of Americans realize now that it was a lie because the Trumpcare plan that the Senate may vote to move forward tomorrow does none of the things they promised other than get rid of the health insurance they have now or make it worse and more expensive. So, of course, now we get articles like "These Americans Hated the Health Law. Until the Idea of Repeal Sank In." In that New York Times piece, Pennsylvania dumb shits who once thought Obamacare was the worst thing since the theory of evolution say things like "I can’t even remember why I opposed it" and "Everybody needs some sort of health insurance." One stupid fuck went from opposing the law to "Now that you’ve insured an additional 20 million people, you can’t just take the insurance away from these people. It’s just not the right thing to do."

But we knew all along that people liked the Affordable Care Act. They liked the elimination of spending caps and of pre-existing conditions determining premiums. They liked keeping their kids on insurance until age 26. And a shit-ton of people got to live because of the Medicaid expansion. Yeah, the ACA was fine. What they hated was Obamacare, which is exactly what Republicans wanted people to think of for a very simple reason:

Most Republican voters don't hate the ACA. They hate that their white asses were saved by a black man.

They resented the shit out of that fact. It put a lie to all the racism they've clung to for generations. The GOP used that racism for years. Now that the black man is gone, though, they're totally fine with the law and its benefits. They gave Republicans a chance to give them more stuff, but they don't want their stuff taken away. Especially when that "stuff" is the right to live a healthy life.

Be careful this week, dear dumb shits and dearer smart asses. Republicans are going to keep coming after the Affordable Care Act, no matter how many shivs you stick in it. Stay on the phones. Keep the pressure up on the few Republican senators who can make the difference. Don't let the liars win. It's life and death, motherfuckers, life and death.

And once we finally put this beast down, let's turn our attention to single payer.

(Fun extra part of Barrasso's speech: "Democrats promised that they would listen to other people’s ideas, and then they went behind a closed door in an office back there, and they wrote the law ignoring all of the suggestions by Republicans, and without any Republican support at all. We’re not going to make that same mistake. We will be looking for Democrats’ help, we will be looking for Democrats to work with. We will be listening to Democrats’ ideas, and we will be working very hard to win Democrat votes for any new law." Insert your own rolling-with-laughter emoji here.)

Monday, July 24, 2017

GOP trashes Trump’s plan to end dozens of government programs



President Donald Trump’s plan to eliminate dozens of federal agencies and programs has collapsed, as a conservative Republican Congress refuses to go along.

Among the programs spared are agencies promoting rural business development and the arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Community Development Block Grants and the National Wildlife Refuge Fund. Those and many others are getting money in bills approved by the GOP-run House appropriations committee. The House plans to vote on spending bills throughout next week, and the Senate is expected to consider spending plans shortly.

Trump unveiled his $4.1 trillion budget plan in March, pledging to “reduce the federal government to redefine its proper role and promote efficiency.”

But in the House, where all 435 members face voters next fall, budget legislation has far more money than Trump had sought for a host of programs. The spending bill for agriculture contains $4.64 billion beyond what Trump requested, an increase of about 30 percent. For interior and the environment, the bump was $4.3 billion or 16 percent. For transportation, housing and urban development, the committee approved $8.6 billion, about 18 percent, more than the budget request.

"There’s that old saying in Washington that the president proposes and Congress disposes," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog.

Indeed, after many House and Senate Republicans complained to Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney in hearings about the impact of some of Trump’s cuts, congressional budget-writers quickly made sure they don’t happen.

For example, instead of slashing the Appalachian Regional Commission, the House Appropriations Committee last week approved $130 million for the independent agency, created 52 years ago, that helps fund infrastructure and job-training projects in Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and other Appalachian states that Trump won in 2016.

Lawmakers including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., vowed that doing away with the ARC wasn’t going to happen.

"I am very proud that the House Appropriations Committee approved a bill that includes important funding for the ARC, an organization that does a great deal of good in East Tennessee and rural Appalachia," Roe said.

Even agencies and programs conservative Republicans purport to dislike are avoiding the Capitol ax.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been on the list of programs many conservatives and Republicans have wanted to defund since Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., was House Speaker in the 1990's.

Trump wants it off the federal books, too, but House appropriators instead included $445 million for the agency.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities have also been favorite conservative targets, and got a death sentence in Trump’s budget plan. That didn’t stop the House Appropriations Committee from approving $145 million for each endowment last week with plenty of Republican help.

"Throughout this year, we’ve seen some of the Republican members of that committee saying that they were working hard to make sure that the NEA would be receiving significant funding and certainly rejecting the administration’s termination proposal," said Narric Rome, vice president for government affairs for the Americans for the Arts, an advocacy group.

All this still enrages plenty of conservatives.

"The problem with the Republicans is that so many of them aren’t team players," said Chris Edwards, director of tax policies studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute and editor of DownsizingGovernment.org. "They’re parochial or, with appropriators, it’s just a single-minded devotion to increase spending on the programs that they fund."

Edwards said he was stunned when leading Republicans railed against Trump’s budget plan to eliminate the Community Block Grant Development program, which allocates funds initiatives from affordable housing to after school programs.

House appropriators approved $2.9 billion for CDBG, $100 million less than its Fiscal 2017 funding level.

"Appropriators and other Republican congressmen, they love to give speeches about fiscal responsibility, they love to complain how Obama was a big spender, but now’s the real test," he said.

"Trump has given them the way forward here with some reasonable cuts. Can they rise above their parochial interests and do something that’s good for the overall budget here?."

Other budget-watchers note that the real money issues aren’t even being addressed. Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said that even Trump’s cuts ignore the fastest growing parts of the federal budget, entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.

"To me, it just doesn’t seem to make much sense to be focusing all our energy on cutting the slowest growing part of the budget," he said.