The breakneck speed with which Paul Ryan is trying to ram through his Obamacare repeal and replacement-if-you-squint-at-it-and-are-a-Republican bill was matched with an unceasing flurry of stories about the politics and the policies of the thing. Two House committees began marking up the bill, despite the fact that there have been no hearings on it yet, a point Democrats made over and over and over in each committee. There wasn't a lot of progress made on that front, but there was an awful lot of ridiculous today, anyway. Lets start with the best part:
It is absolutely not "Trumpcare," says everybody in the White House—Health Secretary Tom Price, press secretary Sean Spicer, and her:
“I’ll call it Trumpcare if you want to, but I didn’t hear President Trump say to any of us, ‘Hey I want my name on that,’” [Kellyanne] Conway told Fox News. “We’re happy it is the American Health Care Act. This is serious stuff. This isn’t about branding according to someone’s name.”
We saw two other major developments from the Republicans, related to one another: one, what the Congressional Budget Office says about the bill doesn't mean anything to anyone (contra Sean Spicer circa 2014 when the CBO's word was gold); and two, the point of this bill isn't the number of people insured but people's ability to get care. Yeah, that old "access" shtick that's a slightly more sophisticated version than "you can always just go to the emergency room."
These are related, because the CBO will almost certainly find that millions of people are going to lose insurance. So Office of Management and Budget Chief Mick Mulvaney made a point today of saying insurance isn't the "end goal" of the bill, and Spicer joined in with "How many people are going to be covered—that’s not the question." That's how you know the number of newly uninsured people is going to look really bad when the CBO report comes out. Meanwhile, the extremists are just mad because it doesn't take insurance away fast enough.
Here are some of the other highlights of the day.
- It's International Women's Day, so here are just a few ways that Ryancare contributes to the War on Women.
- Conservatives made a stab at blaming the Democrats when this all falls apart by trying to say the bill could pass without them when Democrats vote for repeal. Meanwhile, conservatives feel really sorry for themselves over Paul Ryan's betrayal. They're not giving in, not yet anyway.
- Despite all the evidence, Republicans are continuing to echo the myth put forward by Price on Tuesday that Medicaid has actually decreased the ability of "folks to gain access to care." There we go again with "access." It's not true.
- Despite the fact that conservative opposition remains steadfast, Ryan continues the happy talk, saying everyone is on the same page in the House, the White House, and the Senate and everything is proceeding according to plan. However, if you talk to some of the maniacs in the Freedom Caucus, they're hearing a totally different message from the Trump regime. They're hearing that it's all still up for negotiation and that Trump wants to make them happy.
- While the maniacs are opposing the bill because it doesn't do enough to take insurance away from people fast enough, consumer groups and pretty much every healthcare-related organization have come out in opposition to it.
- And among the awful things this bill would do that is helping to solidifying opposition by everyone who cares, it would gut disease outbreak prevention.
- Democrats remain committed to fighting and derailing this as best they can, making the point again and again that this is a tax cut bill, not a healthcare bill.
- And here's a particularly fun stunt, riffing off of a 2010 stupid Republican trick.