Ah, remember the good ol’ days when the GOP used to rail against Obamacare because it put govmint bureaucrats in charge of your health care decisions? That horrible state of affairs was the Rubicon they would not cross. They warned us, over and over again, about those nasty Death Panels that would decide who was worthy.
My how times have changed. Meet your new health care deciders: 13 men—all wealthy and fully insured by the taxpayers of the USA. Turns out, it’s OK to have a Death Panel, as long as its a GOP Death Panel. Bear in mind, though, that they’re not only killing your health care access, they’re killing the health insurance marketplace (the one that they claim to have such fidelity toward) and the entire medical system. You just can’t fund those two large entities with rich people alone. Both are driven by volume, by spreading risk and the cost of innovations. But those are just collateral damage. The thing that the McConnell cabal are really killing—taxes on the wealthy.
So those of us who object—and it should be the overwhelming majority have a new slogan to take to the streets:
Health, not Wealth!
Remember that old saying: “when you have your health, you have everything”? There’s another adage ready of the dustbin of Trump history. And even if you have employer sponsored health insurance, don’t get too comfortable. As those premiums rise, more and more businesses will back out of those benefits. They simply won’t be able to stay in business with those added costs.
And once Trump and Pruitt kill off the EPA, we’re going to all need health care in a big way. Who knew they could pull off a twofer—poison the environment: our air, water, food, and workplaces; and bar access to the medical treatment that will be in higher demand. This government isn’t going sideways anymore; it’s going back to the 19th century. With the block on immigration, we’re also going to need all the child labor we can round up.
November 2018 seems a long ways off. Think of all the damage they can do between now and then.