We begin today’s roundup with Paul Krugman who dedicates his column to the lies about the effects of Obamacare repeal:
G.O.P. health care claims are special, in several ways. First, they’re outright, clearly intentional lies — not dubious assertions or misstatements that could be attributed to ignorance or misunderstanding. Second, they’re repetitive: Rather than making a wide variety of false claims, Republicans keep telling the same few lies, over and over. Third, they keep doing this even though the public long ago stopped believing anything they say on the subject. [...]
[W]hen Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, went on TV Sunday to declare that “every single plan” Trump has put forward “covered pre-existing conditions,” that was just a lie.
Here’s what the Congressional Budget Office said in its assessment of the Republicans’ American Health Care Act, which would have caused 23 million to lose coverage, and would have passed if John McCain hadn’t voted “No”: “People who are less healthy (including those with pre-existing or newly acquired medical conditions) would ultimately be unable to purchase comprehensive nongroup health insurance at premiums comparable to those under current law, if they could purchase it at all.”
Sarah Kliff at Vox explains how difficult it will be to sell the public on attacking a framework that has positively affected so many lives:
The Trump administration once claimed it had a health care plan, but it didn’t really. Now it does have a plan, but administration officials aren’t telling the truth about it. [...]
The Obamacare subsidies that 8.8 million Americans use to purchase private coverage on the health law’s marketplaces would cease to exist.
The rules around private insurance would change a lot, in a way that is much less friendly to sicker Americans. The mandate that private Obamacare patients not be charged for preventive care visits would go away. Current limits on out-of-pocket spending for Obamacare enrollees would be abolished too, a change that could be especially challenging for those with costly medical conditions.
Maureen Groppe at USA Today previews how the attacks on the Affordable Care Act will play out in the House:
House Democrats will force Republicans on Tuesday to take a stand on President Trump's new position that the courts should completely overturn Obamacare.
Democrats are bringing up a resolution condemning the pending case as an "unacceptable assault on the health care of the American people."
It's Democrats' latest effort to take advantage of Trump's unexpected move last week to fully back a legal challenge to the 2010 Affordable Care Act without a ready substitute.
Switching topics to the issue of immigration, The New York Times editorial board explains how Trump’s latest move will only make things worse:
Jonathan Chait profiles the president as a bully:
Like a teenage bully, Trump fixates on a superficial characteristic in his target. He mocks male targets (Marco Rubio, Schiff, Bob Corker) as short, and a variety of women as fat or ugly. When reporter Serge Kovaleski challenged one of his lies, Trump mimicked his disability. He mocked Senator Charles Schumer for tearing up over Trump’s Muslim ban, either disgusted or unable to comprehend that somebody would empathize with the plight of immigrants.
Trump’s innovation of winning the election through adolescent-style bullying has carried over to his presidency.
Over at USA Today, the editors explain why Stephen Moore would be a disastrous pick for the Federal Reserve:
He is a pundit and politico who, like many of his kind popping up on television or in print, comments on the Fed from time to time. He has a history of inflammatory remarks, bad predictions and inattention to detail in dealing with economic statistics.
He is a bit like Peter Bergman, the 1980s soap opera actor who made a good living pitching cough syrup with the line “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV” — as if that somehow qualified him to make medical recommendations.
On a final note, Peter Slevin at The New Yorker previews today’s election in Chicago, where the city is poised to elect its first black female mayor:
Whoever wins, Chicago will elect its first black female mayor on April 2nd, to replace the two-term incumbent Rahm Emanuel, who announced last fall that he would not seek reëlection. The race isn’t over, and pundits have been wrong before, but money and momentum are flowing toward Lightfoot, a fifty-six-year-old corporate lawyer and former Assistant United States Attorney, who served as the president of the Chicago Police Board until she resigned to launch her campaign. On policy, little separates Lightfoot and Preckwinkle, who talk of spreading the wealth of a booming downtown and gentrifying inner core to the city’s tattered, violent outer reaches.