Scene: the Netherworld.
Hero: Dr Strange (played by the Affordable Care Act)
The evil villain: the Dread Dormammu (played by GOP donors)
An angry Dormammu to evil’s tool, Baron Mordo (played by Mitch McConnell): “I gave you vast power. Explain yourself, Mordo. How does Strange still live?”
But seriously, now what are they gonna talk about on CNN? Single payer?
Narrator: the GOP did not want to talk about single payer.
Margie Omero/The Hill:
Don't be fooled by the Clinton-Sanders feud, Dems are united
Maybe, like me, your personal feed is still filled with Hillary Clinton versus Bernie Sanders squabbles, with hardly any break since spring 2016. Seemingly every story has the potential to cause a flare-up, like the greasy meal before the pimple: news of a Russian company’s Facebook buy, Clinton’s new book, Sanders’s “Medicare for all” plan, and a constant stream of 2020 stories. Even news of Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez teaching a course at Brown caused a Bernie/Clinton fight between my Facebook friends and their friends’ friends.
It’s exhausting. But is it real? That is, are Democratic voters overall — not just paid operatives and the most active of activist — still divided? The polling suggests not. In fact, Democrats are far more united than Republicans.
First, Democrats are overwhelmingly united in their opposition to Trump, while Republicans are more mixed. From his first days in office, Trump’s numbers with Democrats have been abysmal. Gallup notes even recent presidents have not had such low numbers across party lines so early in their first terms. And Trump’s numbers among Democrats have barely budged.
Nader would have won.
Paul Kane/WaPo:
Behind the Senate GOP’s high-stakes health-care gamble: Unrelenting criticism back home
Senate Republicans have made a calculated decision: Better to fail again trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act then not to try at all.
That bet, made out of fear rather than a sense that victory is any nearer than it has been all year, can be traced to this year’s August recess — the five-week stretch back home that immediately followed the Senate’s previous, failed attempt to overhaul the nation’s health-care laws. The late-summer break, distant as it already feels to many of us, remains fresh in some lawmakers’ minds….
All the more remarkable is the lack of evidence that the bill’s chances are any better this time around than they were in July. In fact, some Republicans openly expect another defeat. Yet they still believe that trying again is the only option.
Amazing, really. Then again this group of GOP senators are among the dumbest and most craven human beings on earth. Probably because so many of them came from the GOP House.
Twitter at its best (i.e.live):
If @jimmykimmel was the substantive part of the debate (and he was), what does that say about the Senate?
First Read:
Graham-Cassidy has no support from the health industry
Backers of the GOP Graham-Cassidy health-care bill — Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., plus President Trump via Twitter — maintain it doesn’t touch protections for those with pre-existing conditions. And Cassidy also says the legislation will cover MORE people than current law does.
They all have one problem: No one from the health industry is backing them up. The health insurers are against Graham-Cassidy, with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association saying that the legislation “contains provisions that would allow states to waive key consumer protections, as well as undermine safeguards for those with pre-existing medical condition.” The American Medical Association is also against the bill. Ditto the American Hospital Association.
So if Graham/Cassidy/Trump claim that the legislation protects those with pre-existing conditions and expands coverage, the question follows: Which study or industry expert backs that up?
LA Times:
Republicans' new repeal bill would probably leave millions more uninsured, new analyses suggest
The latest Republican bid to roll back the Affordable Care Act would likely leave millions of currently insured Americans without health coverage in the coming decades, and strip benefits and protections from millions more, a growing number of independent studies suggest.
Healthcare safety nets in dozens of states stand to lose more than $200 billion by 2026 and hundreds of billions of dollars more in the years that follow, the analyses indicate
Will Bunch/philly.com on why now?
The truth about GOP's plan to destroy health care is even worse than you think
The answers may be uglier than we even care to admit. For Trump and his hard-core base of supporters, repealing Obamacare and replacing it with anything, with zero regard for what that replacement actually does or doesn’t do, would be the pinnacle of the broader effort to eradicate anything they perceive as tainted by the hands of America’s first black president. That includes the Paris climate accord, transgender troops, the DACA program for “Dreamers,” diplomatic relations with Cuba, the Iran nuclear deal, and so on and so forth — but the idea of something taking root in American life called “Obamacare” is too much to bear. (If only they’d called it RobertELeeCare — the far right would be out there with their tiki torches marching to preserve it!) …
Except there is one other thing driving Republican lawmakers: Money. Or, perhaps more accurately, blackmail. The billionaire oligarchs who’ve fueled the GOP restoration in Washington — specifically, the oil-drenched Koch brothers — have told their political handmaidens they will block access to an astronomical $400 million needed to retain power in 2018 unless Congress kills Obamacare and delivers a huge corporate tax cut. One key donor at a recent major confab of the Koch donor network told Republican legislators that “his ‘Dallas piggy bank’ was now closed” until the Affordable Care Act is killed for good. “Get Obamacare repealed and replaced, get tax reform passed,” said Texas donor Doug Deason, according to the Guardian. “Get it done and we’ll open it back up.”
Michael Hiltzik/LA Times:
As dismay with GOP's Obamacare repeal rises, the question becomes: Why are they doing this?
The reviews keep pouring in for the Senate Republicans’ latest (and presumably final) attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and they’re uniformly foul.
The newest entries came from the National Assn. of Medicaid Directors and from Nevada’s Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval. The Medicaid directors observed that the measure would force states to completely remake their Medicaid programs within two years, a task that the “vast majority” would find impossible. The repeal bill’s capping of federal Medicaid funds and conversion of Medicaid and individual market subsidies to block grants “would constitute the largest intergovernmental transfer of financial risk from the federal government to the states in our country’s history.”
…
These reactions point to what may be the most important question raised by the repeal effort: Why are the Republicans doing this?
…
But the real reason may have more to do with the deep pockets of GOP donors. At a retreat sponsored by the Koch brothers in June, wealthy donors warned Republicans that their piggy bank might be closed unless the donors saw progress on a conservative agenda that encompassed healthcare repeal and tax cuts.
Dylan Scott/Vox:
Graham-Cassidy’s viability under the Byrd Rule is murkier than that of its predecessors, experts told me. The senators have designed their program in a way that might be more feasible under the Byrd Rule, by tying the waivers to the federal funding in the block grants.
“Is the parliamentarian likely to judge the heart of [Graham-Cassidy] a big fat Byrd Rule violation? That I don't know,” Sarah Binder, who studies congressional procedure at George Washington University, told me. She had been dubious about the compliance of previous iterations of the waiver concept.
With Graham-Cassidy, she acknowledged that the structure of the bill’s waivers could succeed where others failed — even if the intent is the same.
“The [Graham-Cassidy] approach reminds me of the old cellar doors at my parents' house,” she said. “It's like someone's trying to disguise the entry to the basement, but you know exactly where the stairs will take you.”
Want a non health story?
Ryan Lizza/New Yorker:
A Dizzying Week of Trump-Russia Revelations
We know that the Russians launched a cyber campaign to help Trump win. We know that the Trump campaign was willing to entertain assistance from the Russian government because Manafort, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr., eagerly met with a Russian offering such assistance. This latest news suggests—though the reporting is still vague—what many people have long wondered: that Manafort may have been a crucial link between the Trump campaign and Russians seeking to defeat Hillary Clinton. If Mueller or congressional investigators unearth proof that Manafort colluded with the Russians, it will fortify the narrative that the Trump campaign worked with a foreign nation to alter the outcome of an American Presidential election—an unprecedented event in the country’s history. Trump could dismiss the evidence, deny knowledge of the collusion, and dismiss the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt.” But this week’s disclosures moved the theorizing about Trump and Russia one step closer to becoming a politically devastating blow to Trump’s Presidency.
Politico:
Political appointees want to leave for myriad reasons, according to recruiters, Republican operatives, and White House officials. Morale is low, the Russia investigations only seem to grow in scope, and constant churn at the top has left some staffers without patrons in a workplace known for back-biting and a tribal-like attitude.
“There will be an exodus from this administration in January,” said one Republican lobbyist, who alone has heard from five officials looking for new gigs. “Everyone says, ‘I just need to stay for one year.’ If you leave before a year, it looks like you are acknowledging that you made a mistake.