Donald Trump seems “surprised” to
be told that his new best pals Jeff Sessions and Steve Bannon are not
well-liked by a significant portion of the population, because, well, their
racists, xenophobes, white nationalists, etc. He did not know that Bannon had not just
openly embraced the “alt-right” movement, but in fact was prime player in
taking the “movement” out of the sewers into the “mainstream”? Trump says he “disavows”
the “alt-right” movement, yet the de
facto “leader” of the alt-right is his “chief counselor”? Whatever happened
to his “pledge” to be president of all
Americans, not just the haters of anything that doesn’t benefit solely those of
pallid complexion?
Trump is threatening—well, not “threatening,”
but promising—to rip apart everything that discomfited him personally in the
past, like bank regulation, foreign trade deals, health care reform. Federal
Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen has warned that it is a serious mistake to do
away with the Dodd-Frank banking regulation law, but Trump has told us that he
has his pen ready on day one to do away with it. Of course, Trump doesn’t
really have any idea how his plans will affect the average working American
(only the rich, like himself), but what does he care, I mean really? He claims
to be worth $10 billion; that is the total that about a half-million low-wage
Americans earn in a year.
What should concern people in the
here and now is Trump’s intention to sign any law that the Republicans in their
arrogance and stupidity intend with respect to the Affordable Care Act. This
law was passed with great difficultly, and it is likely that repealing the law
will mean that than the 50 million Americans for whom affordable health care
was out of reach before—particularly individual health insurance, which most
insurers refused to offer—will be back with us again to demand redress.
Again, what does Trump care? He’s got his. Those bigoted whites who think it is
only minorities who benefit from affordable health care are of course too
muddle-brained with hate to realize that the law benefits everyone—unless, of course, they think that it shouldn’t, only “real”
Americans like themselves.
Now, Trump did tell the Wall Street Journal that there were “some
things” he liked about the ACA, and he might consider keeping certain
provisions. But those provisions are hardly the most important. Yes, preventing
insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions is important,
but that is totally useless unless there is insurance offered at all. Taking
the guts out of the ACA—meaning the subsidies and the insurance markets—renders
any such “compromise” moot. In fact, according to the paper, Trump “said one
priority was moving ‘quickly’ on President Barack Obama’s signature health
initiative, which Mr. Trump said has become so unworkable and expensive that ‘you
can’t use it.’”
Again, the question is “According
to who?” Why is it that people who are on the high-end of the income spectrum who are completely lacking in any capacity to understand the
situation of the low-income believe they have any right to speak for them? Ask the people who
for the first time in their lives have access to affordable care what they
think, not the ignorant bigots who think of everything in racial “privilege” terms.
The fact of the matter is that this country—the only one in the “civilized”
world without universal health care—desperately needed some form of health care
reform, and the fact that it isn’t as “good” as it could be is entirely the fault
of Republicans and the “alt-right” who opposed any reform from the very
beginning.
This is what we got, and it is
unlikely the opportunity will ever come to pass again. Americans should get
their heads out of their fundaments about this; at worst, it should be demanded
that Trump and the Republicans pass another law that essentially offers the
same thing before they foolishly
cancel the ACA. Democratic lawmakers put their careers on the line for you--and you are going to allow these Republican plantation masters to throw it all away? Before the ACA, health care costs were skyrocketing out-of-control,
and only the truly “privileged” were availed to the alleged “best” health care
in the world. Now is not the time to repeal and “replace” the ACA with nothing
at all.
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