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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Rude Pundit: Random Observations on the CBO Score of the Senate's "Health Care" Bill
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2017/06/random-observations-on-cbo-score-of.htmlThe Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
6/26/2017
Random Observations on the CBO Score of the Senate's "Health Care" Bill
The Congressional Budget Office is out with its analysis of the Senate's bullshit version of the House's bullshit so-called "health care" bill (which is actually just a fancy way of saying, "Tax cuts for rich fucks" . The title of the Senate bill is even stupider than the "American Health Care Act." It's the "Better Care Reconciliation Act" because, see, it's better, get it? Except, of course, not really.
1. When you hear anthropomorphic banana slug Mitch McConnell or bitch-faced John Cornyn or portly salesman Donald Trump dismiss the CBO score as "politically-motivated" or some such nonsense, just remember: the reason that Senate GOP majority allegedly started from scratch on a bill repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act is that the House bill was too harsh. How did they know it was too harsh? Because of the fucking CBO score of what the effects of the bill would be. The wacky-ass House voted before the CBO estimates came out, so the mighty Senate was going to be all grown up about it by having a he-man woman-haters club of male Republicans write the bill in super-secret and then attempt to ram it through like a fist into an unlubed sphincter.
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2. As you've probably read by now, the BCRA is estimated to boot 22 million Americans off their health insurance, with 15 million of those losing coverage next year. And you gotta give the GOP a little credit here for not kicking everything down the road. They'll get to look their constituents in the face and say, "Yeah, fuckos, I took away your cancer treatments and got you hooked even deeper on opioids. Now vote for me or I'm lettin' the raping Mexicans back in." And those fuckos will probably vote for their GOP member of Congress, thinking that dying of cancer is a fair trade-off if the raping Mexicans stay out.
2a. Most of the people who will lose coverage are on Medicaid, which is gonna get cut to the tune of $772 billion over ten years, and earn less than 200% of the poverty level, with people 55 to 64 getting punched in the tit more than anyone else.
2b. To put this in perspective, about one out of every 20 people in the United States will lose their health insurance next year if this bill passes.
3. There are two things that Republicans are going to point to in this CBO report as some kind of amazingly awesome shit. One is that it says that, by 2026, premiums will be 20% lower than if things kept on like they are now. But that's because the BCRA reduces coverage by allowing states to apply for waivers for things like "maternity care, mental health care, rehabilitative and habilitative treatment, and certain very expensive drugs." If you don't have to cover mental health or, you know, opioid addiction or, fucking hell, pregnant women, then that'll tend to lower costs. And this bill will jack up deductibles and cost sharing. In one scenario involving a hypothetical single, 40-year-old man, the CBO says that, because of changes to the law, the same insurance he has now will cover only 58% of care where it used to cover 87%. But his premium will be $100 less a year, so bully for him.
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4. Most of the rest of the bill, as analyzed by the CBO (and others), ping-pongs between dickish and cruel. From reducing funds for women's health (including eliminating any money for Planned Parenthood) so that 15% fewer women will have access to care to repealing funding for the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which assists with things like immunizations and research into better health practices to the tremendous hike in premiums for people just below Medicare age to the fact that low-income people simply won't be able to afford insurance, this bill just isn't "mean." It's fucking pathetic and a goddamned embarrassment.
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5. But, hey, rich fucks get a half-trillion bucks in tax cuts, so drinks are on them. Lots of drinks. Enough to ease the pain. Because there is no guarantee that this thing's going down, not when you have to rely on alleged moderate Republicans and spineless worms like McCain, not when elected officials and cabinet members feel free to just lie about it without consequence, not when rich fucks can get richer off the diminishing health of the poor and other people they deem unworthy of the security they get to enjoy in their land of the free and home of the savage.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Docreed2003
(16,869 posts)world wide wally
(21,751 posts)Keep in mind that McCain has never lived one day of his life without government funded health care.
Talk about a welfare queen!
luvtheGWN
(1,336 posts)1. All those folks born after 1975 whose jobs have been lost due to technology will swell the medicaid rolls -- especially in the red states whose economies are suffering already, and,
2. All those babies (a percentage of which will have birth defects or genetically induced conditions, or anti-vaxxer parents) who will be born because of the defunding of PP or laws brought in by the reichwing anti-abortionists.
Of course there are many other things that will result in the failure of this bill to work, and cause the deaths of many thousands of Americans, but these were the first two that came to mind.
Our experience here in the GWN is that when any political party makes noises about cutting our universal healthcare in any way, shape or form is so quickly shut down by public protest that it would make your head spin. What the GOP are doing is just plain evil and they need to be called out on it at every opportunity. Remember how Palin and Grassley's "death panels" worked so well?
Grins
(7,226 posts)2018. An election year.
And every one of those 15-million have spouses, children siblings, grandparents, all of whom will also be affected as they will have to pick up the slack; so maybe more like 50-million...?
If I was a Dem in the Senate I might vote for the damn thing, all the while shouting Mencken at the top of my lungs!
Bohunk68
(1,364 posts)"Ram it through like a fist in an unlubed sphincter." OUCH!
ewagner
(18,964 posts)Yeah
That's about right.
Bozvotros
(785 posts)Once they see their co-payments medication costs and deductibles going through the roof, every veteran aged 50 and up is going to be heading into the VA for their guaranteed benefits. This is already a trend and is going to become a flood.
I wonder if those skyrocketing costs costs are factored into the CBO score or whether they will just try to make do at the VA with the staff they have now. Certainly good old John McCain is keeping his eye on this VA wrecking ball and is actively pushing for massive increases in VA funding.
hunter
(38,324 posts)Banana slugs crawl about the forest floor eating decaying plant matter, pretty much minding their own business.
McConnel is more like some kind of crippling deadly parasite, a lung fluke maybe, passed on in sputum or feces.
He doesn't give a shit if people stop breathing, so long as his kind survive.