Senate Republicans ready themselves for a massive theft from the poor - By Eugene Robinson
The health-care bill that Republicans are trying to pass in the Senate, like the one approved by the GOP majority in the House, isnt really about health care at all. Its the first step in a massive redistribution of wealth from struggling wage-earners to the rich a theft of historic proportions.
Is the Senate version less mean than the House bill, to use President Trumps description of that earlier effort? Not really. Does the new bill have the heart that Trump demanded? No, it doesnt. The devil is not in the details, its in the big picture.
Fundamentally, what Republicans in both chambers want to do is cut nearly $1 trillion over the next decade from the Medicaid program, which serves almost 70 million people. Medicaid provides health care not just for the indigent and disabled but also for the working poor low-wage employees who cannot afford health insurance, even the plans offered through their jobs.
Additionally, about 20 percent of Medicaid spending goes to provide nursing home care, including for middle-class seniors whose savings have been exhausted a situation almost any of us might confront. Roughly two-thirds of those in nursing homes have their care paid by Medicaid.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/senate-republicans-ready-themselves-for-a-massive-theft-from-the-poor/2017/06/22/902a1a96-5777-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html
dalton99a
(81,636 posts)Timmygoat
(779 posts)That Mitch McConnell had childhood polio, and was saved by The March of Dimes org?
murielm99
(30,777 posts)Doug the Dem
(1,297 posts)...to complete their "comic-book villain" behavior.