Duriing the past Presidential election campaign, we heard a lot from Trump about putting America first.
He took credit for saving jobs in Indiana, even though after an infusion of public money, the company moved them to Mexico anyway,
During the Republican Party primary campaign he repeatedly promised not to cut Medicare or Medicaid, a position that he claimed put him at odds with all the other contenders.
The statute of limitations on that promise ran out on May 4, 2017 when he wholly embraced the repeal and replace plan that the House Republicans passed that would result in twenty-three million American losing their health care coverage by 2026.
In a rose garden celebration on the date the house passed it, Trump proclaimed that the bill was “very incredibly well -crafted” while all of the Republican representatives that voted for it looked on.
Like all things Trump, that opinion changed a month later, when during a lunch with Republican Senators, he described the bill as “mean, mean, mean” and a “son of a bitch” imploring them to make their bill “more generous, kind and with heart.”
This past week, the Senate released its proposed bill and it didn’t even resemble a Jarvik heart.
It was less mean to the extent that only twenty-two million Americans would lose their coverage instead of twenty-three.
Like most measures proposed by this Administration, it includes a half a trillion dollar tax cut for the insurance companies and the wealthiest of us.
I never quite understand how “deficit hawks” inveigh against entitlement programs only to advocate that whatever is saved by their elimination be used for a tax cut to the wealthy rather than being applied to the deficit.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for a coherent answer.
If there is any doubt about what course they intend to pursue, one can only stop and consider that they have repeatedly said that they cannot tackle tax code reform until after they repeal and replace the Affordable health Care Act.
The speed of the train towards this wreck has slowed this week as a number of Republican senators have balked at voting for the bill.
Rand Paul, a physician, and Mike Lee and Ted Cruz don’t believe that the Senate bill is mean enough.
Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski are concerned that the Medicaid cuts and the defunding of Planned Parenthood are too Draconian.
Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, generally viewed as the most vulnerable incumbent up for re-election in 2018, is concerned about the voter backlash that could come from his constituents after Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, expanded that state’s coverage through the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable care Act.
Heller’s discomfort is particularly entertaining to watch since he won election to the Senate on a platform vowing repeal and replacement.
Senators Rob Portman of Ohio and Shelly Moore-Capito of West Virginia and Bill Cassidy, another doctor who represents Louisiana, find themselves in a similar position as Heller, representing states whose economically deprived citizens have been protected by thee Medicaid expansion.
Whether this last group of conflicted senators will have fidelity to their constituents rather than Trump, Ryan and McConnell remains to be seen.
As we watch this massive shift of one-sixth of the nation’s economy and the wholesale rendering of an important component of the safety net that was woven at the start of the New Deal, we might consider that we have spent two trillion dollars on the Iraq War, a war that Vice-President Cheney said would be financed by oil revenues from that country.
We have spent 2.4 million more on the war in Afghanistan for which there is still no end in sight.
The combination of these expenditures, in addition to more money spent on regimes like Pakistan and other dictators, is more than enough to guarantee health care to all who are currently served by the Affordable Care Act as well as the remainder of our “baby boom” population that is rapidly aging and headed into their sunset years.
In July, 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson established Medicare as part of his Great Society program. The following year he established Medicaid.
At the same time, he was escalating the Vietnam War which would cost one-hundred ninety-five billion dollars (nine-hundred fifty billion in today’s dollars).
The Vietnam War has long been over and the wisdom of that war remains a subject of debate.
What is not open to debate is that President Johnson knew that despite what he had to spend in pursuit of that war, American still came first.
That is something that Trump, Ryan and McConnell are blind to.
Happy Fourth of July.