Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

People are complicated. Love is not.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

You can’t love your country only when you win.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

This fight is for everything.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / The fix is in, you’ll be a witness

The fix is in, you’ll be a witness

by | 131 Comments

This post is in: 

I always assumed this, but it’s nice to see it spelled out.

The TrumpCare roll-out has been disastrous to say the least. That can’t be entirely an accident. Then we get all the tough talk about how hard Trump and Congressional leaders are going to push for it. I think it’s probably all bullshit, that their real plan is to put something up, get it shot down, and then say “hey we tried, it’s Democrats’ fault” when ObamaCare dies of neglect and financial starvation.

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  1. 1.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    November 2018 is coming up fast. If that’s their plan the stake shoved into their withered hearts will be long and hard.

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I tend toward pessimism– if nothing else, hope for the best, plan for the worst– but I don’t know if this will work. Lots of video out there of trump promising more insurance for less money, and people like Obama better than trump, that counts for a lot, even if, idealistically, it shouldn’t.

    (I was thinking it should be called RyanCare, but then I saw trump had it officially announced he doesn’t like ‘trump care’, so… TrumpCare it is!)

    ETA: @Omnes Omnibus: Fagen’s solo record, wasn’t it?

  5. 5.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Is constant wallowing in doom helpful?

    I don’t see this as wallowing in doom. We have to know out what they are going to try to do in order to plan to fight them.

  6. 6.

    smintheus

    Trumpcare looks as if it’s designed to make the independent market die by provoking death spirals as quickly as possible. So yes, it’s supposed to be a lose-lose.

  9. 9.

    Yarrow

    So now he’s on record that he is going to let Obamacare fail. That makes a campaign ad pretty easy.

  13. 13.

    amk

    ODS fails = winning bigly
    yemen – check
    muslim ban – check
    repeal obamacare – check

  15. 15.

    ploeg

    The Democrats’ play is that whatever happens from now on is because Trump is a malicious, incompetent ass. There will unfortunately be plenty of examples to draw upon in a couple of years. And it doesn’t help at all that we have the official Republican alternative for ease of comparison.

    Of course this narrative will not convince everybody. But you don’t need to convince literally everybody.

  17. 17.

    Yarrow

    So what are the best next moves for the Democrats as regards the ACA and this travesty of a Trumpcare bill?

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    @ploeg: The play should be there things were working perfectly fine despite this “job killing Obamacare” nonsense… and then the hard Randians just HAD to have their tax cuts in the billions of dollars for the .01%

    heaven forbid we should join the rest of the Western world in guaranteeing a basic level of health care for our citizens…

    … and if not what is the whole point of being a rich western democracy again ??!?!

  20. 20.

    Jeffro

    @Yarrow: oppose resist point out the contradictions – oppose resist point out the contradictions – lather rinse repeat

    Also organize now for 2018

  21. 21.

    Yarrow

    @Jeffro:

    … and if not what is the whole point of being a rich western democracy again ??!?!

    To make our rich richer.

  22. 22.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: both??

    RyanTrumpCare?

    TrumpRyancare?

    Also do we have any early reports about that meeting between Trump and Ted and Heidi Cruz? The not helpful part of me hopes that Ted brought his jail house shank to the dinner…

  23. 23.

    patroclus

    His appointment of Price to head HHS more or less signaled that this was his strategy from the gitgo. As of now, he’s using it to blackmail and attempt to bludgeon Congressional Republicans into submission. Maybe it’ll work, but I doubt it – the Republicans generally don’t really know how to legislate in a positive sense (there are a few who do, but not enough), so there is a low likelihood of them actually enacting a replacement that is anywhere nearly as good as the ACA. So it’s either the Ryan travesty, with its tax on seniors and paying refunds to insurance companies (which is surely unconstitutional) and its shrinking block granting Medicaid; or it’s the Price-like death by a thousand cuts to the exchanges. I would argue that, even after Price kills the exchanges, the result will still be a vast expansion of Medicaid, which would be better than Ryan’s monstrosity, so it’s in our interests to oppose the Ryan plan unanimously and then, if and when we finally get control again, enact Medicare for all, which would repair all the screw-ups that Trump and Price will cause.

    And my vote is for TrumpCare.

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    @Yarrow: we should pull those fine folks to see exactly what would be enough … just how much they have to have an pocket before they declare the experiment over

  27. 27.

    Chris T.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    (I was thinking it should be called RyanCare, but then I saw trump had it officially announced he doesn’t like ‘trump care’, so… TrumpCare it is!)

    Or … Rumpcare: Kiss Your Butt Good-bye.

  28. 28.

    jl

    Trump is really really amazingly arrogant and stupid.
    That won’t even work with most of his white bigot base. Trump think there aren’t other GOP bigots people can support?

    I had no clue how big an idiot Trump is, and I had high expectations for his idiocy.

  29. 29.

    Cathie from Canada

    If the democrats get in one or both houses on 2018, there would likely still be a chance to fix anything that has gone wrong with Obamacare in the meantime. By then, Trump will be tired of governing anyway, and also he is easily bullied.

  30. 30.

    ruemara

    Um, who besides Trump supporters is going to fall for that? That’s pretty ridiculous as a strategy.

  31. 31.

    Another Scott

    From below (see the original for embedded links):

    83
    Another Scott says:
    March 8, 2017 at 11:00 pm

    @chris: The Democrats will have plenty to run on, and I’m sure the ACA will be a big part of it – no matter what Donnie and his minions end up doing (or not doing). Drum makes a good point:

    Thing the third:

    This is just a bit of a ramble that’s on my mind. I’ve been trying to figure out how to respond to the Republican health care plan, but nothing seems quite right. I’ve written plenty about the details, and so have others, but none of this really gets the true story across.

    Here’s the thing: anyone with even a cursory knowledge of health care knows that the Republican plan isn’t serious. Paul Ryan knows it. Mitch McConnell knows it. Mike Pence knows it. Mick Mulvaney knows it. Everyone knows it. It’s just a cynical joke. It will cover virtually no one, and will quite possibly destroy the individual insurance market in the process. Its only purpose is to repeal about $600 billion in taxes on the rich.

    Yup, but it’s not really a mystery. That is indeed the main point. Throwing people off government enabled insurance is just a side benefit, but an important one, because it reinforces the toxic idea that government can’t do anything right (except give contracts to private companies, and make expensive military complexes and weapons systems that we (mostly) all hope will never be used).

    It was clear in the Ways and Means hearing today. One of the Democrats pointed out that the #1 item in the Ryan bill was cutting the tax paid by people making over $500,000 a year. He noted that nobody on the GOP side said anything about it in their testimony, but it’s the #1 thing in the bill. And it’s clear they’re all going to vote for it. But none of them are willing to say why it’s needed – especially at the cost of cutting health care access to 20-30M people – and why they will vote for it.

    All the Teabaggers care about is reinforcing their memes to the people who support them. They don’t care about sensible policy or making things better.

    We need to show them the Teabaggers the folly of that approach by voting them out of office, and salting the earth where their failed and dangerous ideology takes root, also too.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    clay

    @Ric Drywall: He’s on record with his intent. He’s said plenty of times, on camera, “Obamacare is such a disaster I could do nothing and it will collapse, okay?” Of course, he fails to mention that “doing nothing” means “intentionally sabotaging it”.

  36. 36.

    jl

    @ruemara: As I said above, Trump is very stupid and very arrogant.

    You won’t get half the white vote blaming Obama for everything for 4 years.
    You nick the white bigots deep enough most of them will leave. As I said, Trump think he is the only white bigot they can support?
    Only a few true white racist diehards who are willing to die for the sake of having one of their own, an idiot bigot, polluting the WH will still support him.
    I see Trump managed to fix that uptick in his job approval rating from the speech in very short time. Dropping like a rock again.

  38. 38.

    jl

    The US Presidency really drives the political narrative these days, to an unhealthy degree. Some of that is the fault of the GOPers in Congress, since their plan has been, basically do not one thing that is constructive. But however we got to this unhealthy state of politics, this is where we are. So, been over 4 yeas since Congress did much of anything. People just remember that they think Congress is an asshole when a pollster asks and remind them that the institution still exists.

    Blaming somebody else doesn’t work nearly as well when you have the power compared to when you did not have it.

    And the moron Trump blew a few months, maybe the rest of the goddamn year, he had in his ‘blame-Obama’ political bank account when he went on his insane rant about Obama spying on him during the campaign.

  39. 39.

    ?eric

    i think you start the Trump is weak narrative; he is a loser that cant get a bill, but obama could.

  40. 40.

    danielx

    @patroclus:

    Maybe it’ll work, but I doubt it – the Republicans generally don’t really know how to legislate in a positive sense (there are a few who do, but not enough), so there is a low likelihood of them actually enacting a replacement that is anywhere nearly as good as the ACA.

    True dat – and they are not interested in legislating, nor yet governing. They came to office proclaiming that government cannot do anything right, and set out to prove it.

  42. 42.

    dm

    This doesn’t sound like a winning strategy to me:

    – it pisses off the base that wanted to get rid of Obamacare (all fifteen of them), but five of them will think they’re in on the con
    – it pisses off people who believed him when he said “replace it with something better” (apparently most of his supporters)

    Saying “hey, it was broken, we couldn’t fix it” isn’t going to convince very many people who remember having health insurance that Trump said he was going to make better.

    That’s going to sound like “Heckuva job, Brownie” to those folks.

  43. 43.

    jl

    @?eric: Just remember to always say ‘Trump-GOP-Care’ when talking with people about how great it is compared to Obamacare.

    Hey, Obama said he likes the name. And presidents like things named after them. Trump should like it too.

    And TrumpGOPCare is what we have now and what we should call it whether this bill passes or not. They run the whole damn show and what happens on their watch is their problem. Period. Full Stop. End of Story. Don’t let anyone forget that.

    And Trump can try to blame Obama all he wants. If things start falling apart, that and zero cents will get Trump and the GOP a free political and electoral ass kicking they can’t even imagine.

  44. 44.

    Thru the Looking Glass...

    @jl: Perhaps a shorter, more succinct way of putting that would be to say that Trump blows, period…

  45. 45.

    randy khan

    @jl:

    Blaming somebody else doesn’t work nearly as well when you have the power compared to when you did not have it.

    Precisely. Trump’s the guy who promised he’d produce cheaper, better health care, after all. I think he might even have said it was easy.

  46. 46.

    Ridnik Chrome

    I have to say I’m really enjoying watching Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republican leadership repeatedly stepping on rakes ala Sideshow Bob with this repeal-and-replace business…

  47. 47.

    jl

    @randy khan: Some of Trump’s campaign promises, in high profile media interviews with the top and most classy news media hotshots will make great campaign ads. Right next to the GOPer Congressfool I just heard in an interview saying if you’re sick you can always go to the ER. That don’t work well for diabetes and cancer. The law says that they have patch you up if you are on death’s door but then kick you out as soon as you are well enough to make it to the next block; or keep you from dying in agony if you are too far gone to help. And that ER line is at least 10 years old anyway. But, he said that is ‘access’! The GOP IS delivering the good. What a vicious ass that guy was.

    This is gong to a horrid mess no matter what. But I like they way they are digging their holes deeper as fast as they can.

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Wait ’til Friday.

    Meaning what? That ZEGS and Turtle will jam something through by then? Or is there something I’m missing? (highly likely, I guess).

  50. 50.

    lgerard

    Hasn’t anyone thought to ask that crazy doctor of trump’s what he thinks of trumpcare?

    I am sure he has some interesting thoughts

  51. 51.

    catclub

    @?eric: This. Repeat that Trump kept saying he was the only one who could fix it, but he is a total failure.

    He wasn’t elected to fail, he was elected to succeed, but he is a total failure.

  52. 52.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SFAW: Friday will mean that Ivanka and Jared are observing the Sabbath; Donnie will be free to tweet.

  54. 54.

    Davebo

    For Obamacare to die of starvation they’ll have to come up with something, not necessarily a replacement but at least defunding the dreaded tanning bed tax among others.

    That would have to be the play and they haven’t been brave enough to propose that yet.

  55. 55.

    catclub

    @SFAW: Maybe referring to Feb jobs report rumored to be very good? For which Trump will take full credit. [Never mind the fact that the report is produced by government bureaucrats who Trump routinely called liars when Obama was president.]

    That or the bill will get voted on Friday and it may still pass the House?

  56. 56.

    Buskertype

    @?eric:

    i think you start the Trump is weak narrative; he is a loser that cant get a bill, but obama could

    Yes!
    Also you say “they have majorities in both houses, they could pass legislation if they wanted. They just don’t want to.”

  57. 57.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Ah. Of course. I’m not a big believer in the whole “popcorn” meme, but sometimes I almost look forward to his shit. I guess it’s like the “can’t-take-your-eyes-from-the-plane-crash-video” thing.

    Actually, no, I don’t look forward to reading/hearing/seeing anything from that asshole, unless it’s his resignation speech, or his criminal conviction.

  60. 60.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jonathan Weisman Retweeted Andrey Ostrovsky, MD
    Whoa, chief Medicaid officer breaks with Dept. of Health and Human Services. Opposes Affordable Care Act repeal and replace bill.
    Andrey Ostrovsky, MD @ AndreyOstrovsky
    Despite political messaging from others at HHS, I align with the experts from @ afar @ AmerAcadPeds @ AmerMedicalAssn in opposition to #AHCA

  61. 61.

    TS

    GOP has NO idea on legislating – trump has less. Republicans who support a President who sends his family around the world to make business deals, which are only accepted because he is President – are a party who are accelerating the fall of the United States. This is no democracy.

  63. 63.

    SFAW

    @Buskertype:

    I think making it all about what a weak fuckup Shitgibbon is will produce better results. Congress can at least act rationally — albeit evil — from time to time, and if they choose to act, we’re more fucked than if they don’t. With Shitgibbon, he’ll just get driven closer to a stroke.

    ETA: Omnes beat me to it with the “stroke” thing.

  64. 64.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The important thing is the repeal of all those oppressive taxes on the parasite class.

  65. 65.

    catclub

    @SFAW:

    Actually, no, I don’t look forward to reading/hearing/seeing anything from that asshole,

    How about “I have inoperable brain cancer.”?

  67. 67.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Davebo: If my WASP ass isn’t wrong, the Jewish Sabbath is Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Given that, what is the best night for free-tweeting Trump? I’ll wait.

  68. 68.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Mark Halperin just said on the Colbert show that Republicans are doing the same thing Obama did, trying to reform health care in a partisan way.

  71. 71.

    SFAW

    @catclub:

    How about “I have inoperable brain cancer.”?

    Actually, no. I hate the motherfucker, but I’m not a psychopath.

    Stroke, on the other hand, well … mainly because it would (I think) be self-inflicted. (As far as I know, brain cancer is not.)

    I would also be OK if he somehow became impoverished. In fact, were that to happen, I’d even go out and buy a refrigerator, just so I could donate the box to him for shelter. I might even paint a Smiley-face on it first.

  76. 76.

    SFAW

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    A 16 ton weight accidentally falling on Halperin is long overdue.

    Especially if Halperin comes at us with a pointed stick. (Said stick being a gazillion times sharper than he is, of course).

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SFAW:

    In fact, were that to happen, I’d even go out and buy a refrigerator, just so I could donate the box to him for shelter. I might even paint a Smiley-face on it first.

    You are such a nice person.

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Yarrow: Literalists will be the death of this country.

    ETA: Maybe Ivanka and Jared spend Saturday night playing with electronic devices.

  81. 81.

    Millard Filmore

    @catclub:

    How about “I have inoperable brain cancer.”?

    I prefer “I have a terminal case of curable brain cancer, but my insurance won’t cover it.”

  82. 82.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I think Doug is over thinking it; making an actual Health Law is work, The Donald is to awesome for work.

  83. 83.

    Yarrow

    @SFAW:

    I might even paint a Smiley-face on it first.

    Speaking of Smiley:

    George Smiley, John le Carré’s iconic cold war spymaster, is to return for the first time in 25 years in a new novel by the beloved spy-turned-author.

    A Legacy of Spies, due to be published on 7 September, will also see the return of Smiley’s colleagues from the British secret service – or the Circus, as they were known in Le Carré’s original books. The bestselling novels famously drew on the author’s own experience of working for British intelligence in the 1950s and 60s.

  84. 84.

    Lizzy L

    I’m going to a “Medicare for All” meeting tomorrow. It’s actually called the “Healthy California Act.” From the Sacramento Bee from Feb 17th:

    In a surprise move made in response to President Donald Trump’s push to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, two California lawmakers introduced legislation to replace private medical insurance with a government health care system covering all 38 million Californians — including its undocumented residents.

    At the moment it’s little more than the title and an idea, but I’m going to the meeting to find out what the status of the legislation is and how I can help. The group is doing a presentation at the local community college, and I live 3 blocks away.

    Resist.

  88. 88.

    SFAW

    @Yarrow:

    will also see the return of Smiley’s colleagues from the British secret service – or the Circus, as they were known in Le Carré’s original books.

    Even Bill Haydon? Hell, if he were to bring Haydon back, maybe he could also work on resurrecting Ian Richardson, whom I miss greatly.

  89. 89.

    catclub

    Barry Ritholtz reminds us:

    a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Republican economist Michael Boskin, which also is celebrating an eight-year anniversary this week. The headline, which couldn’t have been more off-base, said it all: “Obama’s Radicalism Is Killing the Dow.” In the [8 years since then], the S&P 500 increased 232 percent from the time Boskin’s op-ed appeared to the day Obama left office.

  93. 93.

    Yarrow

    @Omnes Omnibus: Literalists. I think you edited in the Ivanka and Jared part after I replied. They are definitely traitors–in the common usage of course, not the legal one. And certainly traitors to ethics and common decency.

  94. 94.

    catclub

    @Lizzy L: My suggestion is gradualism:
    each year lower the Medicare eligibility age by a year – plus add any newborns (and possibly their family).

    Not sure what the effect is on having older employees becoming cheaper since they will no longer need employer sponsored health insurance.

  100. 100.

    danielx

    @Yarrow:

    George Smiley, John le Carré’s iconic cold war spymaster, is to return for the first time in 25 years in a new novel by the beloved spy-turned-author.

    Yay!

    Also too, Gary Oldman was okay, but nobody will ever top Alec Guiness as Smiley.

  102. 102.

    oldswede

    @Omnes Omnibus: Steely Dan is a solid stainless steel dildo that William Burroughs wrote about in his underground classic novel, Naked Lunch, published 1959.

  105. 105.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @danielx: Also too, Gary Oldman was okay, but nobody will ever top Alec Guiness as Smiley.

    Id say Oldman was damn good, but no one will ever replace Alec Guiness as George Smiley. One change I ddi like was the way John Heard played Control. One I did not was changing the Lady Ann Smiley into a giggly tart

  106. 106.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    The TrumpCare roll-out has been disastrous to say the least. That can’t be entirely an accident.

    these guys are boobs. They can’t even pass a run-of-the-mill Farm Bill.

  107. 107.

    efgoldman

    @guachi:

    Stop calling it TrumpCare.

    Nope. Pass or not, it has to be stuck to him like superglue. Remember, even if the president’s not on the ballot for midterms, blame attaches to him and reflects on the party.

  109. 109.

    jonas

    So I take it that, at this point, Trump’s worst nightmare is that something resembling this bill actually reaches his desk. Then he owns it. So the plan all along was to propose some piece of bullshit that nobody would support, let it die, and then somehow the Democrats would get blamed for it? Oh, that totally makes sense.

    Trump seems to have forgotten that he promised people that he would 1. repeal Obamacare and 2. replace it with something that would make their insurance cheaper, give them better access to doctors, and provide more coverage. There’s a lot of footage of him saying those things, and of adoring voters stating to reporters that this was pretty much up there with his pledge to build a grand wall and sending Hillary to Guantanamo as the reasons they were voting for him. And now, with massive GOP majorities in both houses, he’s claiming that if he can’t get this done, it’s still Pelosi’s fault.

    Oh, this will go over great, just you watch.

  117. 117.

    jl

    @jonas:

    ” So the plan all along was to propose some piece of bullshit that nobody would support, ”

    Trump is too ignorant and inattentive to propose anything of substance. Whatever mess comes, it is TrumpGOPCare, whether this bill passes or not. They’ve already passed legislation to under fund it. They own whatever mess they make. They can try to blame the inadequate black man / wily evil super genius Obama all they want, but the vast majority of voters won’t buy that crap.

    This particular bill was hatched by House and Senate GOP leadership. And Trump only wants sure bet winners he can take credit for.

  118. 118.

    Chet Murthy

    @SFAW:

    How about “I have inoperable brain cancer.”?

    Actually, no. I hate the motherfucker, but I’m not a psychopath.

    You’re a better (wo)man than I. I would throw a party if he, his spawn (other than Tiffany and Barron) and his SIL Kushner all came down with horribly painful terminal diseases. My wish would be pancreatic cancer. Failing that, I’m good with herpes zoster in -every- sensory ganglion. Every fucking one.

    ETA: obv. not the grandkids, not the wives, nor the daughters-in-law. B/c they’re not malefactors here.

  119. 119.

    Chet Murthy

    @Lizzy L: Lizzy L, please please, if you could report back on what you learn, I’d appreciate muchly. I’ll call Scott Weiner tomorrow and see what he’s doin’ about it.

  120. 120.

    NR

    The Republicans opposed the ACA because it was a Democratic bill. However, the ACA was simply the old Republican Romneycare with a Democratic label slapped on it. The Republicans never expected to be in a position where they actually had to present an alternative. So they could run on the basis of repealing the ACA without worrying about replacing it. But then the unforeseen happened–the Democrats shit the bed and they won the White House and both houses of Congress. These wins have put them in the unusual position of a lose-lose situation on healthcare. Either they go against what many members of their base actually need or they go against their ideology and corporate sponsors. What I expect them to do is what they have done. They will deliver to their corporate sponsors and seek to lie to and divide the rubes–and maybe even hope the Democrats throw them a lifeline. The bottom line though is that any Republican proposal will be worse than the ACA, and neither Democrats nor Republicans will push, or even mention, the one plan, universal single payer, that would be cheaper and provide better health care for the nation.

  121. 121.

    Applejinx

    RyanCare. Why? Because Trump will blow up in other ways, but this will be returning until we get rid of Ryan.

    Also, driving wedges between these monsters is good, and targeting Ryan as not the muscley wonk-genius of Village hagiography, but a fucking bozo, is important. This is not TrumpCare because Trump doesn’t even have a plan and is only a sockpuppet for Vladimir Putin. Ryan is a homegrown traitor and this IS what he’s been selling for years. If you don’t tie it to him, it will come back.

    I hope California does do its single payer and total healthcare overhaul. I can tell you Vermont would like to do that as well. I think we’re not big enough to do it on our own, but with California breaking the ground?

  122. 122.

    Central Planning

    We need to call it GOPcare. It needs to be tied to the entire party. Ryan will be gone, trump will be gone, they will all move on, lose re-election, whatever. We need to tie it now and forever to the GOP otherwise they can say “it was trump, not us”

  123. 123.

    Seth Owen

    @Central Planning: Trump IS the GOP now, and TrumpCare rolls off the tongue much easier than GOPcare. It’s too wonky. The fate of Republicans is tied to Trump now. Reagan’s GOP is finally gone.

  125. 125.

    AnonPhenom

    If the Republicans fail to pass Trump(don’t)care and proceed to ‘fix’ the ACA, whatever they do should be described as ‘The healthcare equivalent of Invading Iraq in response to 9/11’….and if they do nothing; ‘Ignoring the American people just like they did after Hurricane Katrina’

  126. 126.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @NR: Even more so now that the country has tasted health care reform, even if congress kills it, the states will take it up. So the end result the rich blue states will have single payer insurance and poor red states will have nothing.

    This all started in Mass under a Republican governor.

  128. 128.

    Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.

    Calling it Trumpcare/ Ryancare / GOPcare keeps the word “care” in it, which is a misnomer.

    Might I suggest “Trumpcareless”? It draws a contrast with “Obamacare” and ties in with Trump’s general SOP of heartlessness + sloppiness.

    Or maybe “millionaire-care”…

  129. 129.

    Debbie1

    @NR: Actually, the bill was written by a Democratic Massachusetts legislature, I remember & I live in Mass. I really wish people would stop giving credit for health care access to Repubs. It’s both inaccurate and politically foolish, even for those who worship at the alter of universal health care but don’t get what it takes to get there.

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