Floridians who still have health care are going to need it after they woke up with a major case of whiplash as Rick Scott, Donald Trump and the guy who pretends to be the Secretary of Interior, Ryan Zinke, attempted a political stunt that backfired.
As Rick Scott prepares to exit the governor's office and contemplates his next attempt at running government like a business, he's trying to reinvent himself as opposed to offshore oil drilling. But much like pouring Corexit on an oil spill already in progress, it only made Scott more toxic.
Who could have seen this coming?
Last week Unstable-In-Chief announced that it was once again open season on oil drilling on America's coastlines, but by yesterday he had already found an exception: Florida. Now, many cried foul noting that there's a certain piece of real-estate on Florida's coastline that stands to benefit from pristine waterfront in order to attract tourists and anyone from a foreign government who wants to manipulate a certain President* for their own mutual gain while enjoying all that Florida has to offer - Mar-a-Lago.
But there was another reason. If Scott fancies himself as Florida's next new Senator, he has a lot of cleanup to do, hence his sudden flip-flop on oil drilling, just for starters. Should he get in the race, he'd be trying to oust Sen. Bill Nelson who has been against oil drilling from the get-go.
Problem.
The old "drill-baby-drill" foot-stomping from Republicans just wasn't the same after BP literally brought oil to Florida's shores during the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and Scott knows it.
Granted, this is great news for Florida and the small business owners Trump pretends to embrace who were hit hard during that oil gusher that held viewers hostage on live television for months and hostage to a cleanup that went on for years with problems still ongoing. (Don't worry Florida, Trump can still get all up in your "states rights" in plenty of other ways, and he's already working on it.) So while this may cause sighs of relief in Florida, it may not be the magic electoral potion Rick Scott thought it would be. Sure, he took heat as a hypocrite from Democrats and environmental groups alike, but it also set off a "blowout" if you will among many of those he might hope will be new Republican colleagues in Washington.
Zinke cited Florida's coastlines as "unique" when crossing them off the list of shores he felt worthy of being forever soiled and destroyed by thick goo that kills much of everything it touches. But hey, who knew that there were other states who also rely on tourism, the fishing industry, and oil-free coastlines? Worse, some of them are also ::gasp:: red states where tears are not limited to liberals living there, but actual elected "I Got Mine, Screw You" Republicans who now find themselves on the wrong end of one of Trump's "best deals." Worse, Trump did it to boost one of the country's most toxic governors at their expense. Trump may have thought he was being clever in governing by revenge against blue coastal states, but even blue states have Republicans who know Trump and offshore oil drilling are equally toxic and this squeezes them into that ever-shrinking space between the rocks and hard places of Trumpism.
It's a delicate dance indeed for those Republicans who courted Trump but don't happen to have a Private Presidential* Club in their back yard and a President*-for-profit who hopes to have a Senator from Florida happy to take his loyalty oath while protecting his business interests in Florida
Donald Trump and Mike Pence are using Trump's imaginary delusions about massive voter fraud giving the popular vote to Hillary Clinton during 2016 as a ruse to launch a voter suppression effort, and they're using Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a man well known for such efforts, to do it.
While launching his "Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity," Trump charged Pence with leading the effort, and moving forward, Kobach has written a letter to all the country's secretaries of state asking them to turn over voter information along with personal information without any details of how it will be used, nor how they will keep it secure:
Kobach, who serves as co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, asked all 50 secretaries of state to provide him with “publicly-available voter roll data” including voters’ full names, addresses, dates of birth, political party, last four digits of social security numbers, voter history, felony convictions, and other identifying information.
In Kansas, the secretary of state’s office has used an arsenal of intrusive methods to find alleged non-citizen voters, according to an internal document obtained exclusively by ThinkProgress in April. In one case, Kobach’s office compared voter rolls to a list of temporary drivers licenses issued to non-citizens. It also commissioned two outside firms to poll non-citizens about their voting habits using drivers’ license information and other data, and it asked the Department of Homeland Security to compare a list of suspected non-citizen voters against its list of naturalized citizens.
The extensive voter data Kobach is now requesting from secretaries of state across the country raises the possibility that the commission will use those same methods to probe these voter rolls for suspected non-citizens or for people registered in more than one state, with huge potential to disenfranchise many legitimate voters.
Gov. Rick Scott on Friday said he has not seen the letter that had been sent to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner on Wednesday. But a spokeswoman for Detzner said the agency was reviewing the request.
What are the chances Rick Scott and SOS Ken Detzner are not only willing to turn over all your personal and voter information to Trump and crew, but also asking them "How can we help?" Given their history of voter purge attempts and suppression efforts, I'm kind of surprised Scott hasn't been appointed an unofficial member of the commission, but the he's probably too busy trying to assist Trump and the GOP in taking away your health care.
Whether or not states comply or Trump's effort at massive voter suppression fails before it begins (and let's hope that's the case), it's a bit stunning coming from a president who knows Russia interfered with our election, and who may have even helped, beyond merely encouraging Russian hackers to dig up Hillary Clinton's emails, but refuses to do anything about it, leaving the country open to more of the same.
Why is it that Trump wants to make it easier for Russia to "vote" than it is for Americans?
Perhaps because it brings Karl Rove and Republicans closer to their dream of a permanent Republican majority, and they don't care who it takes, Trump or Putin, to get them there?
The Senate Republican's version of the latest tax cut for millionaires and billionaires "American Health Care Act" has finally seen daylight, and even just a glance at it shows why they kept everyone in the dark on what was in it. It's virtually loaded with reasons for crafting it behind closed doors without sharing the details with the public and away from Democrat's, and some Republican's prying eyes. It all boils down to just another tax cut for the rich disguised as a health care bill.
Here's what Sen. Bill Nelson had to say about today's unveiling of the Senate Republican's plan:
“Now we know why they tried to keep this secret. This bill is just as bad as the House bill, taking coverage away from millions of people and making huge cuts to Medicaid. If that weren’t enough, it also allows insurance companies to hike rates for older Americans. Fixing our nation’s health care system shouldn’t be a partisan issue. We should be working together, not plotting behind closed doors to make it worse.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio went with his usual smoke and mirrors approach, pretending to be concerned about something he'll no doubt vote for regardless, simply because he would do anything to erase President Obama's legacy, which provides a bonus if it ends health insurance for millions while making his donors that much wealthier:
“Senator Rubio will decide how to vote on health care on the basis of how it impacts Florida. He has already spoken to Governor Scott, Senate President Negron and Speaker Corcoran about the first draft of this proposal. He has instructed his staff to share with state leaders the first draft and has asked them to run numbers and provide input on how this initial proposal would impact Florida’s Medicaid program and individual insurance marketplace. He has invited them to send staff to Washington next week to help us formulate changes and amendments to this proposal. He will continue to reach out for input and suggested changes from Florida providers, insurers and patient advocate groups.”
Rather than read the bill himself, Rubio will just outsource that job to his Republican friends in Florida. You know, the ones who never found an excuse to cut people's health care they didn't love and embrace without a thought. Rubio would very much like them to crunch the numbers and see just how many people need to be cut off from health care in Florida to satisfy their greed posthaste so Republicans can vote on it next week and get on with their next taxpayer funded recess. As for Gov. Rick Scott, well, does Rubio really need his input? After all, this bill would be like Christmas to the governor, and any Republican governor who might follow him into office, especially when you consider that under the Senate plan governors can waive Medicaid without any legislator's action, period. What's not to love?
As for Rubio reaching out to Florida "providers, insurers and patient advocate groups," let's get serious. The Republicans in D.C. also barred providers and patient advocacy groups from meetings even though there were numerous requests to be included, and for good reason. They're all against the Republicans' plans. As for insurers, they'll no doubt be on board with the plan, after all, Republicans want to sweeten the deal by eliminating caps on insurance executive's compensation.
Also, notice the one group that Rubio isn't including in his so-called input outreach? That's right, the very Floridians who will be hurt by this bill if it passes and winds up signed into law by one of the biggest beneficiaries of the subsequent tax cut, Donald Trump.
As always, Rubio's constituents aren't even an afterthought. Rubio refused to hold town halls because he knew ending the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare was immensely unpopular. He merely dismissed them, issuing a statement claiming his angry voters were merely "paid protesters" as an excuse. Because he's shameless.
In closing, as always, here's a plea to call your Senators and let them know how you feel about this health care bill whether Marco Rubio wants to know or not.
As I write this, the Republicans in the U.S. Senate are still crafting their effort to kill the Affordable Care Act which, if it's similar to the recent Republican House bill as we've heard, will throw millions of Americans off their health insurance, eliminate protections for pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps, and eventually destroy Medicaid, among other horrors.
Worse, the "American Health Care Act" (AHCA) is neither American, nor a health care bill, but enacting it will kill many. This is not hyperbole. If you don't believe that, ask yourself why it's being crafted secretly behind closed doors with only a handful of Republicans under the direction of Mitch McConnell, who never met a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires he didn't like, which is driving his oncoming health care train wreck. The bill that almost no one has seen, including Democrats who have been barred from the entire process, is being rushed to a vote sometime in the next couple weeks, (rumors say perhaps even next week) with an alleged bare minimum of debate, or so we've heard.
Republicans have hit the airwaves to claim even they aren't happy with the process, but don't let them fool you. If they were unhappy they'd do something about it rather than merely whining about it on camera.
Republicans always stick together and killing the ACA has been a dream and a talking point of theirs for years. Some are all in on the tax cuts for the rich as a result. Some just plain want to kill health care. Others fear the blowback from a dwindling base simply because they promised they'd end "Obamacare" for years and they're determined to keep the promise no matter who gets hurt or how many.
But they're losing Americans in the process. Polls show that the ACA is more popular than Trump and the GOP. Americans are waking up to the facts. Worse for Republicans, they're even losing the diehard fans who cheered them on over the years because they thought ending the ACA would only hurt the poor (lovely people, that group). But as Republicans became the dog that caught the car, they overreached as they often do. In killing the ACA, those diehard fans have come to the realization that they too will be hurt by the AHCA. Because while it throws millions off of health care, the GOP's actions will also cause premiums to soar for everyone, destabilize the markets, put insurance and care out of reach due to rising costs and by returning the coverage decision making to the insurance companies. Unless you're somewhere in the top 1-2% of the richest Americans who can well afford top-notch health care, this health plan in name only will hurt you. The Republicans will return us to the days when an illness meant bankruptcy and/or death. They've managed to come up with a plan that will actually make things worse than they were before the ACA, and that's saying something.
But what you don't know about the GOP's AHCA can kill you, and as it stands now, you only have until July 4 to voice your opinion on the Republican's efforts to end your health care and insurance without even telling you what they're doing, which boils down to cutting millions off from care in order to give Donald Trump, his family, and all their rich donors, themselves, and their colleagues a huge tax cut.
Call your Senators now before it's too late. 202-224-3121
In trying desperately to give Donald Trump a "win" a few weeks back, House Republicans hastily threw together an awful bill as a first step to repealing the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The original bill was bad enough for those who would be hurt by it, but it wasn't bad enough for Republicans.
So along came GOP Rep. and former insurance executive Tom MacArthur who had an idea to get it across the finish line: Allow insurance companies to return to the good old days when they could charge people with pre-existing conditions whatever they saw fit. The rest, as they say, is history. Problem solved! Not only would millions lose their health insurance, but those with pre-existing conditions would be priced out of the market. Republicans and Trump were so happy they celebrated passage of the bill in The Rose Garden at the White House.
In fact, Trump was so happy about advancing his path to ending health care for millions that he held a fundraiser for MacArthur at his Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. (Hello again old friend the Emoluments Clause!) The event was closed to the press, because natch, but according to Politico, Trump had nothing but praise for MacArthur and his dirty work:
...MacArthur campaign strategist Chris Russell said Trump's remarks focused on MacArthur's role in revamping the House GOP's Obamacare replacement bill.
"[Trump] talked about the health care fight," Russell said. "[He was] very complimentary of Tom and his efforts on health care and, moving forward, sees him as a leader in Washington."
Trump sees him as a leader! I guess so, given Trump raised $800,000 for MacArthur.
Then an interesting thing happened: Public outrage over the egregious bill Republicans, thanks to MacArthur, passed.
Trump's approval ratings started tanking even more, and if there's one thing we know about Trump, it's that he loves him some polls! But he only loves the ones that say how great he's viewed by the public, and he hasn't seen any of those since he won the election. The public and the media were trashing him along with the bill. That meant someone or something was going under the Trump bus. So in this case, it was the House Republicans and their health care bill:
President Trump on Tuesday bluntly derided a House attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act as “mean,” and in doing so, injected himself in a brewing Senate battle that his fellow Republicans had prayed he would avoid.
At a White House lunch with more than a dozen Republican senators, Mr. Trump alerted his guests that a bill passed by the House this spring — one he lauded last month in the Rose Garden as a “great plan” that was “very, very incredibly well-crafted” — was now “mean.”
He also informed the lawmakers, who represented politically diverse views from across the Republican spectrum, that he expected the Senate to come up with something more generous, according to four congressional aides who were briefed on the discussion and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
As anyone who's been paying attention knows, the Senate bill Trump spoke of is apparently going to be so "great" that no one is allowed to see it until it goes up for a vote. Republicans are hiding it and working behind closed doors in the hopes that they won't meet the same public outrage until it's too late. Unfortunately that hasn't worked out very well for them.
One thing we can be pretty sure of is that whatever the Senate is throwing together won't be much better than the House version, according to bits that have leaked out here and there. If their version was great as Trump claims, they wouldn't be hiding it.
So one has to wonder if MacArthur will still earn Trump's praise in the future, or if he'll become just another poster boy for Trump's failures when he pokes his head out of the White House or takes to Twitter looking for someone to blame.
I suppose MacArthur should feel lucky in one sense. He managed to become someone who made some money at a private Trump property that didn't go directly into Trump's pocket.
Unfortunately the rest of us may still be stuck with the real bill if Republicans manage to repeal the ACA.
Last month House Republicans pulled off a vote in favor of a health care bill that would throw 14 million people off their insurance next year and 23 million by 2026 while gutting protections for pre-existing conditions and giving states the opportunity to waive coverage for basic health care essentials. Because it was so vile, some Republicans ran for cover by saying it was just a start, that it would be improved over time. Just trust them, they said.
Wrong.
The Senate is now working to put out something just as vile, and because they're well aware how popular the ACA, or Obamacare, is, now they're doing it in secret. After all, who can forget all the town halls where House Republicans were confronted by angry constituents? Despite last week's recess, few Republican Senators were willing to make that same mistake, so they just made themselves scare back home. Look no further than Marco Rubio as an example, who would never stoop to taking phone calls from, or meeting with his lowly constituents over anything, much less backing a plan that could kill so many of them, because he's first and foremost a coward. Last week, as usual, he was nowhere to be found.
Senate Republicans have taken their cowardice to a new level. They're putting their bill together behind closed doors without even so much as holding hearings on it. They will try and sneak in a vote before their constituents even know what's in the bill.
Watch here as Sen. Claire McCaskill expresses her outrage over the Republican's deception. Then call your Senator's office and demand to be heard if you value your health care and your life.
The 2017 hurricane season began last Thursday, and five months into Donald Trump's presidency,* he has yet to appoint permanent leaders in either the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaving the country unprepared in the event of a hurricane in what is predicted to be an above normal active season.
If Trump were any kind of leader rather than a clueless buffoon and a walking disaster all on his own who merely uses "keeping America safe" as an empty slogan, disaster preparedness would be a priority. But Trump is no leader, and if past is prologue, those in the potential path of a hurricane this year have reason to worry. Last month he kicked Hurricane Matthew victims in North Carolina to the curb when he gave them a mere 1 percent of the disaster funds they requested.
So, in the absence of leadership at NOAA and FEMA, not to mention Trump's proposed cuts to those agencies as well as the Coast Guard, you would think that Florida's elected officials in Washington would sound the alarm and appeal to Trump how important filling those positions are.
But as always, if you're looking to Sen. Marco Rubio to voice your concerns, you'll be disappointed. Not that Rubio hasn't noticed things are amiss in Trump's lack of attention to the problem, he has. He just has different priorities than preparedness. He's more concerned with relaxing regulations after the storm hits:
Sen. Marco Rubio is asking the president initiate “a comprehensive review” of all federal regulations that could be relaxed to expedite hurricane relief efforts.
“As your administration continues its focus on regulatory reform, I urge you to consider regulations, rules, and bureaucratic red tape that may hinder or constrain Americans’ abilities to rebuild their lives and communities following disasters,” Rubio wrote in a letter Thursday to President Trump. “Floridians are eager to see Washington, D.C., refocus and refine the government’s disaster relief mission to ensure that meeting victims’ needs is always the immediate priority.”
This request is packaged to sound as if Rubio's biggest concern is with Floridians, but anyone who's been paying attention to Rubio all these years has more than a few reasons to be skeptical that this isn't just another vague ploy to weaken regulations in favor of anyone but hurricane victims.
Would Rubio seek a back door to giving big business donors an assist in slashing regulations that could cut into their profits by masking it as concern for constituents in the aftermath of a hurricane?
In a word, yes. Because when it comes to predicting a hurricane's path or Rubio's actions, the latter is on the money for accuracy, even with leaders in place at the agencies tasked with tracking hurricanes, which we don't have at the moment.
If Rubio was truly concerned about Floridans in the aftermath of disaster, wouldn't he be encouraging Trump to first appoint leaders at NOAA and FEMA rather than cutting more regulations?
Yes, he would. But he's not.
If you're looking to avert disaster, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are the last people you can count on.
Rep. Gus Bilirakis, Trump, And House GOP Celebrate Throwing Millions Off Health Insurance
The verdict is in for the Republican's tax cut for the rich American Health Care Act, or TrumpCare, that would destroy the Affordable Care Act and (surprise!) it's a death sentence for millions.
As you'll recall, Republicans in the House didn't want to wait until their health care bill was scored by the Congressional Budget Office to vote on it because they knew the results would be devastating, and on this they were correct. And then some. But vote they did, and it passed. Now the CBO has weighed in and the death panels Republicans warned us about are now real and Republicans are the ones sitting on them.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its score showing that the bill would eliminate coverage for 14 million Americans next year and for 23 million by 2026. The CBO projects that the bill would destabilize insurance markets; slash Medicaid funding by $834 billion over the next decade; make individual coverage exceedingly expensive for older Americans and people with pre-existing conditions; and increase average premiums by 20 percent next year.
The bill also included an Amendment that would allow states to waive protections for pre-existing conditions and coverage for basic health benefits. Given that Florida refused to expand Medicaid under the ACA and Republicans here sought to undermine the ACA, there's an underlying assumption by many that Republicans would waive these protections as well, meaning that the AHCA would be extremely costly and deadly to Floridans. Now the CBO has released coverage losses by state, and the numbers for Florida are bad.
Millions would lose their coverage, protections for pre-existing conditions and coverage for basic health care essentials would be gone, and people would be paying more for less coverage. In other words, the Republicans have removed "health insurance" from the concept of health insurance. Worse, their plan would make things worse than they were before the ACA was passed.
Rep. Bilirakis Celebrates His Vote To End Your Health Care With Trump
"Rep. Bilirakis is adamant about protecting those with pre-existing conditions."
That's what Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis' office told us when Beach Peanuts reached them by phone earlier last week concerning the Republican's upcoming vote on the first step to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and "replace" it with their own plan, the so-called American Health Care Act, or "Trumpcare" if you will.
Last Thursday, the bill passed in the House with a vote split down party lines. All Florida Democrats voted against it, and all Florida Republicans except one voted for it. That one GOP "no" vote came from Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who recently announced she isn't running for reelection. With her vote, Ros-Lehtinen put her constituents needs first, unlike her colleagues. (More on the reason for her vote below.)
The name American Health Care Act that replaces the Affordable Care Act is fitting in one sense, because they have certainly removed the "affordable" part. But truth be told, they should have also removed the words "health care," because as health care experts, hospitals, physicians, nurses, advocacy groups and countless other medical organizations have stated, this is anything BUT a health care bill. Some have even called it an "abomination," and rightfully so.It's just another tax cut for the richest Americans disguised as a health care bill, in that it takes savings and costs going towards health care away from those who need it and shifts it to the wealthy minority at the top while giving the health insurance industry the gift of returning to the old days when they could pick and choose what to cover and how much to charge you for it. Worse, they added bonuses that will actually make our health insurance system even worse for consumers than it was before the ACA was passed in 2010.
Republicans tried and failed twice before to write a bill that would bring all their factions together, so this week they came to an agreement. They managed to craft a bill that was even more cruel than the previous versions, and that's what brought the party together. A bill that could throw an estimated 24 million people off their health care, and would kill huge numbers by pricing anyone who gets sick out of the market altogether while allowing insurers to opt-out of covering essential health benefits and ending protections for pre-existing conditions.
This brings us to the self-proclaimed guardian of pre-existing condition protections, Rep. Gus Bilirakis.
Blirakis knows his constituents' concerns all too well. Back in February he held a couple "listening session" town halls where large crowds voiced their worries over Republican's like Bilirakis' plans to take away their insurance and end the benefits the ACA provided them with. One constituent begged Bilirakis" "Please don't take my life away. Please don't let me die." Well, Bilirakis "listened," and then voted to do just that anyway.
When we reached his office by phone earlier last week, his office said he hadn't yet read the bill, but when we pointed out his decision would be a matter of life and death for his constituents, they reassured us that Bilirakis was "adamant" on protections for those with pre-existing conditions. If this were true, how did he go from being adamant about those protections before he reviewed the bill, to voting "yes" to a bill that he knew would absolutely remove them?
Enter the smoke and mirrors.
After the vote, Bilirakis tried to deceive his constituents with false narratives to explain why he voted with this video:
Bilirakis: "I believe this is going to lower costs and we'll have more access to good quality health care."
He may claim to "believe" this, but that doesn't make it true, which may be why he phrases it that particular way. No, the AHCA won't lower costs unless you never plan to get sick or need insurance. Premiums are likely to skyrocket due to several factors. States would be allowed to waive restrictions on essential health benefits and pre-existing condition coverage, the latter which would make premiums prohibitively expensive according to this table put together by The Center For American Progress. As I wrote last week, since Florida Republicans and Gov. Rick Scott have turned Florida into the anti-health care state, the chances that Florida would be among the states to waive those protections are probably in the neighborhood of around 99 percent. Here are just a few examples of future premium hikes for Floridians under the new GOP plan:
And this doesn't even take into account the problem of Medicaid. Florida already refused to expand Medicaid under the ACA, and they've tried to strip away access to what little is left as it is. Under the GOP plan, Medicaid expansion would be phased out altogether, and further cuts to Medicaid would make it unsustainable, leaving the poor and elderly without a safety net.
As far as access to good quality health care goes, everyone has "access" to health care, but say you're a breast cancer patient who can't afford the $27,030 surcharge above, what then? If you can't afford the exorbitant rate hikes, well, the Republicans are offering you empty words. Forget the good quality health care Bilirakis speaks of. Good luck finding care at all. Access does't do you any good if you can't afford it.
Bilirakis: "Obamacare is failing" and he cites Iowa as an example.
Obamacare/ACA isn't failing, nor in a death spiral, nor broken as Donald Trump and the Republicans have been claiming for years now. However, they have all worked to sabotage it, and that may indeed make things worse for the health care system. Because of all the chaos caused by Republicans meddling and throwing together new plans without careful consideration, study, and CBO scores, there is a growing uncertainty in the system. Insurers have noted the chaos and it may cause a domino effect and could collapse the system. This is what is happening in Iowa. Iowa was an ACA success story until the Republicans began meddling with repeal efforts. Due to the subsequent uncertainty, insurers are pulling out of the state. Obamacare has been working pretty well and millions of people now have health insurance because of it. If Obamacare fails now, it will be because Trump, Republicans and Bilirakis have taken steps to make it fail. They will be the ones to blame if the system collapses and millions lose their insurance. Instead of working with Democrats to make improvements, Republicans are threatening to make things even worse than they were before the ACA was passed in 2010. The GOP plan to repeal it will virtually blow up the country's health care system.
Bilirakis: "And we will be covering pre-existing conditions." He cites the Upton Amendment "for those who can't afford coverage for pre-existing conditions."
Bilirakis: "This is just the beginning folks," saying the bill will go on to the Senate where "it will be improved," and "in the end, we're going to have a good bill."
"Just the beginning, to be improved" he says. That's an understatement. House Republicans threw together a heartless, cruel bill that throws millions off their insurance, prices people out of the market and passed it without a CBO score to tell them what it would cost, and in some cases, members didn't even bother to read it. Bilirakis admits as much by saying "In the end we're going to have a good bill." One might ask why not have a good bill in the first place? The answer is they wanted to shove something, anything through just so Trump could pretend he had a win. He has no clue what's in the bill either. Of course, the other elephant in the room is the fact that they're in a hurry to get another tax cut for the rich, and that may well include another tax cut for Trump. That tax cut won't pay for itself, so Republicans like Bilirakis are going to rob you of your health care to pay for it. If you think the Republicans in the Senate won't do the same thing, think again.
Bilirakis then goes on to say that even though he and his staff are on Obamacare/ACA, he co-sponsored legislation to remove the exemption for members of Congress. As the bill was written, members of Congress were exempt from all the changes and restrictions they came up with for the rest of us. In other words, everyone likes their Obamacare, but Republicans wrote the bill to make sure only THEY were allowed to keep it. The rest of us would be stuck with the AHCA (Trumpcare.) Due to public outcry when word of this little built-in goodie for Congress members leaked out, the Republicans came up with another bill to remove the exemption. However, that bill is largely meaningless. As the Washington Post explains here, members of Congress get their insurance through the ACA small-group exchanges in the District of Columbia where the government isn't likely to forgo enforcement of the protections in the ACA. So even if they're "exempt," they likely won't face higher premiums for pre-existing conditions, nor lose access to all the benefits being removed for the rest of the country, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Again, Bilirakis is stretching the truth. He'll keep all the benefits and savings while voting away yours.
As I wrote above, Bilirakis and all the other Florida Republicans in the House voted for this bill, except for one who won't be seeking reelection, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. She explained her vote against AHCA/Trumpcare this way:
“After studying the revised bill, I intend to vote NO. This plan still does not effectively address the needs of my South Florida constituents. The proposed changes to this bill would leave too many of my constituents with pre-existing conditions paying more for health insurance coverage and too many of them will even be left without any coverage at all. Additionally, this new plan still includes painful cuts to Medicaid that will make it more difficult to care for patients with high costs of coverage due to special needs or chronic diseases. Unfortunately, the bill does not deliver what my district needs and until a plan that helps South Florida is proposed, I will continue to side with my constituents in opposing this plan.”
“I heard a clear message from my constituents at recent town halls: people with pre-existing conditions need the peace of mind of knowing that they can get–and keep–health care,” said Bilirakis. “At events in Palm Harbor and New Port Richey, I listened to folks share personal stories about themselves and loved ones who were denied access to coverage because of a chronic illness. I made a promise to gather input from the people of Florida’s 12th District about the future of our nation’s health care, and I am keeping that promise with this legislation. We will protect those with pre-existing conditions and put in place a health care system that works for everybody.”
Yet Bilirakis took that "clear message," ignored it, and voted against his constituents' wishes anyway, and now he's trying to deceive them again by making false clams about a life and death decision he made for them with this vote.
Bilirakis has a "safe seat" he inherited from his father, so he feels he can vote as he pleases without consequence. Instead, he should be ashamed of this vote, and ashamed of trying to sell his voters on this abomination disguised as a health care bill, and he should be voted out of office for it. It's one thing to have and share core beliefs with your voters, but it's another to completely deceive them with smoke and mirrors, particularly when their lives are at stake. Yes, they deserve the same good quality affordable health care as he does, his words. But as it stands now, he'll keep his. They won't.
To be blunt, this bill will kill people if it's passed into law. Republicans are all using the same false narratives to try and snow the public, and I wouldn't bet my life on the Senate making many changes now that it's in their chamber.
Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA), below, summarized the plight the American public faces here. Republicans and Bilirakis made a choice. Their voters deserve a choice too, and they deserve an honest Representative who is looking out for their best interests in Congress.
This week Republicans in Congress are taking another stab at throwing millions of Americans off their health insurance to both satisfy their own lust for ending "evil" Obamacare (and killing people) and to give Trump what he thinks will be a "win," in that he'll get to sign something in front of the cameras (that will kill people) while claiming it's the best health plan ever put together in the history of health plans, facts be damned.
Facts. They are indeed pesky details that have tripped Trump up at every turn in his short time in office as the man who would be king, and the facts surrounding the latest version of Trumpcare will be no different. He claims this new version is even more awesome than the last one was, except the first was actually pretty bad and this one is even worse. It essentially takes the "health insurance" out of the "having health insurance" equation by ending provisions for covering basic health essentials like going to the hospital, along with protections and coverage for pre-existing conditions, something that a majority of the population have. Should you need that kind of coverage, the new plan would allow insurance companies to spike the cost of your premiums causing many to be priced out of the market altogether.
This is similar to the last plan that was so bad they couldn't even get enough Republicans to vote for it. So this time they added an incentive to turn those "no" votes into "yes" votes. They simply made sure members of Congress will be exempt from all of the above. In other words, they will get to keep their Obamacare and all of its protections, while the rest of us will get stuck with Trumpcare, which could barely be called insurance anymore. (They now claim they'll remove that exemption AFTER the bill passes, and we should just trust that they'll keep their word on it. Sure.)
Another problem with the new Trumpcare is what it could do to Floridians: The new plan would allow states to waive all sorts of benefits rules.
Here are the basic rules states could waive, eliminate, and/or "tweak" under the latest version of Trumpcare, as summarized by the New York Times. They fall into three categories, essential health benefits, community ratings, and age ratings, and what could be eliminated from the current Obamacare law:
A basic set of benefits, including hospital care, prescription drugs and maternity care, that must be included in all health insurance.
A pillar of Obamacare that prevents health insurers from charging higher prices to customers with pre-existing health conditions.
Rules about how much more insurance companies can charge older customers than younger ones.
Allowing states to set their own standards and requirements could have deadly consequences for Floridians at the hands of Republicans. I suggest reading the above referenced article in full for deeper details on just how devastating and deadly these waivers could be.
As Floridians know all too well, Republicans here have already declared a war on health care, and just the thought of these new waivers probably have Rick Scott rubbing his hands together, dancing a jig and wearing a permanent version of his evil, laser-eyed grin, while Republicans in the legislature are probably lining up to collect insurance company donor checks as I write this. After all, Scott was the king of the "Let's Kill Health Care" movement long before he became governor, after being forced out of his own company due to the company's record breaking Medicare fraud problem. After Obamacare passed in spite of his efforts, he and Republicans refused to expand Medicaid and passed a law that allowed insurance companies to charge Floridians higher premiums while also allowing them to falsely blame Obamacare for it. Right now Florida Republicans are trying to force a work requirement on those who still have access to Medicaid.
In other words, this latest effort to kill Obamacare (and lots of people along with it) and replace it with Trumpcare would be a dream come true for Florida Republicans, not to mention the members of Congress who will get to keep their Obamacare and all of its benefits even as they vote to cut yours.
Unless you're a Floridian who plans to get through life absent any illness, any basic need for medical care, and don't have a pre-existing condition, you might want to give your Representative a call before they vote on this nightmare tomorrow or Saturday.
