How many public dumpster fires can the American public can handle in a week?
This might come out wrong but meant to be a serious question. The people of American is put to test this week as Michael Bay's 5th "Transformers" movie open, and the senate version of the Trumpcare 3.0 releases its detail after being under fire from Democrat for drafting such a big bill in secret with only senate Republicans. If you have been in a coma for the last 8 years and just woke up this week, you'd probably want to ask to be put back into coma, but then you probably can't afford it anyway under Trumpcare 3.0 - Revenge of the fault mouth, or dark side of the loon, or age of extinction, or whichever. Each version at its core is just progressively worse and everything else is just indistinguishably terrible anyway, just like Michael Bay's "Transformers" movies.
Since the house forced through Trumpcare 3.0 a little less than a month ago and it got to the senate, senate Republican have been drafting this bill in secret. Well, it like your boyfriend say about valentine present:"I want it to be a surprise." And boy, surprise we got one: The senate's Trumpcare, is even worse than the House's. It's exactly like the 4 stages of anticipating your boyfriend's valentine's day secret present: You start with a low expectation, gradually turn into more skepticism, then the eventual let down, and ultimately, the burning fury. Before I make any more fun of the senate Replubican bill, please brace yourself for the cold hard truth, below are the noticeable changes in senate's Trumpcare from Obamacare.
States now can apply to opt-out on the the below
Preexisting conditions still cover, but essential care like mental illness, addition related problem, or even pregnancy, you know, the takers' problems, are all up in the air and can be opt-out by your own state. This is a classic bait and switch, telling your customers the restaurant is all you can eat, then tear off half of the menu and shut down the drinking water. So please do not cheer just because they kept one good thing about Obamacare, which they can still take away if they merge this bill with the house's bill, by the way.
Regulation on insurance company to have minimum 80% of premium income spent on claim is gone. Now the health insurance companies no longer has the burden of taking care of their customers, and can focus on make a profit like all other businesses in American. They eventually will trickle down and help the public, really.
Age rating ban is no more, older people's premium now can be charged as much as 5 times of young people, instead of 3 times under Obamacare. I don't have anything to say for this one, maybe they just want the old people die off faster before the next voting cycle, so there are not enough angry old voters left to vote their asses out of Congress. Let's just say this one is for self preservation for themselves, you know, saving American's jobs, just from other more progressive candidates for Congress, but saving jobs nonetheless.
Benchmark requirement of 70% of total health cost to be covered on 2nd cheapest plan, now only need to cover 58% under Trumpcare. Meaning health insurance company cover less, just like the exact Trump said that his healthcare bill will cover more, apparently 58% > 70%.
Allowing states to cap out the total amount insured for individual in a given year, or a lifetime. Call me crazy, but If an insurance can cap out, does it still count as insurance? If you have a chronic illness and reach insured amount cap in a given year, there is always prayer left until next January. Reached insured amount for life, well, now you get to meet Jesus early, you don't have to wait for him to come back to party with him, you are welcome.
Pulling the plug on healthcare
On top of these key points, Trumpcare also allow 31 states to get federal funding to 2023 with sharp reduced funding starting 2021. It caps any future funding to healthcare based on historical data. Workers wage has been capped for the last 40 years as productivity and inflation have been going up, now this is just having healthcare kicked to the curb just like wages, to be consistent. In a nutshell, the CBO (Congressional budget office) has estimated that Trumpcare 3.0 will cut $800 billion from medicaid benefit, and $600 billion will be cut from the medicaid budget, a total of whopping $1.4 trillion cut to medicaid. This allows some really juicy tax cut for the riches.
The last and worst part, most hidden kryptonite is this bill, is the removal of individual and company mandate. This means if you want healthcare, pay into it, if you don't want, opt-out. This goes against very foundation of insurances: Normal people pay to cover people in need, when they are in need, they get the benefit of what they pay in. With the mandates' removal, senate Republicans basically cut off effective funding for Trumpcare in a long run. If your healthcare bill is designed to be killed off slowly, how is it better than Obamacare? Seems like this bill has a "preexisting condition" and required more attention and careful observation, from the American public.
Who are they with?
I would like to ask one question: How pro-life can you be if you agree to this bill? With Republicans' stand on anti abortion, I can only guess their pro-life status expire as soon as the baby's head pop out of a mother's hoo-ha. They are such obvious villains in society, they actually believe they are doing the right thing! But not a good villain like Blofeld, Le Chiffre, or even Hillary! They can't even hide the intention of this bill in between the lines or extend the slowing dying off period and make it more like a torture, they just blatantly come out and lie to the public and told us they will do right by us. Really? The right thing? For whom? The American people or their rich private health insurance butt buddy? Who is stand to make billions of profit if this bill to become law, then millions of tax break after the spending cut? Follow the money and it is not hard to figure out who this bill serve... If you still don't know, just look into a mirror and say this:"It's not you, dumbo!"
If you are still reading, I thank you. This is long with a lot of detail, but understanding this bill is not that hard. It is just whole bunch of senate Republicans instead of serving you, they are serving you on a silver plate to the health insurance company while they bend over, with the 1% donors stand behind them with a 12 inches strapped on (You know, some need that kind of help to forget their certain part doesn't measure up). Now to summarize the whole bill in one sentence: Light a fire for a man, you keep him warm for a while; Teach a man how to light fire, you keep him warm when he is around woods; Now light a man on fire, you keep him warm for the rest of his life!
Hao Huang