Friday, September 22, 2017

I think Obamacare will survive (#3157)

     I know this seems rash of me to predict the survival of Obamacare but I have a couple of precedents to support my opinion. First the supreme court found that it did meet the parameters of our constitution several years ago, and that was a republican majority supreme court. Next it survived a republican senate a month or so ago because the alternative was abhorrent. This last ditch bill is even worse that the one last month and although trump is putting hard pressure on the senators who voted no last month to vote yes this month I don't see his influence as powerful. The senators who cut the legs out of the last health care repeal bill are still in play to vote no and there are now a few more who have not given a public stance as to their support for the bill.
     This is the final push for the bill to be passed under the special reconciliation time frame of only needing 51 votes to pas so we will know for sure in the next 8 days but my gut says Obamacare will survive. All the arguments about the horrid nature of the repeal bill are being forwarded and the comparisons to the last repeal bill are highlighting this bill's worse nature. The republican senators are struggling mightily to pass this bill but their hearts are not all in tune with the vileness of this repeal bill. I sense that there will be enough decent republican senators to vote no on this bill to either kill it or make the bill obsolete before it is presented for a vote. Either way I see a win for Obamacare. I am not here to try to show off anything, but I am here to pass along my gut feeling.
     Once this repeal bill is defeated then we can get to work on a bipartisan plan to stabilize the insurance markets and bring the rest of the states into the medicaid expansion. For me right now that would be a win for democracy and a win for all American citizens. The Koch brothers have said that unless the republicans repeal Obamacare and twist our tax code to favor them they will withhold campaign contributions for them for the next round of elections in 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/26/koch-network-piggy-banks-closed-republicans-healthcare-tax-reform, so the republicans are motivated by this threat to do the Koch's bidding. But the bidding comes at a price to the dignity of each senator and the health of all Americans. I believe that the health of America will win the day and the Koch brothers will have to find another way to harm the hard working middle poor class of America.

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