So the breaking news is that Mitch McConnell is going to have to admit defeat on his plan to steal $800 Billion from the poor, sick, and elderly to give to the wealthiest 1% as Tax Cuts since he can’t muster even 50 votes of his 52 to advance this abortion (why yes, I did choose that word deliberately to piss off and inflame the flat earth ignorant pro-life Dominionists that populate the ranks of the Republican Party).
Yet even in this moment of… triumph? try disaster aversion, the calls are already going out among the Versailles Villagers that now is the time to reach out to the reliably spineless Democrats, after having humiliated and slandered them at every opportunity, since, as we all know, Obamacare is an abject failure. “The ball is now in their court to bring us much needed reforms.”
Actually they have a point. Obamacare is an abject failure in that it leaves intact the Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Big Hospital, Medical Device, and Testing monopolies and even guarantees them a 20% profit. That’s not Health Care- that’s usury.
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. Well, what about it? Medicare is 97% efficient (umm… 17% higher than 80% Obamacare). Their score is dragged down by the scam Medical Device Industry which is mostly a mechanism to swindle senile old people. Medicaid is even better, 99% efficiency.
Personally I think the minimum is Medicare for all and the aspirational goal Medicaid.
I know people on Medicaid, let me tell you what it’s like. Depending on the severity of their condition (just for hahas let’s call it Cancer in Remission) they get at least 4 Doctor consultations a year, 2 with their Specialist and 2 with their Primary Care, with other specialists called in as needed (Cataracts, Macular Degeneration? Sure.). They also have imaging and blood tests as medically required and all necessary medications supplied at low or no co-pays.
Oh, and they also get mental health care (that’s how I know them, through Group) to help them deal with the fact that THEY’RE DYING!
I suppose you might call that rational depression and anxiety, but hey- I also have SAD and neuroses and phobias so I win the sick off.
They’re also dirt poor. I mean shopping at Goodwill for everything except underwear poor. I mean Ramen every night except Sundays when you can treat yourself to one item off the Value Menu poor. I mean feature phone by the minute, basic cable poor.
Oh they have a TV and a Fridge and an Air Conditioner (all from Goodwill) and they don’t live under a bridge but in a subsidized death trap (not as crime ridden as you might think, mostly just people trying to survive) fighting the rats and roaches for their Ramen and hoping some random electrical failure doesn’t light up the whole place like a match. It is a true thing to say that there are starving children in oh… Yemen or Somalia for instance who would find this the the height of luxury, because, hey, you don’t have people actively trying to kill you with 500 pound bombs, just the random stray bullet and a bathtub is a fine place to sleep.
Can’t they do the moral thing and get a job (or at least die quickly)? It’s remarkable how tight the employment market is for someone who, at any time, could just keel over dead (ruins productivity for the hour or so it takes the EMTs to strap your corpse to a gurney and cart it out the door) or worse, get on the company health plan just in time to get sick again and spend weeks absent vomiting in a bucket after chemo or radiation and drive the rates up for EVERYBODY!
Selfish bastards.
So will Institutional Democrats act to save the Republican Party from itself? Let us hope the past is not predictive of the future. After Nixon, after W the Republicans were in shambles, Democrats could have driven them onto the ash heap of History, a fate they richly deserve. Instead they saved them. Out of charity?
Without Republicans which evil would they be the lesser of?
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Vent Hole