Sometimes, you have to be careful what you wish for.
For years, people listened to horror stories about how bad any expansion of the healthcare program would be, how it was increasing government control, and would inevitably lead to a brutal dictatorship (funny how literally everything that threatens the privileges of the rich, from healthcare reform to gun reforms that threaten the profit of the NRA seem to always be labelled as a first step towards dictatorship, even when there is no evidence of this from the numerous countries which tried both).
Then, in 2016, many of these same people bought into the promises of then candidate Donald Trump, who made wild promises and statements that sounded too good to be true. The most famous was his promise not only to build a border wall, but to make Mexico pay for this wall. "Mark my words," he said specifically. He would be the greatest job creating president in history. He would save the coal industry, and bring back all of those lost coal jobs in Appalachia. He would be the fittest man ever to serve, which seems laughable, because he was nowhere near in as good a shape as the man who preceded him, or even the man who preceded him. He criticized Obama for playing golf while so much needed to be done, and promised that he would never play golf as president. He would be too busy working on behalf of the country, so he promised that he would not take vacations, either. He also promised that he would defeat ISIS within 30 days, and of course, he knew more about ISIS than the generals did. He would release his taxes, and he would divorce himself from his business interests to avoid any conflict of interests. He would pay down the national debt. He would do for the country what he had done for his business empire, and under him, the country would no longer be a laughing stock, but would just win, win, win. We would win so much, in fact, that we would grow tired of winning. He told us, with a straight face, that he and he alone could save this country.
Of course, there was a reason why those promises sounded too good to be true. For those of us who looked at this man as a clown figure, and took what he said with a grain of salt as the rantings of an untrustworthy man, we saw his extensive past as a conman and understood at once that he was just putting us on, that this was just the latest, and apparently greatest, scam yet. But surely, most of us thought, our fellow countrymen would eventually see through all of this. A man who mocks the disabled and stokes the fans of racism, and who lied so effortlessly, would not be rewarded with the White House, right?
Well, we all know what happened, so there is no point in retelling that particular story.
But now that he is in office, how many of those promises did he manage to keep? Did he force Mexico to pay for the wall? Nope. Shocker, I know. Did he defeat ISIS within 30 days? Not so much. Did he release his taxes, or at least divorce himself from his business interests? Nah, he never actually intended to go through with that, anyway. Did he at least refuse to play golf, or take vacations? Hardly. In fact, he has spent more time on vacation during this stretch of his presidency than anyone who preceded him, to my knowledge. Are we winning, winning, winning, to the point that we are sick and tired of it? Not at all. In fact, it seems that the rest of the world is laughing at us far more these days than ever before, and Trump has everything to do with that.
One of the many promises that Trump made as a candidate that sounded too good to be true was healthcare. He promised it would be an amazing plan, and would cover everybody. Plus, it would be cheaper than the healthcare system - the hated Obamacare - that then existed in full force.
Low and behold, though, this was yet another lie. Not only did he not come up with something better and less costly that would cover everyone, he did not make a serious effort to help design one. All he did was attach his name to the mediocre plans of others, such as Paul Ryan, and then lent all of his support towards "repealing and replacing" Obamacare. But of course, those efforts were fruitless, and did not pass Congress. Then they focused on simply repealing Obamacare, but that did not pass, either. So, Trump did exactly what he and his supporters criticized Obama for, and exerted his executive power in order to gut Obamacare, for all intents and purposes.
And so, he could claim to have ended Obamacare. That much he can do. But did he make it better, cheaper, more affordable? Nope. Is everyone at least now covered? Not even close. In fact, predictably, there are more and more people going without health insurance now specifically as a consequence of having Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Many of these people are in red states and, presumably, many of them strongly supported and ultimately voted for Donald Trump.
Again, careful what you wish for.
Of course, the Republican lie...er, excuse me, line - the Republican line...would be that these people are exercising their freedom of choice. But it is the freedom of choice of having to make difficult choices based on financial realities. Namely, that they have to gamble and go without the expensive health insurance costs that they cannot afford, and hope that it ultimately works out best, that they get lucky. It's a gamble, of course, not unlike the gamble that Americans collectively took for many years by sticking so doggedly to the for profit healthcare system in the first place - the only one of it's kind in the industrialized world. And there's a reason for that, too. No other industrialized nations want anything to do with such a system, because they see the failures of the system we have here in the United States, and the people of these countries know that what they have is better than what we have. Hell, even President Trump admitted it during a visit with the Australian head of state, commenting that their healthcare system was better than the American one. And that was before Obamacare was gutted. It's even worse now, under Trump!
According to a recent article published by Bloomberg, the success ob the Obamacare program - for all of it's faults - is being taken away as a direct consequence of the actions by Trump:
While the share of Americans without health insurance is near historic lows four years after the Affordable Care Act extended coverage to almost 20 million people, the Trump administration has been rolling back parts of the law. At the same time, the cost for many people to buy a health plan—if they don’t get it from a job or the government—is higher than ever.
Are you as tired of all of this "winning" as I am yet?
Again, careful what you wish for. Most Trump supporters desperately wanted an end to Obamacare, and most desperately wanted Trump in the White House. Now, they got exactly what they wished for - except once again, the exact same failures that were so glaringly obvious, and which created the need for reforms like those in Obamacare, are rising up. And President Trump is not addressing any of this. He's too busy playing rounds of golf on his weekend outings to sunny Florida to bother, and he seems to like his vacations way too much to actually address the concerns, much less the needs, of the American people he is supposed to be representing.
Surprise, surprise, eh?
Now, Obamacare was basically a first step in the right direction. It did not scrap the exclusively for profit healthcare system, but it did curtail it, took out the worst of the abuses and unfairness. But under Trump, all of that is coming right back, and whatever tinkering we might have done to make Obamacare work better will now shift to a fight simply to retain as many scraps of it as possible, with Trump the butcher having carved it all up and rendered it virtually lifeless.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Why Some Americans Are Risking It and Skipping Health Insurance by John Tozzi, March 26, 2018:
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