President Obama on the Senate GOP "Healthcare" Bill

After the text of Senate Republicans' vile "healthcare" legislation was made public, President Barack Obama made the following statement on Facebook:

Our politics are divided. They have been for a long time. And while I know that division makes it difficult to listen to Americans with whom we disagree, that’s what we need to do today.

I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party. Still, I hope that our Senators, many of whom I know well, step back and measure what’s really at stake, and consider that the rationale for action, on health care or any other issue, must be something more than simply undoing something that Democrats did.

We didn’t fight for the Affordable Care Act for more than a year in the public square for any personal or political gain – we fought for it because we knew it would save lives, prevent financial misery, and ultimately set this country we love on a better, healthier course.

Nor did we fight for it alone. Thousands upon thousands of Americans, including Republicans, threw themselves into that collective effort, not for political reasons, but for intensely personal ones – a sick child, a parent lost to cancer, the memory of medical bills that threatened to derail their dreams.

And you made a difference. For the first time, more than ninety percent of Americans know the security of health insurance. Health care costs, while still rising, have been rising at the slowest pace in fifty years. Women can’t be charged more for their insurance, young adults can stay on their parents’ plan until they turn 26, contraceptive care and preventive care are now free. Paying more, or being denied insurance altogether due to a preexisting condition – we made that a thing of the past.

We did these things together. So many of you made that change possible.

At the same time, I was careful to say again and again that while the Affordable Care Act represented a significant step forward for America, it was not perfect, nor could it be the end of our efforts – and that if Republicans could put together a plan that is demonstrably better than the improvements we made to our health care system, that covers as many people at less cost, I would gladly and publicly support it.

That remains true. So I still hope that there are enough Republicans in Congress who remember that public service is not about sport or notching a political win, that there’s a reason we all chose to serve in the first place, and that hopefully, it’s to make people’s lives better, not worse.

But right now, after eight years, the legislation rushed through the House and the Senate without public hearings or debate would do the opposite. It would raise costs, reduce coverage, roll back protections, and ruin Medicaid as we know it. That’s not my opinion, but rather the conclusion of all objective analyses, from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which found that 23 million Americans would lose insurance, to America’s doctors, nurses, and hospitals on the front lines of our health care system.

The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else. Those with private insurance will experience higher premiums and higher deductibles, with lower tax credits to help working families cover the costs, even as their plans might no longer cover pregnancy, mental health care, or expensive prescriptions. Discrimination based on pre-existing conditions could become the norm again. Millions of families will lose coverage entirely.

Simply put, if there’s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family – this bill will do you harm. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.

I hope our Senators ask themselves – what will happen to the Americans grappling with opioid addiction who suddenly lose their coverage? What will happen to pregnant mothers, children with disabilities, poor adults and seniors who need long-term care once they can no longer count on Medicaid? What will happen if you have a medical emergency when insurance companies are once again allowed to exclude the benefits you need, send you unlimited bills, or set unaffordable deductibles? What impossible choices will working parents be forced to make if their child’s cancer treatment costs them more than their life savings?

To put the American people through that pain – while giving billionaires and corporations a massive tax cut in return – that’s tough to fathom. But it’s what’s at stake right now. So it remains my fervent hope that we step back and try to deliver on what the American people need.

That might take some time and compromise between Democrats and Republicans. But I believe that’s what people want to see. I believe it would demonstrate the kind of leadership that appeals to Americans across party lines. And I believe that it’s possible – if you are willing to make a difference again. If you’re willing to call your members of Congress. If you are willing to visit their offices. If you are willing to speak out, let them and the country know, in very real terms, what this means for you and your family.

After all, this debate has always been about something bigger than politics. It’s about the character of our country – who we are, and who we aspire to be. And that’s always worth fighting for.

As always, there is lots of good stuff here. I am very glad indeed that Obama said plainly that the senate bill "is not a health care bill."

Where I differ with President Obama is that I am completely done (you may have noticed I've been completely done, for 13 years or so) pretending that the Republicans operate in good faith. They don't.

I see no evidence of better natures to which to appeal. Harm is clearly the objective. I think we need to stop w/ any pretense it isn't.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 22, 2017

Republican Senators are not going to ask themselves any tough questions. And they don't deserve a premise suggesting they might. I respect President Obama immensely, but I take strong issue with any frame that suggests Republicans haven't already thought about what they are doing. They aren't children. They're adults who are acting with deliberate indecency.

Survival of the fittest whose fitness is maintained by health insurance provided by the tax dollars of people whose fitness they compromise.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 22, 2017

They're nothing but fucking pirates who plunder from gerrymandered ships on seas of churning malice.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 22, 2017

I'm all the fuck out of good will. And, even if I weren't, I'm not sure why on earth I would extend any to the Republican Party ever again, when all they do with it is use it against me.

They're waging war on the citizenry they're meant to represent, and we will never win even a single battle if we insist on some absurd pretense that the opposition is simply misguided, rather than resolute.

They didn't cluelessly bumble their way into this moment. They have made decades of preparation to secure our defeat, and they are counting on our meeting their malice with pleas for reconsideration.

This is not a health care bill. Asking them to think about whether it's a good health care bill suggests that it is one. It isn't. It's a plan for killing vulnerable people en masse, under the auspices of care.