Senate Votes to Open Debate on Obamacare Repeal

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Oh, also? They just completely shit all over the United States democracy, until it suffocated under the weight of their filth and died.


The vote today was on a "motion to proceed," which opens debate on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. What Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did was essentially convince nearly every member of his caucus to vote to move forward to "debate" a bill that hasn't yet been written. And within the allotted debate time (20 hours), Senate Republicans will scramble to write an actual bill on which the Senate will then vote.

Fifty Republican Senators went along with this profoundly anti-democratic and authoritarian charade, and then Vice President Mike Pence cast the tiebreaking vote.

What comes next is unknown, because the Republicans can't get a piece of "healthcare reform" legislation passed when its details are known. This is a humongous fraud being perpetrated on the American public, and virtually the entire Republican Party is going along with it, all for the vile objective of taking away people's health insurance.

The malice of it is breathtaking.

I watched, with tears streaming down my face, the Republicans cast their votes, eager to make their constituents' lives worse and willing to consign to the dustbin of history even the illusion that we will restore anytime soon something proximate to functional democracy.

I watched one of the two major parties in this country — the majority party; the governing party — toss aside democratic processes and the most basic responsibility of lawmakers to know what constitutes a law before voting to advance it.

I watched as John McCain returned to the Senate to a standing ovation, so he could cast a vote to move ahead with taking away healthcare from the people who pay for his.


Look at that. Look at their happy faces; listen to their enthusiastic applause. They are over the fucking moon that John McCain rushed back from his brain surgery to advance a bill that will deny people the same lifesaving care.


I loathe every one of them. In the gallery, spectators chanted, "Don't kill us!" They heard the citizens who pay their salaries, pay for their healthcare coverage, pay for their travel when they fly back to cast an execrable vote, begging them not to take away the healthcare they need to live.

And one by one, they ignored those pleas and voted "Aye."

Against the wishes of voters. In breach of democratic norms. With zero hesitation about the lack of a bill to actually advance.

I would say that we will vote them out of office should they pass whatever turd of a bill they write, but they are busily making sure we can't do that, either.


Twenty hours from now is one last chance to stop this iteration of repeal. Tonight, call as you have never called before. Make their lives a fucking misery.


Tell them no. Even if you believe it won't make a difference to them. It will make a difference to you.

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