Pierce: The Phony Healthcare 'Compromise' Is Coming

[babylonsister]

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a56111/republicans-healthcare-cbo-ted-cruz/


The Phony Healthcare 'Compromise' Is Coming
Republicans will engineer it, and the elite political media will buy it.
By Charles P. Pierce
Jul 4, 2017


The campaign to make people sick to make rich people wealthier never sleeps. Axios tells us how:


Senate Republicans have asked the Congressional Budget Office to analyze Sen. Ted Cruz's proposal for further health insurance deregulation, and they've asked for one estimate of a health care bill that includes his changes and one that doesn't, according to a GOP aide familiar with the discussions.


Oh, they're very cute, they are. Keep submitting proposals until you get a CBO score you can plausibly use to con the country, the elite political press, and the mind of Susan Collins into thinking you're "moderating" the bill. Even trim the massive tax cut a bit, full in the knowledge you can get that back when it's time to produce a phony "tax reform" plan. Do it over what is essentially a four-day holiday weekend.

The only variable in the calculation is the number of uninsured that will allow the big con to proceed. 20 million? 19? How many millions of American families will have to suffer so that Paul Ryan's sommelier will be kept properly busy for the next few years? How many millions of the sick and suffering will have to become sicker and suffer more before the TV pundits and op-ed cowhands declare that Mitch McConnell's genius has produced a "compromise"?

If you're going to wind up with a celebration-related injury, I suggest you do it this weekend. Labor Day may be too late.

[flamingdem]

1. Heavy arm twisting going on with CBO right now

I agree this is dangerous. They need those tax breaks for the 1% and will pay, bribe, threaten, to make it happen.

[lame54]

2. Twisted arms are not covered under this bill

[flamingdem]

5. How about "I breaka you faze"?

I think that one might be..

[Wounded Bear]

3. A "compromise" between the far right and the extreme far right...

is what they'll come to. If the media buys into that, we're screwn for sure.

[Vinca]

4. Apparently, they're trying to keep the number of uninsured at a low number by throwing in

a provision that would allow people to buy policies on the cheap that are almost totally worthless. They're only concerned about the next campaign ad, not whether people can get the care they might need.

[Honeycombe8]

6. Reminder: The CBO testified before Congress that it gave a false est. of cost...

to one of Bush's big plans. The guy testified that they ran the numbers and I think turned them in. At some point he got a call from a head Republican, telling him to re-do the numbers until they came up with a number they could use. The CBO guy actually DID it and turned in a falsely low number.

The number was for the cost of something...I THINK IT WAS THE TAX CUT BILL. Remember the big tax cut bill that Bush/Cheney got passed thru Congress? The cost was actually $1 TRILLION DOLLARS. That was known at the time, but a much lower estimate was turned in by the CBO, at the Republicans' request. At least that's how I remember it. It didn't get much media coverage, but I saw part of the CBO's testimony.

It added greatly to the deficit and did indeed cost $1 Trillion Dollars, as estimated at the time.

Just consider that the 20 Million people who lose insurance under the health care bill MAY ACTUALLY BE A RE-DONE NUMBER THAT IS FAR LOWER THAN THE REAL NUMBER, done at the request of powerful Republicans.

And consider that the CBO number to be turned in on the tax cut bill that's coming will be falsely much lower than the real number.

Our economy could be headed for another recession as a result of these things (plus deregulation), with much suffering of the masses to come.

[LuckyLib]

7. Dontcha know? The Republicans do their best work behind closed doors and on holiday weekends.

[Hekate]

9. KNR

[Blue Idaho]

10. I heard today

The CBO will refuse to score anything that does not have the essential elements that would make it a healthcare plan. Strip enough stuff away (like the Cruz proposal) and the CBO won't even bother to score it.

[LakeArenal]

11. Feels like three-card monte.

The plan is here.. No, it's over there.. It has to be over here then. Well, whad da ya know, it isn't anywhere.

[red dog 1]

12. "Five changes Republicans might make to healthcare bill"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10029287110

[Solly Mack]

13. K&R