The Hutus called the Tutsis “cockroaches” so it’s a rhetoric I can’t get behind, even in jest.
Also, at the risk of being pedantic, insects are animals.
What about Brain Eating Amoebas? Like Hannity and his ilk?
Menzo
3725
As expected, Republicans in Congress were blindsided by Trump’s desire to re-focus on healthcare.
It’s amazing to me that Trump is so stupid that he thinks he has any chance at all to get any major legislation through the House.
Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri and a member of party leadership in the chamber, told reporters “all I’m going to say about that for a while is that I’m eager to see what the administration proposes.”
It seems to me that the quickest way to get Medicare for all is for Obamacare to get invalidated by the courts in whole some time between now and 2020, which will create pandemonium in the market and force tens of millions of people to scramble for super duper expensive options, if they can even afford one at all.
Then 2020 becomes 100% about healthcare, and Dems are the only group with a coherent plan.
Apparently there was a pretty big argument at the White House over this before it was announced, with Pence, Barr, and others saying “Please don’t” and Trump and Mulvaney pushing for it. Eventually guess who won…
Oghier
3728
Yeah… I’d be one of those people scrambling. So my enthusiasm for that path is limited.
Yeah, as Brexit and the Trump election have shown, jumping out of the plane and then hoping enough folks will vote for a parachute is a scary strategy.
Menzo
3730
I’m not enthusiastic about it. I suppose I should have noted only that I think it could be ironic.
ShivaX
3731
It’s what is going to happen if the GOP and Trump have their way.
It’s the best case scenario for what the GOP wants to happen. Which says a lot about the GOP these days.
Timex
3732
What’s nuts is that statements from other folks in the GOP suggest that this isn’t some kind of strategy. No one else knew Trump was gonna do this.
It’s just his own insane bullshit again.
I’m sure they will back it, because they are spineless, but it’s really just Trump’s insanity at this point. The GOP doesn’t want to reopen the issue that killed them in 2018.
ShivaX
3733
I mean you say that, but they voted to kill it and only lost because McCain stopped them.
They might have wanted to wait until after the 2020 elections, but they were going to do it.
Timex
3734
Sure, but they lost and it went bad.
I think most of the GOP liked bitching about Obamacare as a campaign issue, and once it became a liability, they wanted out.
Sharpe
3735
This is a strong example of a fairly simple point: Trump doesn’t understand complicated policy. He has a very vague and simplistic understanding of policy on a few points, and some of that is wrong. But what he completely lacks is any understanding of complex issues like health care.
For example, we all know he promised not to cut Medicaid during the campaign then did just that. I’m personally pretty damn sure when he said he did not want to cut “Medicaid” he had no clue at all as to the differences between Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and so forth. He thought he was promising not to cut Medicare which he has just a teeny enough amount of knowledge to understand is popular.
Or when he promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with GREAT! healthcare for everyone, he had no freaking clue about how to deliver health care and the very real bind the GOP placed itself in by opposing the ACA.
That leads to the current mess. The best case scenario for the GOP on health care is radio silence as they have no ability to actually do anything meaningfully positive on health care: by opposing so many different aspects of health care reform they have painted themselves into a tiny little corner where they just don’t have anything to offer. So the best thing for them politically is to ignore health care.
And then Trump, who is IMO unaware of (or oblivious to) that political complexity and who IMO is also ignorant of (or oblivious to) the difficulty of reforming health care without resorting to “liberal” measures (which are considered centrist in most of the developed world), just steers right into this.
It’s a good example of why stupid is just as bad, just as dangerous, and in my view, when coupled with power, just as evil as cynical exploitation and cunning evil. We like to laugh at stupid evil but in fact it’s very very nasty and dangerous. There’s an argument it’s more dangerous than cunning evil b/c it has no idea of when it’s crossing the lines of reality or possibility, and no sense of proportion.
Quick, I will make a chart that combines Trump’s Razor with the D&D alignment system:
Mayor Pete: Intelligent Good
Joe Biden (after 4 beers): Stupid Good
Mitch McConnell: Intelligent Evil
Donald J Trump: Stupid Evil
Hilary Clinton: True Neutral
I’m going through that right now with Outward- “what’s that? an 8% chance I’ll be ambushed while I sleep? Nope, guess I’m not camping here then. Onward to the next town!”
Really, what I expect him to do is what he did with NAFTA- cancel it, then redo the same thing with some minor changes and call it a HUGE win. And then it isn’t Obamacare anymore, now it’s Trumpcare, and he’s happy.
milo
3738
Really? How’s he going to get Speaker Pelosi to put Trumpcare on the floor for a vote in the first place?
Well, again, I see them running their usual MO- create a crisis, then try to look good because they’re willing to fix it. See: DACA, etc. The ACA gets thrown out as unconstitutional, because the DoJ refuses to defend it. Then they propose an ACA-equivalent (but even worse because GOP gonna GOP) and “Those democrats are denying you that healthcare! See! They won’t even bring it to a vote!”.
Neither am I, because my own sister is on expanded Medicaid (due to the ACA). Because being an over 55 woman looking for a decent job in this city is almost impossible due to age discrimination (which is rampant but almost impossible to prove).
SlyFrog
3741
Honestly, I just see this as Trump being savvier than his party (again). He knows that a lot of people are pissed off at the Republican stance on healthcare. But Trump, being a sociopath, is smart enough to say what people want to hear in order to misdirect and confuse them. So now, he’s concerned about healthcare, so see, he really is looking out for the little guy.
Never mind that they won’t actually do anything helpful for the little guy. All that matters is that Dimwit McFuckhead will go to the polls with the “party of health care” talking point in his head.
I’m 100% certain that Trump’s sudden interest in repealing the ACA and bringing a GOP healthcare plan to a vote is because of all his recent McCain bashing. It really pissed him off when McCain killed the GOP Healthcare Bill with his thumbs down swing vote. Now that McCain is dead, Trump sees this as his opportunity to stick it to McCain’s legacy by forcing the GOP to push through healthcare legislation again.
Your 2019 GOP Healthcare Plan replacement for Obamacare? “Hey, we know health insurance is really expensive, especially for you folks with pre-exiting conditions, so we’re giving you a totally tax free savings account to run your $1200 a month premiums through, AND you can save additional money from your paycheck in there to pay the enormous bills you’ll be receiving since that $1200 only buys you high-deductible insurance. THINK OF THE TAX SAVINGS!!!”
