Day 154: A Bill of Death

Today's coverage is dominated by the heinous "health care" bill that was released by Senate Republicans after much secrecy. Here's what I've distilled:

• This bill does away with the employer mandate and the individual mandate.
• It begins the process of dismantling federal support for Medicare.
• It allows states to set the level at which people are eligible for Medicare at 0% of the Federal Poverty Line (ie, Medicare doesn't exist).
• It strips back to completely barebones what is required of an insurance "plan".
• It eliminates the essential health benefits mandated by Obamacare, including maternity care, newborn care, mental health services, and prescription drug coverage.
• It targets abortion providers and abortion coverage.
• It reduces subsidies.
• And it does all of this by giving enormous tax cuts to the rich.
• From the mouth of Obama: "It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else."
• No wonder it was crafted in secrecy - this thing is vile, worse than the House bill on some important measures.

 Some sources:

• NY Times - G.O.P. Health Plan Is Really a Rollback of Medicaid
• Washington Post - Senate Republicans’ claim of saving individual health insurance markets could prove hollow

There's plenty more out there, but these two will give you enough of an overview. The whole thing is awful, awful, awful. Apparently a CBO score is expected on Monday; we'll find out just how bad it looks then. I'm predicting terrible. Apparently a conservative block of senators objects to some provisions, while a moderate block also has objections. There currently are insufficient votes to get this passed, but the tweaking has yet to begin. However, no amount of tweaking this bill will make it palatable. Please, keep calling your senators.

In other news:

• Trump says he doesn't have recordings of his discussions with Comey. Yawn. I've said it before: Don't listen to Trump; he only lies. Watch what he does.
• More on the election hacking: hackers got hold of voter registration information, and in at least one case, managed to modify the database. Haven't we been told for 8 months that it would be impossible to modify voter rolls? This should be setting off alarm bells!
• Dozens of disabled protestors were dragged from their wheelchairs by police at a protest against the "health care" bill today. This really makes those police look bad.
• The Directors of National Intelligence and the NSA told Mueller that Trump pressured them to publicly say that there was no collusion with Russia. How's that obstruction charge going?
• The mass arrests on Inauguration Day followed by reports of maltreatment were already bad. Now we have multiple arestees suing the police department with charges of rape. This report is really awful. I don't know what to say. Police are already shielded so strongly from the law in this country that they can murder people without repercussions. I wish the plaintiffs luck.
• Remember how Trump promised to rid Washington of special interests? One of Trump's recent appointees is a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia who has been paid almost half a million dollars to represent their interests. Disgusting.