This column is written with the intent of keeping 'tribal tendencies' out of the way and to simply take the information presented and comment accordingly. Who ever has the best idea for the most number of Americans gets support from this blog. But make no mistake, I am not in the 38% of Americans that support Donald Trump.
However, I do agree with Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) that $20 trillion in debt is not a good thing for America. There's a debt ticker on the page, as a matter of fact! (We're not quite to $20 trillion.) The senator's ideology on how we erase that debt is simply unrealistic and though healthcare plays a large part in the spending, it's not everything. If Congress really wanted to reduce spending and healthcare costs, both parties would have to take the hit. You reduce benefits for people over time and you keep the taxes exactly where they are. That's compromise, which really is politics.
The reality: not bloody likely.
There is no ignoring the fact pointed out by both perspectives, more conservative George Will and more liberal Helene Cooper, that the millions - majorities in many states that Republicans control - of Americans rely of Medicaid, and as Mr. Will also pointed the problem is that 'you're going to take something away from them.'
Whether you agree with Senator Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) starker description that 'people will die' because of the Republican healthcare bill or not, there is little doubt that the millions of people now on Medicaid will be affected. The reason people have Medicaid in the first place is because they don't make enough to afford private health insurance. This new healthcare bill drives people to the private market where there are enough price controls or where the coverage isn't enough for the amount you can afford, hence people/ families will be priced out.
Senator Sanders also said that he would like to have Medicare for all, which when the Affordable Care Act was first debated, it was called the public option, which didn't go anywhere because conservatives blocked it. The real reason why it was blocked was because the fear was that everyone would sign up for the public option and the private market would take an irreparable hit.
In terms of the process, it's easy to understand why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants to construct the bill in secret as to keep it as ideologically, as opposed to pragmatically, in tact as possible, which is to say reducing Medicaid and eventually eliminating it by eliminating government involvement in healthcare (how it's couched). As NBC's Haley Jackson noted, President Trump has been more hands-off the Senate bill and that's because it's how Mr. McConnell wants it - the president out of the way. There's no worry of Mr. Trump not signing the bill if presented to him. Democratic complaints about the process are a given, but there have been many complaints by Republicans as well who are going to have to take it on faith that their respective constituencies will like it.
Interestingly, Senator Johnson says he not a 'yes' yet because in his estimation the bill doesn't cut enough money, however, Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) is not in favor of the bill because it cuts too much. The political reality for Senator Heller is that over 600,000 Nevadans out of a population of 2.8 million (20%) rely on Medicaid (source: https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/by-state/by-state.html). For the record, over 1 million people in Wisconsin rely on Medicaid out of a state population of 5.7 million (17%). Looking at the math, you can decide for yourself. The other reality at work is that Mr. Heller is up for reelected in 2018 whereas Mr. Johnson just won another 6-year term in 2016, so he can afford to be more ideological about the bill. To be fair to Mr. Johnson, he's always been this ideological so Wisconsinites know for what they voted.
As Mark Leibovich of The New York Times noted, Republicans are damned if you do and damned if you don't on this one. When a conservative like George Will says that the bill in a massive tax cut for the wealthy, that should make everyone stop and give pause at such an acknowledgement. But as it was also explained, Republicans politicians don't seem to be governing in today, but yesterday.
Panel: Haley Jackson, NBC News; Mark Leibovich, The New York Times; Helene Cooper, The New York Times; George Will, syndicated columnist
One More Thing...
Worst analogy of the day: Senator Johnson saying that insuring a preexisting condition is like insuring a crashed car. So if you're born with a birth defect that requires extra medical attention, a preexisting condition, you're just a crashed car and should be insured. Wow.
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