Many people are breathing a sigh of relief today. They are allowed to keep healthcare coverage a little longer as the highest stakes game of life took another turn. Not only do millions of Americans deal daily with the stress of having to decide between healthcare or other essentials like groceries and utilities, they also get the added stress of watching politicians play tug of war with the few protections and safety nets that are available.
The edge of your seat theatrics of Sen. John McCain were shameful.
It made for great optics for the Republican Party but essentially it was just another stall tactic because they don’t have a workable plan. After seven years of complaining about “Obamacare,” they don’t have any better ideas to replace it.
The Republicans and Democrats are battling for power and the back and forth over healthcare makes for great political theater. They want to give the illusion that they are all in the battle of their lives to help Americans while in effect they are doing NOTHING. While the governing parties are scrambling to be the ones who can take credit for outmaneuvering the other side, you know who didn’t get to breathe a sigh of relief? The 20+ million people who still don’t have coverage under ACA.
We often ask why the Republicans don’t have a fix or replacement for ACA after crying about it for seven years, but do the Democrats have a fix or replacement for ACA? They had the same seven years to come up with something, so far they are only willing to look at single payer. Why has it taken so long to get to the point of just “considering it”? What other ideas have they brought to the table? Because crossing your fingers and hoping that ACA holds up so you can make the Republicans look like failures is no more of a plan than waiting for Obamacare to fail so you can make the Democrats look like failures. Waiting until people are so desperate that they will accept anything while both parties continue to be owned by those who benefit from the for-profit healthcare model is not a plan. It is sadistic.
Congress is trying to do as little as possible as they fight to stay in their positions of power or regain seats they’ve lost from now until 2018 because they aren’t focused on what they can do now. Politicians are too busy deciding on who will run for president in 2020. Too bad for Americans they are not as forward-thinking when it comes to the lives of Americans who are facing life or death decisions every day.
#SinglePayerNOW #MedicareForAllNOW
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