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Galindez writes: "Donald Trump is a poor loser. He is that kid who will take the only ball in the neighborhood home with him if he doesn't get his way."

President Trump. (photo: Getty)
President Trump. (photo: Getty)


Trump Puts Politics Over Health of the Nation

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

29 June 17

 

onald Trump is a poor loser. He is that kid who will take the only ball in the neighborhood home with him if he doesn’t get his way. Trump and the Republicans are having a difficult time coming up with a replacement for Obamacare. It was easy to repeal it over and over when President Obama was there to veto the repeal. Now the votes mean something, and Republicans don’t have a viable replacement.

You can see that spoiled brat side of Donald Trump coming out as he threatens to sabotage the nation’s healthcare system from within. For the past few months, the Trump administration has refused to commit to continuing to make payments to health insurance companies that are used to subsidize payments from low-income Americans.

When I first heard this, I wondered how he could get away with violating the law. I thought, how could that not be impeachable? Sadly, it might be a move he can get away with to bring down the Affordable Care Act. It would indeed, as he has threatened to do, destabilize the markets. Millions of Americans could lose their healthcare, and for someone like me, it could result in my death.

Well, maybe not in my case, since I have the option to go on Medicare early because of my kidney failure. But without the Medicare option, which is not there for most illnesses, I would not be able to afford the treatments for my disease.

The sad truth is the subsidies are part of a legal battle that could result in their demise at any time, and the Trump administration might be able to end them at any time legally. However, throwing millions of Americans off their healthcare would be immoral, if not illegal.

The Kaiser Foundation estimates that one correction to the lost subsidies would be everyone would face a 19% increase in premiums across the board. So much for, how does Donald say it?

“Our healthcare plan will lower premiums & deductibles — and be great healthcare!”
– Trump tweet in May 2017

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s recently released report: “Overall, out-of-pocket costs would rise for most people. Deductibles will be higher. Roughly half the population lives in states that will obtain waivers in order to define which benefits must be covered by insurers, and they would see a ‘substantial increase’ in their out-of-pocket costs. Things like maternity care and mental health could become far more expensive in states that use waivers to cut them from the list of benefits that must be covered.”

That is according to the CBO, so what are we accomplishing with this legislation? A tax cut for the wealthy. That’s what repealing Obamacare is all about.

I was watching Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s White House press briefing on Tuesday and had to shake my head in disgust when she talked about how dangerous it was to have a media that couldn’t be trusted to report the facts. I had to wonder if she thinks it is dangerous to have a president who intentionally lies because he knows his base will believe anything he says, or at least give him a pass because it’s “just Trump being Trump.”



Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott moved to Des Moines in 2015 to cover the Iowa Caucus.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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