Trumpcare: Terrible for Your Heart, Lungs and Spleen

IF IT FEELS LIKE BAD GOP HEALTHCARE PLANS keep cropping up like drug-resistant bacteria, you’re not imagining it.

Having discovered that repeal and replace wasn’t as easy as he thought, President Trump is desperate to get any bill passed, declare himself tired of winning and get back to doing what he does best. Tweeting insults.

The latest Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, reduce money spent on healthcare, but still miraculously cover everyone covered now, is wobbling along in the U.S. Senate.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, with an assist from Trump—have managed to do what President Barack Obama could never do. No. I don’t mean take away all our guns. Remember how that was going to happen! Last we checked everyone still had the guns they had on Inauguration Day in 2009. In fact, gun sales boomed while Obama was seated in the White House.

Paranoia, I think it was. (Conservatives probably thought you needed more guns to stop gay weddings.)

As I was saying, GOP leaders have made Obamacare more popular than ever. We liberals readily admit the law is imperfect. And, as sure as you mention thermometers (climate change) math (monthly job growth) or polls (pretty much every approval poll taken since Trump sat down in the Oval Office), this one will probably not be believed by our friends glued to Fox News.

Here are recent polls on the favorability of Obamacare in graphic form:

HAVING VENTED A LITTLE, I feel better—which is good, because we’re going to have to take better care of ourselves once this new Trumpcare plan goes into effect. We don’t know exactly how many Americans will lose coverage, or exactly when the worst features will fully take hold.

We just know the Graham-Cassidy bill currently being discussed by the Senate is decidedly unloved.

Sponsored by Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, this looks like the Republicans’ last chance to repeal and replace. Cassidy, for one, has been insisting his bill passes “the Jimmy Kimmel test.” That is: it will ensure that less-fortunate Americans whose children are born with severe health problems receive the care families require. Kimmel, the late night talk show host, has a young son with serious heart problems. In his case, he makes clear he has good coverage himself. He can pay. He’s rich. But Kimmel worries about families whose resources are slim.

Or none.

Senator Cassidy claims the latest Trumpcare plan passes that test.

Kimmel says, emphatically, it does not. He says Cassidy “lied right to my face” when he told him it did.

How bad is this plan?

Let’s try a test (not covered under the new Republican plan). Imagine you have a parent or grandparent suffering from long-term effects of Alzheimer’s disease. They need fulltime help.

Wouldn’t the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) support a good healthcare bill?

AARP hates this plan.

Okay. Babies might not be covered. (The American Academy of Pediatrics calls Graham-Cassidy “dangerous” and “ill-conceived.”)

And grandpa and grandma might be screwed.

How about this? You have a heart problem and bills are piling up. The American Heart Association blasts the GOP plan.

“I think the odds have improved,” Senator John Thune told reporters yesterday. He thinks this bill can pass. “I just told Bill Cassidy he’s kind of the grave robber,” Thune added. “This thing was six feet under, and I think he’s revived it.”

Mentioning Trumpcare and graves in the same breathe might not be the best metaphor one could select.

Take cancer. The lobbying arm of the American Cancer Society is opposed.

Got a six-year-old with type-1 diabetes? The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation believes the plan is a mess.

Are you an overweight or obese adult? Ha, ha. Of course you are. Seven in ten American adults weigh way too much. Suffering from type-2 diabetes, are you, now? The American Diabetes Association says vote “no” on the bill.

Your husband has lung cancer? The American Lung Association is opposed.

Your cousin is suffering the terrible effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease? The ALS Association considers the plan a joke.

The list (several are combined and linked below) goes on and on—with groups interested in pretty much every part of the body, from our heads to our toes, calling for the Senate to vote down the plan. These groups have come out against this last ditch Trumpcare-don’t care plan:

American Academy of Family Physicians

American College of Physicians

American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

American Osteopathic Association

American Psychiatric Association (“this bill harms our most vulnerable patients”)

American Public Health Association (the bill would “devastate” Medicare)

America’s Essential Hospitals

American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living (“this bill will undermine care for vulnerable seniors and individuals with disabilities”)

Arthritis Foundation 

Association of American Medical Colleges

Catholic Health Association of the United States

Children’s Hospital Association
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Family Voices

Federation of American Hospitals

HIV Medicine Association
Lutheran Services in America
March of Dimes
National Health Council 

National Council for Behavioral Health

National Institute for Reproductive Health
National Multiple Sclerosis Society
National Organization for Rare Diseases

Planned Parenthood
Volunteers of America
WomenHeart

Who else hates the GOP bill? The American Medical Association, speaking for 200,000 professionals, opposes the Graham-Cassidy plan. They say it violates the first principle of all medical care: “First, do no harm.”

The American Hospital Association: They don’t like it at all.

Maybe nurses? Maybe…good grief…the American Nurses Association wants the plan defeated too.

Blue Cross Blue Shield? They don’t like either. “The bill contains provisions that would allow states to waive key consumer protections, as well as undermine safeguards for those with pre-existing conditions,” says the company president. “The legislation reduces funding for many states significantly and would increase uncertainty in the marketplace, making coverage more expensive and jeopardizing Americans’ choice of health plans.” But, hey, other than that, the plan isn’t bad.

I talked to my daughter recently. She’s head of Newborn Screening at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D. C. I asked how work was going since she just returned from a medical conference in Brazil. She mentioned meeting doctors from Egypt, Uganda and Rawanda, now that she’s back, to talk about what her hospital does to help children born with serious, life-threatening genetic problems. She mentioned one drug that costs $1,000,000 per day. We can all argue about what to do about ballooning drug costs. (Prices are expected to increase 11.6% in 2017.) But if Senator Cassidy and Senator Graham and Senator Mitch McConnell and President Trump truly want to help, they can get on the stick and start fighting to reduce costs today.

Until that day comes—which probably never will—we know leading professional healthcare groups consider this last GOP hope a contemptible mess.

Medicare Part D (passed under the last Republican president, has helped balloon healthcare costs.

Of course we all remember, during the 2016 campaign, how Candidate Trump promised to protect us from all those illegal immigrant rapists and murderers, pouring across the border from Mexico.

What we didn’t realize then, once the GOP was in full control, was that if loved ones developed skin cancer, required kidney transplants, or suffered catastrophic injuries in automobile accidents, they’d be pretty much screwed.