The Republican “health care” bill will not come to the Senate floor this week. But this is clearly only a temporary respite, and progressives should not declare victory. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he may introduce a new version of the bill as soon as Friday, with the stated goal of a Senate vote right after the Fourth of July recess. In any possible version that the Republican majority can pass, this bill is a crime against humanity that will intentionally kill tens of thousands of Americans each year and cause “great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health” for many tens of millions more.
This legislation will take money from the poor, the working class, children and the elderly and give it to the very richest Americans so that they can fatten their already overflowing bank accounts even more.
This bill will force millions of Americans into bankruptcy and destitution.
This bill will force hospitals, health clinics and nursing homes to close from lack of funds.
This bill will dramatically increase human misery. It will literally cause pain and suffering for millions of Americans.
As I have previously argued, the Republican Party’s ultimate goal is to rid our society of the “useless eaters.” These “reforms” serve to illustrate the fact that today’s Republican Party is essentially sociopathic and terrorizes the American people.
In total, the Republican Party’s “health care” bill could more correctly labeled as a “death care” bill. To claim it has anything to do with ensuring Americans’ health is an act of Orwellian Newspeak that would make Joseph Goebbels proud. The American Medical Association has even gone so far as to declare that the Senate Republican version of the bill violates a basic principle of the healing profession: Medicine has long operated under the precept of “Primum non nocere,” or “First, do no harm.”
The Republican Party has long claimed to embody “family values” and to represent “Judeo-Christian civilization.” But its health care proposals offer a profound insight into the conservative movement’s deranged and perverse version of Christianity. Here, the Jesus Christ that today’s Republicans so publicly embrace is not a person who believed in taking care of the poor and the weakest among us, but rather one who loved the plutocrats above all others. Satan smiles at the Republican health care bill; Jesus weeps.
Quite predictably, the Republican Party’s various proposals to overturn the Affordable Care Act are among the most unpopular pieces of legislation in modern American history. Traditional political logic dictates that to pass such laws would be an act of political suicide.
This assumption is incorrect. The Republican health care bill is an act of cruel political genius that could potentially guarantee the GOP’s continued power many years into the future.
Consider the following.
Sick people are less likely to vote.
Undermining public health damages social capital. In turn, this dynamic hurts the ability of individuals and groups to organize for political and social change.
The Republican health care bill will have a disproportionately negative impact on blue state America.
To be more specific, it will have a disproportionately negative impact on people of color, the poor, the working class and women — groups that are likely to support the Democratic Party.
What about Donald Trump’s supposed “white working class” voters? Won’t they be hurt by the Republican plan to destroy the Affordable Care Act? Will they rebel against the Republican Party as a result?
The Republican Party is the country’s largest white identity organization. As such, Donald Trump’s appeal is based on white racial tribalism and authoritarianism. Public opinion and other research has repeatedly shown that it was the politics of white grievance mongering and white victimology that enabled Trump to win the White House. In all likelihood, these feelings will override any “rational” calculation by Republican voters about public policy and the harm done to them by their party’s wholesale destruction of our health care system.