Thread: Trump won’t learn: Second Look

Trump won’t learn: Second Look

USA TODAY 7:05 a.m. ET April 2, 2017

Letter to the editor:

As soon as the American Health Care Act failed to pass muster, President Trump said he’s moving on from health care. As if coming up with another draft is somehow not worth the effort.

The fact that Trump had no plan coming in as president is now blatantly obvious. He promised to have a “great plan.” He had no plan. The bill that House Speaker Paul Ryan cobbled together at the beck and call of Trump was pathetic. Republicans had more than seven years to construct a bill that would overcome all potential obstacles and solve the so-called problems of the Affordable Care Act.

Now Trump says forget about it. He has moved on to other issues like tax reform. Apparently, health care was just a campaign slogan. Trump not only doesn’t have the faintest clue about how to provide care to citizens, he also does not have the mental stamina to pay attention to why it matters. God forbid he takes 15 minutes to learn from his mistakes and try again. Yet, I am not all that surprised. Slash and burn has always been Trump’s modus operandi. Why would he change now? If you don’t succeed the first time, just blame the failure on others. That is Trump’s way.

The American people were speaking to you, Mr. President. You are the one who is responsible for this bill. You are the one whom those Republican congressmen were pointing at when they said slow down, get it right.

George Cassidy Payne; Rochester, N.Y.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...look/99841904/

George Cassidy Payne is a SUNY (State University of New York System) Adjunct Humanities Instructor and founder of Gandhi Earth Keepers International.

http://www.commondreams.org/author/george-cassidy-payne

Published on Sunday, March 26, 2017
by Common Dreams

Trump’s Proposed Budget Will Pay for America’s Berlin Wall

If undertaken, this will be one of the stupidest things America has ever done. Period.

by George Cassidy Payne

http://www.commondreams.org/views/20...as-berlin-wall

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 5m 5 minutes ago

Talks on Repealing and Replacing ObamaCare are, and have been, going on, and will continue until such time as a deal is hopefully struck.
1,323 replies 782 retweets 3,450 likes
Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 12m12 minutes ago

Anybody (especially Fake News media) who thinks that Repeal & Replace of ObamaCare is dead does not know the love and strength in R Party!
2,540 replies 1,597 retweets 6,598 likes

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/with_replies

I didn't vote for Trump based on his promises over Obamacare. I didn't see much hope there one way or another. I don't see where Obama had much to do with Obamacare either. Our problem is with the current medical establishment and our government is just confronting the tip of the iceberg - medical insurance.

Obamacare insurance policies sold on the exchanges for the individual market only apply to about 11 million people out of 330 million. We have 75 million on Medicaid, about 55 million on Medicare, and about 15 million on SCHIP, these are government funded health insurance programs. That's 156 million people, about 50% of our legal population, who are already on some government run/funded health insurance program now. Everyone on Medicaid is happy, everyone on Medicare is happy, everyone on an Obamacare subsidy is happy, so ... I guess the only people who aren't happy are those of us who want to get rid of the individual and employee mandates that steal our money and stall job growth, Seniors who are paying more for Supplemental on Medicare, and unsubsidized Obamacare insured who saw their rates skyrocket under Obamacare, people like lorrie.

I thought the Phase 1 plan addressed most of these problems, and then with the improvements in the regulations by HHS under Phase 2 and the additional bills to repeal McCarran-Ferguson (erase the lines), Barletta's bill to prevent illegal aliens from receiving health care tax credits, another bill to expand HSA's and another one to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, possibly some others, perhaps some or all of these in one bill, depending on how the committee reviews work, and to me, that was a "great plan". Whether some or all of those didn't pass, we're certainly still better off than without the Phase 1 bill because with the repeal of the mandates, jobs can be created by our smaller companies, workers whose hours were cut can be restored to full 40 hour weeks, and people without insurance aren't punished with big fines by the IRS. This is why I supported the Phase 1 bill because I thought freedom was important. I still do. I guess conservatives in our party will find that odd. I find that "SAD!".

The Koch Brothers (open borders), Club for Growth (free trade treason) and Heritage Foundation (originated the mandates idea in ACA, Obamacare) opposed the Phase 1 bill.

The health insurance mandate in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is an idea hatched in 1989 by Stuart M. Butler at Heritage in a publication titled "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans".[39] This was also the model for Mitt Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts.[40]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation

So the Freedom Caucus really needs to understand that we know who your backers are. We know why you opposed the Phase 1 bill. We know it was donors, it was not for the "people", it was for the Koch Brothers, Club for Growth and the Heritage Foundation. You preserved your donor money from the Koch's and threw our President and Freedom under the bus.

Did you not know what we would piece this together, JIM JORDAN? Did you not know that there's a reason you're the only one still stupid enough and rotten enough to still go on television and recite the same rehearsed line every time you open your mouth by saying the opposite of what you are doing?

You are not repealing Obamacare, you are preserving it, just like your donors want you to do. If you wanted to repeal Obamacare, you would have voted to repeal the mandates in the Phase 1 bill and freed millions of Americans who fell into poverty because their hours were cut at work, or the job they had interviewed for was canceled, or people can't buy Christmas presents because they're paying a $2100 or more in fines because they can't afford family insurance or individuals paying $700 to $1,000 in fines because they can't afford it for themselves or don't want it or don't need it.

You're free to support these authoritarian socialist agendas, just don't hide behind false labels like "Freedom Caucus" or call yourselves Republicans. It's politically shameful and economically harmful what you chose NOT to do. Shame! Shame! Shame!