When Donald Trump campaigned for the 2016 presidential election, one of his more important promises was to give everyone, every single one of 300+ million Americans, a cheaper and more comprehensive medical coverage than the Affordable Care Act, which former President Barack Obama signed into law in 2009. ACA resulted in an increase in the medical coverage for 40 million Americans who did not have medical coverage previously.
Right from the moment President Obama passed the ACA bill in 2009 with the help of a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate, the then opposition party The Republicans have committed to repealing it and replacing it with a what they call a better health care and thus, when in 2016 elections, Republicans not only won the presidency but also a complete majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate, all eyes were on them, everyone was waiting with baited breath for this campaign rhetoric to turn into a policy, after all, the newly elected President Donald Trump did promise to repeal and replace it, promising the American people a much better much cheaper healthcare, so you could imagine the apprehension of the elected representatives of the both party and the millions of voters when Donald Trump in February 2017 said “Who knew Healthcare could be so complicated”. Actually, everyone knew.
Trump had promised his supporters that he would be repealing the ACA on his first day in the office, so the new administration was in a mad rush to write a new bill which could be presented in both the houses, and the result of that is American Health Care Act,(AHCA). The bill proposes massive funding cuts from programs like Medicaid(That covers the Poor and Elderly), Planned Parenthood(Women Health Care), reducing the premiums of the uber wealthy and creating a so-called “High-Risk Pool” for people who are of more health risk, basically old people and people with pre-existing conditions.
The three promises Trump made- Cheaper, Better and for everyone, this bill did not meet any of these, not only the Health Premiums for older people got more expensive, it gave passed the responsibility of covering pre-existing condition to states, which means state legislatures can choose whether a person born in that state with a condition, would get coverage for that or not. Luckily for the people, and because of their protest, the moderate Republicans came out in the opposition of the bill, along with a very unlikely ally, the Reps who are ultra conservatives who thought this bill still was like Obamacare and still contained too many entitlements for poor people stopped the bill from coming to the house floor for a vote in March.
If you think that how the bill treats the poor and elderly is cruel, its just the half of it, the bill is severely harsh on women healthcare, it cuts the complete funding from Planned Parenthood a government program helping women to manage their health effectively. Conservatives, who the major vote bank for Republicans claim to be “pro-life”, a term which they describe as a savior of human life. According to them, Abortions are akin to murder, it is a noble view to take until you realize that they support this view even if the pregnancy was forced on a woman in the case of rape. It’s ironical that these Guns loving, pro-capital-punishment people, who are in favor increase guns in American society and speed up the death row time so that more people can be killed in jails, claim themselves to be pro-life.
So here we are now, in May, when these septa/octagenarians white males you see in this photo of the celebration of passing of AHCA in the House of Reps, who think viagra pills should be covered by medical insurance because it is essential to Men’s Health Care, came together and passed a bill, which increased the cost of Medicare for working Americans, cut the government funding for poor and old under Medicaid, shut down the programs for Women Health Care and while doing all that, gave an average of $125,000 tax cut to the top wealthy people in America.
We see demonstrations and protests already in the meetings and townhalls of Republican representatives, some of whom are certain to lose their seats in the 2018 mid-term elections in a severe backlash of the passing of this bill. The bill now will go to Senate floor, the people no doubt will call there senators to express their opposition to this bill which has a pathetic approval rating of 17%. Everyone hopes that senate does its part and kills this bill or bring it back up to ACA Level and improve on it. .
While millions of poor people will lose their Healthcare and probably lose their life as a result, the Ultra-Wealthy Americans can rejoice as one of them is in the white house and instead of the millions of American citizens, will take care of their millions of dollars.
