Thursday, August 3, 2017

Trump's Big CON: Obamacare Was the Republi-CON Health Care Plan

"[F]or seven years, Republicans have attacked Obamacare with the same solemnity and frequency that they typically reserve for praising Ronald Reagan. They held symbolic votes against it. Then they held some more. They challenged it in court. Then they did it again over a typo. They shut the government down over it. And, now that he's in office, Trump has even threatened to withhold some of the law's subsidies in a not-so-veiled attempt to make the whole thing “implode.”

Throughout it all, though, Republicans haven't been able to agree on what they want to do, only what they don't. Which, of course, is anything like Obamacare's alleged 'big government takeover' of health care. The only problem with that is that Obamacare is not, in fact, a big government takeover. The opposite, actually. It's just about the most market-friendly way to cover poor and sick people. Indeed, the conservative Heritage Foundation supported something a lot like it back in 1989. As did former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole in 1993. And former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2006. So by vilifying their old plan as unconstitutional socialism, Republicans haven't left themselves a lot of leeway to come up with a new one. . .

Republicans, then, haven't been able to come up with a conservative alternative to Obamacare, because Obamacare is the conservative alternative. And they won't be able to unless they're willing to make the case that the government shouldn't help the poor and sick get covered — or just lie about their plan. In the meantime, though, you can bet that they think they're getting closer and closer.

Republican health-care policy is like tomorrow. It's always a day away." [Emphasis added.]

Read the Washington Post, Trump is clueless about health care. Republicans are worse.

It can be said enough: Obamacare Was the Republi-CON Health Care Plan.

Trump's Big CON: "I'll Work Hard for America, CONt.

"As of July 31, Trump’s visited his own properties on 57 of the 193 days he’s been president, a rate of once every 3.4 days. He’s played golf once every 5.8 days — or, at least, that’s what we assume, since the administration never actually admits he’s playing golf. Sometimes, as he did on Sunday, Trump will simply head from the White House to his golf club in Sterling, Va., for four hours or so and not tell the press what he’s doing. Occasionally, photos will leak on social media of Trump on the links or some other person will admit to being part of Trump’s foursome, but the administration likes to keep it vague, apparently so that they can pretend that maybe he was actually just in meetings. . .

Why does this matter? Trump fans will ask. For a few reasons.

First of all, it matters because Trump repeatedly insisted on the campaign trail that he would play little to no golf as president, since he’d be so busy. (He repeatedly berated President Barack Obama for playing golf; Obama played at a rate of once every 8.8 days. Trump’s playing at a rate of once every 5.8 days.) It matters that Trump’s communications team won’t simply admit that he’s spending a lot of time playing golf, which they likely don’t do because of those campaign-trail pledges, but which they should because (1) it’s obvious and (2) it’s generally preferable for a president not to hide his actions from the public.

Second of all, it matters that Trump goes to properties that are owned by his private business because each of those trips serves as a de facto ad for the property, leveraging Trump’s official position on behalf of his private interests. What’s more, those trips cost the public a lot of money. His jaunts to Mar-a-Lago cost $6.6 million just to protect the facility from the air and water. . .

Third, it matters because it’s unusual for a president to spend so much time away from the White House doing non-president-related things. His calendar this month has been fairly sparse, but, in addition to hitting up his private golf clubs and his hotel, he’s also found a lot of time for watching television. This schedule is almost certainly tied into the paragraph with which this article began: Trump spent very little time cajoling Republican senators to vote for the party’s health-care bill and enough defected on it to give him a black eye.

He spent at least 24 hours playing golf. Did he spend that much time on health care? He spent a weekend literally just watching a golf tournament from inside a glass box at a course he owns. Couldn’t that time have been better used?

One can only wonder: If Trump spent more of his time doing the things one might expect of a president and less time on the putting green, would his July have been such a political disaster?"

Read the Washington Post, Trump had a terrible July, but at least he played a lot of golf.

Read also:

Trump's Big CON: 'I'll Rarely Leave the White House' , and

Trump's Big CON: "I'll Work Hard for America.