It was John McCain! No, the ladies, Collins and Murkowski, should be getting the credit! How about the Democratic senators from red states who didn't yield, or Chuck Schumer, their leader, who held them together?
Well, what about the fact that it was a horrible bill, the output of a scandalously bad "process," deeply but insufficiently unpopular in the country, and that what's hard to understand is not that it was voted down but that 49 out of a hundred senators voted for it? What were they thinking?
That the bill they were voting for would not be enacted, apparently. From the New York Times:
Before rolling out the new legislation, Senate leaders had to deal with a rebellion from Republican senators who demanded ironclad assurances that the legislation would never become law.
Back in the day, you voted No if you wanted a horrible bill never to become law.
I think 49 "ayes" should be attributed to embarrassment. It's humiliating, after having heaped abuse on ObamaCare for years, to reveal that you got nothing, no idea. Maybe, if we just keep it alive, we'll be able to cobble together something, someday, less obviously odious than what we're voting for now.
But that's the rotten corn analogy again. If ear after ear is worm-eaten and rotten, quit shucking: the whole consignment is bad.
The problem for which Republican orthodoxy has no solution is that the hated "individual mandate" is what makes it possible to require insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions. Else, the pool of the insured is too old and sick, premiums are high (because private insurance is a for-profit business and too many of the insured are making claims), the relatively healthy therefore leave the pool, which makes it sicker yet, causing premiums to rise again. . . a death spiral. It's the same problem everywhere because it's tied to the human condition and grim facts about aging, decline, and disease. Most of the countries to which we have the closest historical and cultural ties have addressed it with national health insurance. All in, the pool is as big as it can be. But we have too many cowboys for that, so instead "infringe on freedom" with the mandate.
It's terrible, the healthy end up paying for the sick!
(Yes, that is how insurance works, but--cheer up!--you won't be healthy forever yourself.)
Collins and Murkowski should get more credit, it's true. Also, being male, I'm not a crusader against my gender, but I agree with women who have pointed out that everything that conservative men put on "feminazis"--"shrill," "ugly," "snow flake," "stupid," "entitled," "mean," "crazed," "drama queen"--describes Trump & Co. And, regarding McCain, here is a really nice and I think quite unknown story about him. It's impossible to imagine anything like it in the biography of our president.
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