Sarah Lerner, who is followed by someone I follow on Twitter, observes that there are ups and downs to being a woman. On the plus side, you get to make friends with other drunk girls standing in line to pee. In the other column goes the fact that men write health-care bills without asking your advice.
Strictly speaking, her formulation is open to the objection that no one really knows who wrote the Graham-Cassidy bill that Jimmy Kimmel has been inveighing against. According to health-care analysts who have weighed in, neither Graham nor Cassidy understands its content as well as Kimmel does. This might suggest neither Graham nor Cassidy wrote it. Their staffs? If so, some women might actually be implicated in the composition of this open-faced shit sandwich. I admit I'm way out on a limb here trying to mitigate the guilt of my own demographic group, goyish white guys on the downward slope of middle age.
Apparently somewhere in the range of 46 to 51 of the 52 Republican senators is ready to vote for Graham-Cassidy. The one sure No is Rand Paul, who thinks the bill unreasonably tempers the state of nature described by Thomas Hobbes, which tells you what you need to know about the modern Republican party. Despite the bill's evident "popularity" within the Republican caucus, media outlets can't find Republican senators willing to discuss, for the record and before cameras, the reasons for their support. Here's just a wild guess at the reason for that: they haven't an answer to the criticisms advanced by virtually every interest group that opposes the bill, an abbreviated list of which includes the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the Arthritis Foundation, the National Health Council, the March of Dimes, AARP, the American Medical Association, the National Council for Behavioral Health, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, America's Health Insurance Plans (the insurance industry's leading lobby), ALS Association, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Lutheran Services in America, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, WomenHeart, the American Hospital Association . . . .
Hell, Chris Christie and at least four other Republican governors oppose the bill. Since one of the bill's distinguishing features is the outsourcing of health-care policy to fifty states (but without enough money to do the job), it's notable that Republican governors are much more apt to be opposed than are Republican senators. As the following transcript of an interview with Sen. Pat Roberts, Republican from Kansas, shows, the loneliness of Republican senators derives from the fact that everyone else's analysis of the bill is connected to policy considerations, whereas their analysis takes account of only political considerations:
Interviewer: Senator, I wanted to ask you for a policy-based explanation for why you’re moving forward with the Graham-Cassidy proposal. What problems will this solve in the health care system?
Roberts: That — that is the last stage out of Dodge City.
Interviewer: I’m just trying to explain to our readers what the policy —
Roberts: What readers? Who do you represent?
Interviewer: It’s a website called Vox.
Roberts: ... [Graham-Cassidy] is the last stage out of Dodge City. I’m from Dodge City. So it’s the last stage out to do anything. Restoring decision-making back to the states is always a good idea, but this is not the best possible bill — this is the best bill possible under the circumstances. If we do nothing, I think it has a tremendous impact on the 2018 elections. And whether or not Republicans still maintain control and we have the gavel.
Interviewer: But why does this bill make things better for Americans? How does it help?
Roberts: Pardon me?
Interviewer: Why does this make things better? What is this doing?
Roberts: Look, we’re in the back seat of a convertible being driven by Thelma and Louise, and we’re headed toward the canyon. That’s a movie that you’ve probably never seen —
Interviewer: I do know Thelma & Louise, sir.
Roberts: So we have to get out of the car, and you have to have a car to get into, and this is the only car there is.
You can tell that the Vox guy seems to have ambushed Roberts in an elevator. He wouldn't say this on Meet the Press, which is why you can believe him. The air of jokey nihilism perfectly encapsulates what passes for "the national conversation" when politicians, instead of comedians like Kimmel, are doing the talking. I love the "pardon me"--like, he can't comprehend that the reporter seems to assume his support for the bill might have anything to do with health and the public good.
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