Trumpcare Collapse Shows Why GOP Cannot Govern

[DonViejo]

July 18, 2017 at 11:55 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

Jonathan Chait: “In truth, it was never possible to reconcile public standards for a humane health-care system with conservative ideology. In a pure market system, access to medical care will be unaffordable for a huge share of the public. Giving them access to quality care means mobilizing government power to redistribute resources, either through direct tax and transfers or through regulations that raise costs for the healthy and lower them for the sick. Obamacare uses both methods, and both are utterly repugnant and unacceptable to movement conservatives. That commitment to abstract anti-government dogma, without any concern for the practical impact, is the quality that makes the Republican Party unlike right-of-center governing parties in any other democracy. In no other country would a conservative party develop a plan for health care that every major industry stakeholder calls completely unworkable.”

“Every attempt to resolve the contradiction between public demands and conservative ideology has led the party to finesse it instead. That is why Republicans spent years promising their own health-care plan would come out very soon. It is why their first and best option was repeal and delay. And it is why they are returning to that option now.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2017/07/18/trumpcare-collapse-shows-gop-cannot-govern/

[redstatebluegirl]

1. They don't know who to be afraid of.

Should they fear the people who pay them the banks, insurance companies, the Koch brothers, or their crazy base who will back Trump no matter what. Then there is the fear of the midterms and backlash when the masses wake up, if they do. They are just plain chasing their tails right now.

[Moostache]

2. Amen...the goal is NOT healthcare reform or improvement...it is tax cuts, period.

Taxes are the ultimate evil in the eyes of the bloodless zealots like the Grover Nordquists of the world. Taxes give the government the muscle and ability to implement things like proper regulations of corporations. It is also why the GOP strategy has long been to "starve" the government of its proper resources and then point to the imminent failures as "proof" government cannot be trusted to, well, govern.

There are a myriad of reasons why the concept of laissez-faire governance is a failed ideology. Look at the permissiveness and lack of vital regulations that precipitated the Great Depression of the 1930's and the Great Recession of the 2000's and trace the commonalities. There are elements of society that are too interwoven and too essential to modern life to leave them to the profit motive. In the past, that was largely banking and investing alone that had such a reach...largely because until the 1950's and the advent of the antibiotic era, healthcare's options were much more limited in fighting infections, performing surgeries or treating chronic diseases. That era is currently in mortal danger due to microbial resistance, a subject that should rightfully TERRIFY EVERYONE but routinely gets completely ignored...and even more so than the need for government to control the damage from banks on the economy and society, we need to insure that all necessary and available steps are taken to save the efficacy of antibiotics in the coming years.

Universal healthcare offers the greatest chance to help people battle illness, survive unexpected catastrophes and remain productive members of society. It further gives us the best chance to save antibiotics from resistance and preserve the life-saving medications that enable surgery to even occur without a 50-50 chance of death from post-op infections. Government is the ONLY mechanism that can help accomplish the twin goals of better care at lower overall costs, and it is the only way to control the voracious profit appetites of for-profit insurance. Let them fight for survival or shrink the INSURANCE COMPANIES to the size they can be dragged into the bathroom and drowned.