Trump is this close to bringing back pre-existing conditions as reason for health insurance companies to reject customers. Trump has added pregnancy as one of those pre-existing conditions ― being a woman, in Trump’s health “care” plan, is essentially treated as an illness. The only people this bill cares about are the lobbyists behind the Republicans who voted for it.
As Sarah Spellings writes in The Cut:
An amendment in the GOP health-care-reform bill will allow states to deny coverage for preexisting conditions, including sexual assault. Pre-Obamacare rape survivors who sought treatment for their injuries could be denied health care later on. Under Obamacare, preexisting conditions were guaranteed to receive coverage — among them, sexual assault. The American Health Care Act is going to change that.
Women in this country aren’t equals as long as men can pull BS moves like this. It was already enough of a travesty that women have NO paid leave rights after giving birth. A designation the U.S. shares only with Papua New Guinea ― and that is a hard, shameful fact.
Dumb and Rich
Trump hasn’t turned back the clock. He’s steering the country in a new direction, toward unfettered corporatism and plutocracy ― the bill eliminates $592 billion of taxes used in Obamacare to create subsidies that helped people who couldn’t afford it buy insurance. Who benefits the most from Trump’s tax cuts? Businesses and the wealthy. Of course, along with Trumpist plutocracy, “rule by the wealthy” (and, really, “for the wealthy”) we need to remember the meaning of another timely word that characterizes Trump and his vapid, hateful crew: kakistocracy, “rule by the worst, by the very stupid”. The GOP health “care” bill is a case in point. The Washington Post Editorial Board:
Carelessly, the bill would threaten the integrity of even employer-based health-care plans in every state, apparently by accident. Recklessly, its drafters introduced just one day before the vote legislative language that an independent expert called ‘incoherent, arbitrary, and technically complex.’ Tragically, the repeal-and-replace effort is causing so much uncertainty that, even if this bill dies in the Senate, it may unravel the existing health-care system.
If voting for Trump was about racism, misogyny and xenophobia, which it certainly was, then continuing to support him and his Republican supporters in the White House and the Congress is about totalitarianism. A system of governance that wouldn’t protect anyone outside the elite classes, not even most of the middle and working class Whites who think all this is about them. This Kaiser Family Foundation interactive map shows how indiscriminate the bill is in raising costs across the country using an “age-based tax credits” system it puts in place.
That’s what the House’s vote represented today. Not the will of the people, not even just racism and Islamophobia hiding behind anti-Obamaism, but rather unalloyed plutocratic domination. And let’s not forget, wealth is not a sign of intelligence. None of this is meant to make Trump and his cronies, sycophants, and majordomos seem like conniving geniuses. They’re some of the dumbest people out there. It’s a wonder they can get themselves dressed or string together a coherent sentence (every once in a while). Still, they’re no less nefarious and able to wreak havoc on America and the world. Their ineptitude, in fact, makes them all the more dangerous because they are too dim-witted and short-sighted to comprehend the consequences of their misdeeds and chicanery.
Minorities to the Rescue... Because We Have To
A sizable majority of White Americans voted for Trump and gave him the election, according to Pew Research Center: “White non-Hispanic voters preferred Trump over Clinton by 21 percentage points (58 to 37 percent).” So, all of your progressive minorities out there, myself included, it’s up to us to resist by taking a stand and running for office.
If you’re reading this, no matter your color, creed, or orientation, your next Google search should be “how to run for local office in (insert your state)”. It’s time. No excuses. If you need some inspiration, take a few minutes to read about Dr. Abdul El-Seyyed. He’s running for governor of Michigan and, if he wins, would become the first American Muslim governor in U.S. history.
There’s no other way that’ll work as well
Not protesting, not calling your representatives, or donating to the right causes. None of those things alone or in concert have nearly the same impact as you becoming an elected official. If you’re not convinced yet, watch how this bill got passed:
^This is so wrong.
So, please, Google it... Now.
