They continue their futile efforts to erase his highly successful legacy, but, like Muhammad Ali when he was stripped of his heavyweight title, President Obama remains the People’s President. Those impacted by his good works realize how badly their lives would now suffer without them. What remains is a vicious group of sinister old men dedicated to using every underhanded scheme available to destroying the good without a reasonable or beneficial substitute.
From the bowels of the House of Representatives, an alternative Republican plan to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act spewed forth on March 24. Without input from Democratic legislators or public hearings, House Republicans rammed through their plan, which by generous estimates would result in 24 million Americans losing health insurance. Critical analysts understand that the major result of this plan would be a reward of $880 Billion in tax relief to the wealthiest Americans.
First characterized as “Dead -on-Arrival,” the House plan was given little chance of passage in the Senate. Pundits, given their opportunities, guessed that there was little hope of healthcare “replacement and repeal” in 2017. We accepted that reasoning and our attention was diverted and draw into a myriad of directions by the never-ending, malignant controversies growing from the Trump administration.
For those who are listening, we are being lulled into a false sense of security. Following the path of their legislative partners in the House, Senate Republicans have retreated into the deepest, darkest recesses of legislative secrecy to create a Senate version of Republican healthcare that, for all intent and purpose, will be rammed through the Senate on short notice without public hearing, without public disclosure, and with the absence of input from Democratic legislators.
Apparently, while the Republicans are dealing with “the Russia thing,” “the Comey thing” or latest “Trump thing,” Mr. McConnell plans for people to accept the “pig-in-the-poke” of a sight unseen, out of the dark health plan. We mustn’t play the game of Russian Roulette with our health which they present.
(Dr. E. Faye Williams is President of the National Congress of Black Women. www.nationalcongressbw.org.)
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