JOHNNY'S IN THE BASEMENT, MIXIN' UP THE MEDICINE
The bar for respectability in the Republican Party is set pretty low, and for years, Paul Ryan enjoyed an undeserved reputation as an intellectual, a serious policy wonk in a party of wild eyed zealots. It appears that his Ryancare plan has effectively exploded that myth.
The irony is delicious. Ryan spent seven years claiming that he had a better health care plan than Obamacare. Given an opportunity to prove it after the election handed Republicans control of the presidency as well as both the House and Senate, it became obvious that he’d been bluffing all that time. There was no plan.
So Ryan spent the next five weeks feverishly crafting something, anything, that might restore his credibility. Alas, credibility is in short supply for Republicans these days. The first clue that the plan might have a few teensy weensy problems was the fact that Republican leadership hid it in a basement somewhere and refused to let anyone see it. The second clue was an admission that they hadn’t a clue what the plan might cost. And a third clue, if one were needed, was that they intended to make the House and Senate vote on the plan before the Congressional Budget Office had a chance to review it and offer comments.
Luckily for the rest of us, the Republican clown car began hemorraging clowns immediately. On the far right, Tea Party types refused to support any plan that retained a single vestige of Obamacare. Among Republicans who remain at least tenuously tethered to reality, there’s a justifiable concern that offering voters less coverage for more money might not be rewarded at the ballot box in 2018 and 2020.
Oh, Ryan has a few defenders. Donald Trump tweeted his support for the “wonderful new Healthcare bill.” And Ryan’s mini-me, Jason Chaffetz, was his usual tone-deaf self, claiming that poor people needed to stop buying so many iPhones and save their money to pay for Ryancare. That argument will probably change some minds, but maybe not in the direction that Chaffetz hoped.
With friends like those, Ryan doesn’t need too many enemies. But he’s making them anyway.
Outside the Republican bubble, experts are still trying to cost out the plan. VOX (link below) estimates that it will cost current Obamacare enrollees $1542 extra now, and $2409 extra in 2020. Unless they’re rich, old people are screwed, and there are a number of other poison pills embedded in the plan. It’s Robin Hoon in reverse, taking money from low income people and giving it to the rich.
Ryan’s plan isn’t about health care, it’s about wealth care. Not that Republicans object to that, but they were hoping for a fig leaf, something they could use to fool some of the people all of the time, etc. Ryancare is not the plan they werelooking for. We’ll see whether they pass it anyway.