WHEN THE NIGHT HAS COME AND THE LAND IS DARK

A few quick thoughts as we wait for the Senate to begin its work on the abomination passed by the House – which is basically a huge tax cut for the rich, disguised as a health care plan.

I wish it were otherwise, but my guess is the Senate will pass some version of an Obamacare repeal.  Even assuming Senate Democrats remain united in opposition, they’ll still need at least two Republican defections to block the Senate’s Obamacare replacement, whatever it may look like.  It’s not clear who those two Republicans would be.  Several Republican Senators (notably Arizona’s John McCain and Jeff Flake) make a great show of being mavericks, but when it comes time to vote, they do what Mitch McConnell tells them to do.

McConnell is a despicable human being, but he’s undeniably good at manipulating the legislative process.  Whether he junks the House bill and starts over from scratch, or decides to tinker with the smoldering dumpster fire that Paul Ryan handed him, he’ll come up with something slightly less cruel than the House bill.  That will be enough for the usual suspects in the press to call it a compromise and accuse Democrats of being obstructionists

One silver lining in these dark clouds is that Republicans now own health care in America.  Every bad thing that happens to sick people is going to be their fault.  They’ll be responsible for the higher premiums and pre-existing condition issues.  But they’ll also get blamed for overcrowded emergency rooms, billing errors, and all the little frustrations that are built into every health care system.  They broke it and they’ve bought it.  I predict that they won’t enjoy it.

The other silver lining in this fiasco is that it has spotlighted the hypocrisy of so-called pro-life Republicans.  No one who was genuinely pro-life would have voted for that bill.  Looking at you, Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks, the doofus who told CNN that “people who lead good lives” won’t have to worry about pre-existing conditions.  And at you, Idaho Congressman Raul Labrador, who said "Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care."

Republicans have such a twisted view of morality.  They’re vehemently pro-fetus, but once the fetus turns into a baby, they could care less what happens it.  Genuinely pro-life people might well oppose abortion, but they’d also want to protect people who are actually, you know, alive and breathing.  They’d support birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies.  They’d support funding for prenatal care, for infant and child care, for school lunch programs, and other life affirming policies like universal health care.  They would, like that well known Christian Pope Francis, oppose the death penalty and be sympathetic to immigrants fleeing political oppression and/or famine. 

Republicans hate all of those things. They enjoy being mean.  They care more about guns than about children.  Actually, Republicans care more about guns than just about anything. 

I continue to be optimistic about the longer term.  Even rabid Republican commentator Charles Krauthammer speculates that this House bill is simply a detour on the road to a single payer system sometime in the next seven years.  For the first time in my life, I’m hoping that Krauthammer is right about something.

But seven years is a long time to wait if you’re broke and sick.  Millions of households will be affected (an estimated 40,000+ people in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District alone), and a lot of them will be Republicans (looking at you, McSally voters).  Democrats have to make vulnerable Republicans pay for selling out their constituents.