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Women Led, McCain Followed, Trump Lost, as GOP Healthcare Scheme Fails (For Now)

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Photo via SD Indivisible

 
I love the feeling of victory in the morning.

For six months lots of people worked very hard to oppose the Republican “Repeal or Replace” healthcare scam, designed to make the rich richer, the rest of us poorer, and take a big first step towards undoing Medicaid, Medicare, and ultimately Social Security.  

The other side lied. They cheated. They bullied and bribed. WE persisted, led by women principled enough to remain focused on what needed to be done. The marches, the phone calls, the emails, the letters to the editor all added up to be enough to stop this spiteful and reactionary strategy. For now.

Let us celebrate today, thank our allies, take a deep breath, and get ready for the next round of reaction. This victory will not go unnoticed. The attacks on people of good will are already underway.

Those who worked hard on this need to remember what got us there–solidarity; no doubt about what needed to be done and the patience to make it happen.

Here are a few snips from around the interwebs, I noticed this morning:

Yay! Senator John McCain did the right thing! But let’s not forget how we got here.

On a local level, the resistance movement to Trumpism has been led by women from the start. In the United States Senate,  two very brave Republican women stood tall throughout the process.

From Laura Clawson at Daily Kos:

Senate Republicans originally put together an all-male panel to kill Obamacare, shutting the six Republican women in the Senate out of the process. Then that group fell apart and the repeal bills, such as they were, were crafted in secret—still without input from the very women who were making clear that their votes would be hard to get.

Collins and Murkowski voted against Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s series of poorly thought through, cruel bills from the beginning. Donald Trump’s interior secretary was dispatched to threaten Alaska’s energy industry over Murkowski’s vote. She and Collins withstood days if not weeks of pressure, and without them, McCain’s vote wouldn’t have been decisive. Let’s also not forget that McCain provided the crucial vote to get the Senate to the skinny repeal vote in the first place. And now the headlines are all about the night John McCain killed the GOP’s health-care fight, or say that McCain, two other GOP senators join Democrats to reject last-ditch effort to repeal Obamacare. And the cable news channels (minus Fox) are oohing and aahing over him.

So what was the Senate voting on? I thought you’d never ask:

Finally, at 10 PM, Republicans handed over their “Skinny Repeal” bill. It was no more than eight pages of legislation, drafted over a not-so-long lunch. Two of those pages were devoted to blocking access to Planned Parenthood. Among the rest were provisions that not only did in the individual mandate, but stripped the responsibility of businesses of any size to provide health care to workers.

What’s the future? The GOP will go for a less comprehensive plan to kill Obamacare, from Politico:

WILL REPUBLICANS GIVE UP ON HEALTH CARE? No, almost definitely not. Repealing and replacing Obamacare is still the party’s central tenant — and has been for nearly a decade. But it will have to start anew, now. And it will continue to eat up much of the party’s time and energy on Capitol Hill. Obamacare was on life support many times in 2009-2010. Democrats eventually got it through. THE LIKELIHOOD? A package of fixes from Republicans. Dismantling or fixing — depending on your political orientation — piece by piece. There will definitely be a push to starve the law of funding.

Lest we forget…. Trump is still a mean asshole.

Here’s what I know (will update as needed) about local responses to the Senate vote:
(Remember, they’re gonna keep trying to kill Obamacare)

FRIDAY JULY 28
10-11 AM
Emergency Protest to Save ACA
Darrell Issa’s Office
1800 Thibodo Road (Vista)
Hosted by Take Back the 49th 

SATURDAY JULY 29
10am -Noon
Our Lives Are On The Line Rally
Balboa Park
6th Avenue & Laurel Street
Hosted by Planned Parenthood Action Fund

I read the Daily Fishwrap(s) so you don’t have to… Send your hate mail and ideas to DougPorter@SanDiegoFreePress.Org Check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

Doug Porter

Doug Porter

Doug Porter was active in the early days of the alternative press in San Diego, contributing to the OB Liberator, the print version of the OB Rag, the San Diego Door, and the San Diego Street Journal. He went on to have a 35-year career in the Hospitality business and decided to go back into raising hell when he retired. He won numerous awards for his columns from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Doug is a cancer survivor (sans vocal chords) and lives in North Park.

Comments

  1. No question, Trump will now set in motion some attempt at slowing funding for the ACA, sending messages to the Senate and House on “reforms” to the ACA that will make health care delivery more difficult for doctors and hospitals — just so that he can continue saying the ACA is failing, continues to fail, has failed. In the meantime there’ll be more Scaramucci’s and LGBT diversions and Missile-rattling to take eyes off health care, voting and civil rights and the damage to the country’s other central guarantees to its citizens. Solidarity, yes. Resistance and vigilance will remain necessary to survival.

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