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Healthcare Repair: The Achilles Heel for Republicans in 2018 Elections

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Indivisible Panel to Discuss Solutions at Balboa Park Club March 18

Issues of health and wellness represent a threat to the quality of life to most Americans.      

Healthcare. Obamacare. Medicare-For-All. Single-payer.  These are issues key to stemming the Red Tide of Republicanism come election time. The systems we to turn to for self-preservation often aren’t working when people need them. And it’s about to get much worse. So let’s have that conversation.

The GOP couldn’t come up anything beyond ‘don’t get sick and die quickly if you do’ after years of prophesizing the collapse of capitalism and civilization itself unless the collection of compromises passed while the Black Guy was in the White House were repealed.

Having robbed the treasury via ‘tax reform’ to pad the pockets of the wealthy, the Congress will have no choice but to announce yet another round of ‘reforms’ designed to reduce access to–along with the quality of–healthcare.

Programs funded by taxes taken out of our paychecks are being rebranded as ‘entitlements’ in this future envisioned by Rep. Paul Ryan and his Randian acolytes. It’s all part of the GOP’s welfare for the rich and ‘free market principles’ for the rest of us.

Jamelle Bouie at Slate explains it well:

The Trump tax cuts are the latest example of this dynamic. By 2027, more than half of all Americans will pay higher taxes under the new baseline established by President Trump and congressional Republicans, while the vast majority of the bill’s benefits goes to large corporations and the wealthiest earners. Additionally, millions of Americans will either lose or forgo health insurance due to the repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate. More immediately, the tax cut slashed federal revenues, punching a large hole in the government’s budget. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $1 trillion deficit for 2018, more than double its expectation at the start of this fiscal year, before Trump and Congress signed the tax cuts into law.

The response from Republican lawmakers is not a broad plea to reduce spending across the board, but a specific call for “welfare” and “entitlement” reform, meaning cuts to retirement programs and social insurance for the poor and elderly. “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan in the wake of passing the tax cuts. His colleagues echoed that view. “If someone wants to get serious about debt, come talk to me about entitlements,” said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma. “Tax cuts produce growth; entitlement spending doesn’t.”

It doesn’t have to be this way. The coming elections represent an opportunity to get off this road to ruin.

A Democrat just won an election in Pennsylvania in a district gerrymandered in such a manner as to guarentee victory to a turnip with a GOP endorsement. I’m under no illusions about winner Conor Lamb being a progressive, and I completely reject the notion–being pushed by pundits everywhere today– of centrist candidates being the path to Democratic salvation. That was there, and this is here. In San Diego, Lamb could have run as a Republican.

One thing I can endorse coming out of this electoral victory is the notion of healthcare being a key motivation for voters. Republican loser Rick Saccone advocated for repealing the ACA, calling for “using free-market principles to fix our health-care crisis.”

Sorry, GOPers. You had your chance on this issue and blew it. 

Via Paige Winfield Cunningham’s analysis in the Washington Post:

If Republicans can’t win on health care in a district Trump won by 20 points, where can they?” Brad Woodhouse, Democratic strategist and campaign director for Protect Our Care, told reporters on a call yesterday.

Yesterday the group released a survey conducted by the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling in which 52 percent of respondents said health care was their top issue in the Pennsylvania race. The same share said they opposed last year’s widely unpopular GOP plans to repeal and replace the ACA…

“…I think the seeds of this victory were certainly planted last June, July, August when Republicans were trying to repeal Obamacare,” said PPP Director Tom Jensen.

As Tom Epstein points out in a Sacramento Bee op-ed:

Republicans in Congress have worked hard to sabotage the Affordable Care Act. In so doing, they are creating an opening for the kind of health care system they will detest.

The U.S. healthcare market is a mess. Insurance is unaffordable for people who don’t get government help or have employer coverage, thanks in large part to Republican policies that undermine Obamacare.

So the real question, and the issue all Democratic candidates need to speak to, becomes where do we go from here?

San Diego Indivisible Downtown (I’m a member) went through a months-long process with the membership, identifying values and issues we wanted to address. As part of the next step, which involves creating advocacy for policies, a series of issue panels are being held.

On Sunday, March 18, at 2pm in the Balboa Club’s Santa Fe Room, speakers will lead a discussion on Healthcare. The event is free and open to the public.

Confirmed panelists include: Susan A. Channick (Professor Emeritus, California Western School of Law), Jan C. Spencley (Executive Director, San Diegans for Healthcare Coverage), Julie Trager (Co-Chair, Health Care For All San Diego Chapter Chair), and Daniel Navon (Assistant Professor, UC San Diego Department of Sociology)

People interested in learning more about the SDID chapter can arrive at 1:30 for a new member discussion to learn more about the group. The agenda and panel will begin at 2pm. For More Information, go here.

Looking for some action? Check out the Weekly Progressive Calendar, published every Friday in this space, featuring Demonstrations, Rallies, Teach-ins, Meet Ups and other opportunities to get your activism on.

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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.

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