It’s been interesting watching the interpretations of the Graham-Cassidy health bill, because they really feed right through the prisms that everyone holds up in front of their eyes while interpreting anything. For example, Kevin Drum of the liberal Mother Jones magazine:
It’s hard to know how to react to the cynicism of the Graham-Cassidy health care bill. For starters, it’s as bad as all the other Republican repeal bills. Tens of millions of the working poor will lose insurance. Pre-existing conditions aren’t protected. Medicaid funding is slashed. Subsidies are slashed.
But apparently that’s not enough. Republican senators (and President Trump, of course) obviously don’t care what’s in the bill. Hell, they’re all but gleeful in their ignorance. Nor is merely repealing Obamacare enough. Graham-Cassidy is very carefully formulated to punish blue states especially harshly. And if even that’s not enough, after 2020 it gives the president the power to arbitrarily punish them even more if he feels like it. I guess this makes it particularly appealing to conservatives. Finally, by handing everything over to the states with virtually no guidance, it would create chaos in the health insurance market. The insurance industry, which was practically the only major player to stay neutral on previous bills (doctors, nurses, hospitals, and everyone else opposed them) has finally had enough. Even if it hurts them with Republicans, Graham-Cassidy is a bridge too far[.]
While pundits are always biased – it’s really all they have to sell in most cases – the fact that even the insurance industry is stepping back in horror is telling. On the other side, Chris Pope of the conservative National Review believes it’s better than just a fix:
This simple solution goes further than BCRA in redressing the great disparity in federal Medicaid assistance between states. Indeed, it does so without concentrating cuts on low-spending expansion states such as Arizona. It also prevents states from evading spending caps by merely inflating the number of healthy, able-bodied individuals enrolled, as they could do under the BCRA.
The ACA spends more than twice as much on expanding Medicaid as it does on premium tax credits for the exchange. By consolidating funding for both entitlements, Graham-Cassidy allows states to pool resources to increase the attractiveness and stability of the individual market. In doing this, it meets a clear need, but it also facilitates more thorough reform by repealing the individual mandate and potentially allowing fairly priced, fully competitive insurance to be offered outside of the exchanges. It also greatly expands the flexibility and potential uses of Health Savings Accounts.
But, as I understand it, Pope disregards the fact that the Republican-controlled states, which mostly chose not to take advantage of the Medicaid expansion, did so of their own free will – and apparently from political pique. It’s a little hard to find self-inflicted harm to be a compelling case for much of anything. Except perhaps to examine the inner workings of the most prominent conservative party.
Steve Benen of the liberal Maddowblog proceeds to rip the GOP Senators up one side and down the other. Here’s reason 1 of 5:
1. Republicans have to keep a promise. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said yesterday, “I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered. But Republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign. That’s pretty much as much of a reason as the substance of the bill.”
That’s absurd. For one thing, it’s ridiculous to think a vague campaign promise is as important, if not more so, than the real-world effects of overhauling the nation’s health care system. For another, if Republicans “have a responsibility to carry out what [they] said in the campaign,” they’d also be extending coverage to everyone, shielding Medicaid beneficiaries from cuts, and guaranteeing protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. Instead, GOP officials appear desperate to break those promises without explanation.
But as compelling as I find the hypocrisy assertion, this is probably even more diagnostic of the basic incompetency of the GOP:
GOP officials have had seven years to create a compelling sales pitch on health care. That they’ve failed so spectacularly doesn’t inspire confidence in their regressive plan.
It’s rather like watching a rebellious 13-year old boy, told to take care of a laborious chore, who decides to spend 5 minutes on it, rather than the two hours it requires. The entire sequence is unprofessional and quite discouraging about the half or more of the country who voted for these incompetents.
