only three

Sometimes it takes a village.

Sometimes it takes only three.

Sometime before the upcoming holiday weekend, the senate may vote on the abomination Mitch McConnell has the nerve to call "The American Health Care Act".  It appears safe to assume that nobody on the left is going to vote for this thing -- I can't even bring myself to call it an act of legislation.  It's more like an act of byzantine cruelty.  We are therefore left with the hope that at least three senators from the right will vote against it.

We certainly are not going to count on Mitch McConnell, who may be one of the most vile humans ever to hold public office, to vote against his own atrocity, but just about all you need to know about this person is the fact that he was once treated as a child for polio at the very same facility founded in part by Franklin Roosevelt.  The facility was not, as some claim, government funded, but it was a non-profit charitable organization, and the treatment was not paid for by the senator's family.  In the days leading up to this vote, this neanderthal in an expensive suit refused to take a minute or two to meet with representatives of the March of Dimes, the very organization that is among the leaders in providing care and treatment for the less fortunate who may suffer from the same or similar afflictions as the senator suffered from and received treatment for as a child.

This is the guy who called capital security to forcibly remove protesters in wheelchairs from outside his office.

This is the guy whose staff wrote this law in private and kept it secret for as long as they could while trumpeting coverage for all.  I have often told juries that one way to tell if a person is lying is very simple.  Truth screams.  Weasels whisper.

I will leave it to you to figure out if the senate majority leader is screaming or whispering.

So we are left with the hope that three senators from the right will vote no.  I would like to think that with a bill this so abjectly cruel that would not be a problem; however, as of this writing, while more than three from the right have stated opposition, only two, Senator Heller from Nevada, who has a vulnerable seat open for election next year, and Senator Collins of Maine, have come out against the bill because it is the cruel abomination the rest of us see it for.  At that, Senator Heller has stated that he cannot vote for this bill "in its current form", meaning that he is open to voting for it with a few tweaks, such as were given to Alaska to exempt it from automatic and savage Medicaid cuts that would have decimated their health care system, while not effecting any other state.  At least we now know the five pieces of silver that will buy off Senator Murkowski.  Given this, I have no doubt that Senator Heller will be appeased with something to bring back to Nevada while selling out the rest of us to help assure his reelection.

That leaves us with Senator Collins.

Oh, but you say there are four more who have come out in opposition. True, Senators Cruz, Paul, Johnson and Lee have also said they cannot support this bill "in its current form".  It is worth noting, however, that each of these gentlemen oppose the bill "in its current form" because its cuts to services in the name of cutting taxes for really rich guys, such as the president and his family, do not go far enough.

Think about that for a second.

These four senators, our public servants, will not vote for an abomination that is estimated to leave twenty-two million of our fellow and most vulnerable citizens without insurance coverage, and will strip down coverage for the rest of us unless we pay more BECAUSE IT IS NOT CRUEL ENOUGH.

I think it is fairly safe to assume that these four "servants" will come around and vote yes, if only to set the stage for what they believe is a more acceptable level of "let them eat cake".

So, if two others are not persuaded or do not have a pang of consciousness, we are left with people like me praying like mad that my coverage, which now costs about twenty-seven thousand dollars a year, will not somehow miss a payment or have an arbitrary dweeb working at an insurance company who has no degree or knowledge of medicine or humanity for that matter, deciding that it is not worth covering a fifty-nine year old non-smoking, socially moderate drinking, slightly overweight DIABETIC.  I already dealt last month with one of these dweebs deciding that one of the medications I have been taking for years now apparently costs too much, even though it is a generic.  I now am forced to take a different formulation of the same thing, which if nothing else, has left my doctor shaking his head.  I don't need to search for examples of what could potentially happen to people with pre-existing conditions if they lose their coverage through no fault of their own.  I am potentially one of those persons.

Do you think the senators care?  Senator Johnson has said that people with pre-existing conditions should have to pay more, just like people who have a record of prior car accidents and moving violations have to pay more for car insurance.  I am happy that Senator Johnson views me as the equivalent of a drunk driving an Edsel through a red light.

So, happy Fourth of July.  Enjoy your barbeques.  Don't drink and drive.  Especially do not get into an accident or get sick.  There will be no republican senator waiting for you in the emergency room.