Health Care: Let Them Eat Cake

Democrats long caricatured Republicans as the party of tax cuts for the rich and callousness toward everyone else. Now Republicans have been working mightily to prove it true.

To quote GOP Rep. Raul Labrador, “Let them eat cake.” Or rather, “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

I’m frankly dumbfounded that here in 2017 — after all the attention to rising U.S. inequality, middle and working class struggles, declining economic opportunity, while the rich get richer — in the teeth of all this — Republicans would try to pass a bill so blatantly coddling the richest at the expense of the rest. Could they actually get away with it?

Note that I didn’t call it a “health care” bill. It was a take-away-health-care-to-fund tax-cuts-for-the-rich bill.

Maybe having become a Democrat, I’m beginning to sound like one. But I’m not one of those with a “Tax The Rich” bumper sticker. As if the rich aren’t already taxed, and quite heavily. About 70% of all income tax revenue is paid by the top 10% of earners; about 38% by the top 1%. So are they paying their “fair share?” You might argue otherwise, but it’s far from obvious. Nor do I believe the rich are the problem. It’s a fallacy to think they get their wealth at the expense of the rest. The answer to inequality is not to take down the rich but more economic opportunity for more people.

Furthermore, I happen to be one of those who would have benefitted from the bill (especially the original version repealing the “net investment income” tax). And my wife and I, being very healthy, would have welcomed repeal of the mandate and associated tax penalty.*

But despite all that, I was glad the bill failed, not only for the egg on Trump’s face, but because it was bad public policy. It would have worsened the division in American society. It would have done nothing to fix all that’s wrong with our healthcare-cum-insurance system. I don’t favor tax cuts for anyone given our ticking fiscal time-bomb. And people do die for lack of health care.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this extraordinary legislative project was the complete lack of any public advocacy for it. No effort was made to sell it to voters, who overwhelmingly opposed it.

Of course, Republicans were not promoting the bill on its merits because it had none. For eight years they raved against Obamacare, but never came up with an alternative, leaving it somewhat unclear just what was so awful about it — in truth it was mainly that Obama was a black Democrat. But now they had to come up with something. I’m reminded of how in fourth grade I tried to bluff my way through an oral report on colonial New York without any research.

The bill actually failed because too many GOP lawmakers considered it not cruel enough. Now they propose to just repeal Obamacare and worry about a replacement later. This is even more craven. They’d slate a two-year window to come up with a plan. What are the chances? Most Republicans went along with the now-dead bill only because they knew they’d look like fools if they fluffed their long-headlined pledge to repeal Obamacare. But once it’s repealed, that pressure would be off.

But at the end of the day, Trump’s voters don’t seem to care much about health care, not even their own. What most of them mostly care about is Mexicans, Muslims, and N——.

* I’ve seen mention that the IRS is not actually enforcing it, but an IRS rep I spoke to said otherwise. Does anyone know the facts on this?