The Term "Clusterf**k" Was Coined for the GOP Healthcare Plan

Can we put enough garbage into a healthcare bill, put enough garbage lies into selling it, and put enough garbage nonsense into countering the facts provided by the CBO? We can if we're the clusterfuck known as the Republican Party. But that doesn't mean they can't win.

Brainiacs they're not.

Oh myyy. The CBO decided to kick the bullshitters in the nuts.

Twenty-four million people would lose their insurance over the next 10 years under Republican legislation being pushed to repeal Obamacare, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said Monday.

And that's only the headline number. There's more.

Obamacare raised money and made various structural changes to insurance provision that lead to millions of people getting health insurance who didn't have it before. Let's be clear: who didn't have it before and in most cases couldn't get it before. There were some losers in the process. But this is greatly overstated. There were people who were purchasing extremely skimpy coverage who were forced to buy fuller coverage. There were also people high on the income scale who had their taxes raised. But by and large, the idea that people were hurt by Obamacare is mainly bogus.

What Obamacare did do was add millions of people to the health care rolls.

Getting rid of it leads to millions losing their care.

And -- relying on simple, straight-ahead reporting from TPM again -- the basis for this loss of healthcare is essentially the need to give huge tax cuts to the rich whose money was in part being used to give healthcare to the needy.

“The bill spends almost twice as much on tax cuts for the wealthy compared to tax credits to help older middle-class Americans afford health insurance. The rich get $592 billion in tax cuts for the richest, compared to only $361 billion for the middle class and the working class to afford health care,” Schumer told reporters in the Capitol building, standing next to Pelosi.

He was referring to the CBO’s estimates Monday that a repeal of revenue-generating aspects of the ACA would result in the loss of nearly $600 billion through 2026.

“So when Speaker Ryan says it's an act of mercy, yeah, for those people who make over $250,000 a year because they get big tax cuts,” Schumer said.

I hate to say it, but this doesn't mean the Republicans can't pass this thing. It defies gravity to think they can, but the GOP has shown us plenty of examples of circling the wagons when they need to. Hope not, but just sayin'.