Donald Trump and the Fellowship of the Alternative Facts (Part 14)

[JMarie]

Anyone else feel like doing a shot every time someone mutters the phrase "death spiral"?

[Cartmann99]

31 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Oh no, he's already trying to muck with it. There were a bunch of talking heads on MSNBC, one of whom was a Democratic consultant. He said that they've (the Repubs) already passed several items quietly to hurt medium sized businesses and that they'll continue to do so.

Dammit! Looks like I need to do some googling to get caught up. Thanks for the heads up. 

31 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

One of John Boehner's former staffers was on MSNBC. At the very end of the interview, Chuck Todd mentioned about tax reform and said to the staffer, "oh, like that will be simple, unlike health care." 

I can't wait until they start working on the American Freedom Exceptional Family True Patriot Liberty Guns! Guns! Guns! With Extra Cheese Act. 

[GreyhoundFan]

So, the tangerine toddler says that the WaPo and NYT are "failing" and "fake news", but he sets speed records calling their reporters to whine about the Democrats. In the Congress thread, the call to the WaPo was discussed, but here's the article from the NYT about their call.

Quote

...

“Look, we got no Democratic votes. We got none, zero,” Mr. Trump said in a telephone interview he initiated with The New York Times. “So when you get zero from the other side — they let us down because they’re hurting the people. The good news is they now own health care, they now own Obamacare.”

He tried to minimize the deep divisions within his own party that prevented Speaker Paul D. Ryan from securing passage of the bill.

Mr. Trump insisted that the Affordable Care Act will collapse in the next year, which will then force Democrats to come to the bargaining table for a new bill. “The best thing that can happen is that we let the Democrats, that we let Obamacare continue, they’ll have increases from 50 to 100 percent,” he said. “And when it explodes they’ll come to me to make a deal. And I’m open to that.”

Although enrollment in the Affordable Care Act declined slightly in the past year, there is no sign that it is collapsing. Its expansion of Medicaid continues to grow.

Mr. Trump said that “when they come to make a deal,” he would be open and receptive to it. He singled out the Tuesday Group moderates for praise, calling them “terrific,” an implicit jab at the House Freedom Caucus, which his aides had expressed frustration with during negotiations.

Asked if he was worried it would harm the party, Mr. Trump said, “I’ll let you know in a year.” He maintained that they were six to 12 votes away from getting it across the finish line.

...

 

A couple of good Tweets:

[JMarie]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/24/politics/jared-kushner-aspen-ski-trip-obamacare/index.html

Quote

While the rest of his senior staff scrambled to squeeze votes for President Trump's flailing health care package, one person remained notably absent for most of the week: Jared Kushner.

Along with this wife, Ivanka Trump, another key cog in the president's inner circle, Kushner was on vacation until Thursday, skiing with family in the posh Colorado town of Aspen. Paparazzi caught Jared and Ivanka taking leisurely strolls, enjoying ice cream cones with their three kids and winding their way down the slopes.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, Trump was fuming. According to a source close to the president, "[Trump] is upset that his son-in-law and senior adviser was not around during this crucial week." Kushner did appear at the White House on Friday during the last gasps of the Obamacare repeal effort.

Quote

Ivanka's absence this week was also noted; she Instagrammed important White House moments, mentioning support, but she wasn't at her usual place, seated at roundtable discussions, or standing beside her father's chair in the Oval Office. Instead, there she was in Aspen, toting her kids, wearing $585 Dior sunglasses -- and leaving her new West Wing digs vacant, opting instead for quality spring break time with her immediate family.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I liked this opinion piece about the numbers: "Brace yourself, taxpayers: Trump’s plutocracy doesn’t come cheap"

Quote

How many Americans does it take to keep President Trump and his family in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed?

Well, think of it this way. The Post this week had a scoop on the Secret Service requesting an additional $60 million in its next budget: $27 million to protect the president’s wife and son in their three-floor penthouse at Trump Tower in New York, where they live instead of the White House, and $33 million for additional travel costs.

The average family of four in the United States pays about $4,000 a year in federal income taxes. That means the entire tax bill for 15,000 families for the year will go toward these additional protection measures for Trump. And the Secret Service is just a slice of the overall expense. Figure in costs incurred by authorities in Florida and New York, the Pentagon and others, and costs related to the Trump sons’ international business trips, and we’re well over $100 million a year.

That’s the annual federal income-tax bill for some 25,000 American families. Each trip Trump takes to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he has gone most weekends since his inauguration, is estimated to cost taxpayers in excess of $3 million. And an unknown chunk of the taxpayers’ money subsidizes Trump businesses in the form of rent, restaurant bills and publicity. In April, Trump will host Chinese leader Xi Jinping at what Trump dubs the “Southern White House,” which is a Trump property where the initiation fee has doubled to $200,000 since Trump won the presidency.

The taxpayer subsidization of Trump’s rich-and-famous lifestyle is but one of the bait-and-switch maneuvers by Trump, who said during the campaign that “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done.” The man ran as a populist and is governing as a plutocrat.

The now-withdrawn House GOP health-care bill, pushed by Trump, would be a huge transfer of wealth to the rich from the poor and middle class. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center calculates that while low-income Americans would take a hit under this plan, the average family earning more than $200,000 could be $5,640 better off. White, working-class communities that supported Trump would be disproportionately hurt. Under revisions to the bill last this week, 24 million people would still lose health-care coverage but wealthy Americans would get even more of a tax break, the Congressional Budget Office said.

Trump’s budget, unveiled shortly before one of his Mar-a-Lago jaunts, would cut many of the government’s efforts to help low- and middle-income Americans: aid for small manufacturers, financial assistance to rural regions, affordable housing, job training and home heating. Analyses of previous Trump proposals have shown that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans would get nearly half of the tax benefits.

...

Plutocracy doesn’t come cheap, in ways big and small. Tillerson, the secretary of state, kicked the press corps off his plane, which means taxpayers will probably pick up tens of thousands of dollars in travel costs that had been paid by media organizations. (The administration said Tillerson flew on a smaller plane to save money, but the military 737 he took is often used by officials traveling with reporters.)

A budget-conscious president would spend weekends at Camp David rather than hopping on Air Force One, at about $200,000 an hour, to Palm Beach, Fla. The Post’s Philip Bump estimated spending on Trump’s travel and protection, if it continues at current rates, at $526 million for his presidency. This dwarfs what was spent by Trump’s predecessors, even though Trump in 2012 tweeted that Obama’s “vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars — unbelievable!”

...

Trump, who has often pointed out that he’s exempt from conflict-of-interest rules, isn’t just any elected official. Last Wednesday, when asked by Time’s Michael Scherer about credibility problems over his false intelligence claims, Trump had an imperious justification: “I’m president, and you’re not.”

Or, as another big-spending politician once put it: L’etat, c’est moi.

 

[Tesseract]

Can I just put this here 

 

[Dandruff]

7 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

So I should probably send them any bills I have related to food, weight gain, or emotional trauma too. 

You should have been barefoot and tending exclusively to your family, instead of following the news and forming those pesky opinions.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump finally gets a good sense of what governing is like"

Quote

In a week that felt like a month, Americans got a clear view of President Trump’s governing style and also of his fabled dealmaking approach.

Or rather, I should say, Trump got a good sense of what governing is like — hard, hard, hard. And it’s bound to get more difficult given the president’s tactics of consent: Do as I say or you’re dead to me.

Even bolder, Trump told congressional Republicans that if they didn’t pass the American Health Care Act to repeal and replace Obamacare, he was finished. Done. He’d walk away and move on to other things, he told recalcitrants. (To perhaps a new resort project, many were overheard praying.)

...

But Trump, who promised repeal and replace (as has nearly every Republican the past seven years), has no patience with process. As the chief executive of his own company for most of his life, and notwithstanding his reverence for his dealmaking skills, he prefers quick results. And, hey, if things don’t tumble his way, well, there are other greens to sow and mow. And, certainly, a 30-foot wall to build.

To the 60-day president, it seemed, getting health care out of the way was mostly a means to checking a box — an important one, to be sure — but nothing to bestir his personal passions. Call it ego. Call it pride. Call it a day, but get it done, he commanded. Or else: “I’m gonna come after you,” Trump told Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), one of his fiercest foes in the Freedom Caucus opposition. The president was joking around, according to those present, but Meadows still might want to keep a close eye on his favorite bunny.

As many have observed, Trump’s spin of the wheel was risky business. He gambled on his own power to persuade (or bluff), the result of which could leave him holding Obamacare and conceding failure. What, then, do Republicans tell their base? And what would this say about the party in power? After years of harping on the collapsing health-care plan installed by President Barack Obama and the then-Democratic controlled House and Senate, they had their opportunity to govern responsibly.

You’d think seven years would be ample time to cobble something together that could replace Obamacare. The fact that Republicans didn’t confirms that such an overhaul requires the time and patience Trump and Co. haven’t been willing — or able — to spare. What we saw these past several weeks, meanwhile, was a frantic race to pass something virtually no one recognized as a workable piece of legislation, and which the Senate would probably reject.

Back in 2010, when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that Obamacare had to be passed so that we could find out what was in the bill, Republicans guffawed — and never let her forget it. At least, one observes, the Democrats had a bill. GOP legislators have been racing to pass something that isn’t fully written yet.

What’s with the rush, anyway? Why not take the time to get things right? While Democrats solicited input from experts in the medical, pharmaceutical and insurance industries, Republicans have spent most of their time fighting among themselves. The resulting bill was a patchwork of margin scribbles and cross-outs, even including instructions to the Senate to figure out ways to make certain parts work. And the rush was mere drama. Thursday, the original deadline for the vote, was the seventh anniversary of the date Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law.

Once that deadline passed, Trump began acting like a child who didn’t get to have his birthday party on the precise day of his miraculous delivery into the glare. Forget it. I don’t even want a party now .

The truth is, many Republicans never seriously thought Obamacare could be repealed and replaced, probably for the good reason that it’s nearly impossible to do. The most sensible solution was to fix what was already in place until the inevitable day, coming soon, when we become a dual health-care system: Single-payer for the majority of Americans and concierge health care for the wealthy. It’s just a matter of time.

 

 

[47of74]

I liked this opinion piece about the numbers: "Brace yourself, taxpayers: Trump’s plutocracy doesn’t come cheap"

How many Americans does it take to keep President Trump and his family in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed?
Well, think of it this way. The Post this week had a scoop on the Secret Service requesting an additional $60 million in its next budget: $27 million to protect the president’s wife and son in their three-floor penthouse at Trump Tower in New York, where they live instead of the White House, and $33 million for additional travel costs.
The average family of four in the United States pays about $4,000 a year in federal income taxes. That means the entire tax bill for 15,000 families for the year will go toward these additional protection measures for Trump. And the Secret Service is just a slice of the overall expense. Figure in costs incurred by authorities in Florida and New York, the Pentagon and others, and costs related to the Trump sons’ international business trips, and we’re well over $100 million a year.
That’s the annual federal income-tax bill for some 25,000 American families. Each trip Trump takes to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he has gone most weekends since his inauguration, is estimated to cost taxpayers in excess of $3 million. And an unknown chunk of the taxpayers’ money subsidizes Trump businesses in the form of rent, restaurant bills and publicity. In April, Trump will host Chinese leader Xi Jinping at what Trump dubs the “Southern White House,” which is a Trump property where the initiation fee has doubled to $200,000 since Trump won the presidency.
The taxpayer subsidization of Trump’s rich-and-famous lifestyle is but one of the bait-and-switch maneuvers by Trump, who said during the campaign that “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done.” The man ran as a populist and is governing as a plutocrat.
The now-withdrawn House GOP health-care bill, pushed by Trump, would be a huge transfer of wealth to the rich from the poor and middle class. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center calculates that while low-income Americans would take a hit under this plan, the average family earning more than $200,000 could be $5,640 better off. White, working-class communities that supported Trump would be disproportionately hurt. Under revisions to the bill last this week, 24 million people would still lose health-care coverage but wealthy Americans would get even more of a tax break, the Congressional Budget Office said.
Trump’s budget, unveiled shortly before one of his Mar-a-Lago jaunts, would cut many of the government’s efforts to help low- and middle-income Americans: aid for small manufacturers, financial assistance to rural regions, affordable housing, job training and home heating. Analyses of previous Trump proposals have shown that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans would get nearly half of the tax benefits.
...
Plutocracy doesn’t come cheap, in ways big and small. Tillerson, the secretary of state, kicked the press corps off his plane, which means taxpayers will probably pick up tens of thousands of dollars in travel costs that had been paid by media organizations. (The administration said Tillerson flew on a smaller plane to save money, but the military 737 he took is often used by officials traveling with reporters.)
A budget-conscious president would spend weekends at Camp David rather than hopping on Air Force One, at about $200,000 an hour, to Palm Beach, Fla. The Post’s Philip Bump estimated spending on Trump’s travel and protection, if it continues at current rates, at $526 million for his presidency. This dwarfs what was spent by Trump’s predecessors, even though Trump in 2012 tweeted that Obama’s “vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars — unbelievable!”
...
Trump, who has often pointed out that he’s exempt from conflict-of-interest rules, isn’t just any elected official. Last Wednesday, when asked by Time’s Michael Scherer about credibility problems over his false intelligence claims, Trump had an imperious justification: “I’m president, and you’re not.”
Or, as another big-spending politician once put it: L’etat, c’est moi.

 


Agent Fornicate Face needs to take a lesson from Tywin Lannister about any man who calls himself a king being no king at all.

[GreyhoundFan]

Yeah, this ain't happening (unless you count him calling her nasty names): "Time for Trump to call Nancy Pelosi"

Quote

If President Trump really cares about health care — and I’m afraid he doesn’t — the logical thing for him to do now is pick up the phone and call Nancy Pelosi.

He tried relying on Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) and the Republican majority in Congress to pass something, anything, that would allow the administration to put a win on the scoreboard and declare the issue settled. It didn’t work. It didn’t even come close to working, because even if the House had passed that Frankenstein’s monster of a bill, the Senate surely would have balked.

The fact is that after screaming “repeal and replace” at the top of their lungs for seven long years, Republicans have nothing approaching consensus on the “replace” part. Some want a full-monty libertarian approach, wherein we return to the days when Ol’ Doc made house calls and accepted payment in butter and chickens. Others apparently believe the problem is requiring health-insurance policies to cover maternity, which much of the Freedom Caucus seems to consider icky. Others believe the real imperative is ensuring that those who cannot afford to pay for care are made to endure as much humiliation as possible. And a few realize that all of the foregoing is nuts.

...

So the Affordable Care Act remains in place. But it can and should be improved. It could even be replaced in a way that lets Trump keep a campaign promise — you know, the one about how there would be health care “for everybody.”

If Trump is the populist maverick he claimed to be, he should call Minority Leader Pelosi (D-Calif.) and propose they work together in designing a truly universal system of health insurance that would be something like Sen. Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for everyone” proposal

Sure, it would be hard to get every single House Democrat to agree to such a thing, and harder to snag the necessary couple-dozen Republican votes. But it couldn’t possibly be more difficult than getting the GOP to agree on anything. And yes, in the Senate it would be hard to assemble 60 votes, but hear me out.

I believe it has begun to penetrate the popular consciousness that compared to the United States, every advanced nation on Earth delivers universal care, for less money, often with better outcomes. Republican officials would self-immolate in rage at the very idea, but one of Trump’s insights during the campaign was that the GOP base is not allergic to government services.

The flaw in my plan is that to create such a revolution in health care would take at least a year of sustained effort, perhaps more. Trump would have to really care about the issue, and he would have to radically lengthen his attention span. But if he really wants to be a transformative president, fulfill a big promise and leave a lasting mark, I’m sure Pelosi would be glad to take his call.

...

 

[RoseWilder]

Watch The Rachel Maddow Show tonight, everyone. Trust me on this one. It was a GREAT show. There's still time to record the midnight episode. 

[onekidanddone]

I don't have cable so I'm going to have to find a recap or watch on line.  

[onekidanddone]

How many times can he say "exploded". I lost count and don't want to watch it again.  The democrats are the losers? Wow. He learned a lot about how government works. Both sides like Trump?  He talks about himself in the third person.  That creeps me out. SHUT THE FUCK UP ORANGE SHIT FOR BRAINS.

[GreyhoundFan]

31 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

How many times can he say "exploded". I lost count and don't want to watch it again.  The democrats are the losers? Wow. He learned a lot about how government works. Both sides like Trump?  He talks about himself in the third person.  That creeps me out. SHUT THE FUCK UP ORANGE SHIT FOR BRAINS.

Right there with ya. He is like a toddler who learns a new word and has to use it over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

 

I found this opinion piece in the NYT interesting: "Trump’s Choice on Obamacare: Sabotage or Co-opt?"

Quote

President Trump and a Republican-led Congress tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Now, they have to decide whether they want to work with it or sabotage it.

Both Mr. Trump and congressional leaders acknowledged on Friday that they would not bring their repeal bill back for a vote any time soon. That means that, as Speaker Paul Ryan said, “we’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.”

Mr. Ryan and Mr. Trump reiterated their criticisms of the law and set the stage for watching it collapse and blaming the Democrats for the aftermath. “I’ve been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode,” Mr. Trump said from the Oval Office. “It is exploding now.”

Mr. Ryan said that Obamacare’s architects would be sad that the bill was allowed to live on, given what he described as its inevitable failure.

In fact, Obamacare is not on the verge of “explosion.” Enrollment in its insurance marketplaces is steady, and several independent analyses suggest that insurance prices have stabilized after a sharp market correction this year. But the structures it set up to provide health insurance to middle-income Americans are vulnerable. Insurance companies have struggled to make money in the early years of the new markets, and many have backed out. Others remain tentatively committed and skittish.

Mr. Trump will need to decide, quickly, whether his goal is to knock over the still-functioning markets, or help prop them up. If he decides to topple them, next year could be very messy.

Insurers are making their decisions right now about whether to enter the markets for next year and about how much to charge their customers. Signals from the administration in the next few weeks about whether he will help or hurt them will almost certainly guide insurers’ choices.

The biggest immediate decision concerns a court dispute between the House and the administration over subsidies to help low-income insurance buyers pay their deductibles and co-payments. The House has argued that the money for those subsidies was not properly authorized. The Obama White House fought the case. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump’s lawyers will do the same. The availability of those subsidies, used by a majority of Obamacare customers, is critical for insurers in the markets.

Without the subsidies, all the insurers will lose some money, and many smaller carriers will face bankruptcy. If Mr. Trump does not fight the court case, the Obamacare markets in most states will unravel quickly, leaving millions without insurance options on his watch. Many of the beneficiaries are Trump voters.

...

 

[AnywhereButHere]

Yeah, blame the democrats for the health care bill implosion. Someone doesn't understand the definition of "majority". If he could've corralled his own party, he wouldn't need the democrats. The republicans sunk your bill you cretin.

[onekidanddone]

3 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Right there with ya. He is like a toddler who learns a new word and has to use it over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

 

I found this opinion piece in the NYT interesting: "Trump’s Choice on Obamacare: Sabotage or Co-opt?"

 

He will still blame Obama.  He was doing that with his use of "exploded".  Question is, if things go south will people blame Obama who will be long out of office, or will they blame Trump?  He of course will take no responsibility.  I just want to know how smart his supports will be. Will they see it as  his failures?

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm watching CNN Tonight. Don Lemon has a large (five person) panel. Evan McMullin is one of the panelist, as is Jason Miller, one of the Trumpian sycophants. When Miller was shoveling a bunch of crap about how Devin Nunes is a "careful and cautious person", Evan rolled his eyes mightily and started shaking his head. He's usually rather calm on camera, but you could tell exactly what he thought at that moment.

[Cartmann99]

3 hours ago, JMarie said:

Ivanka's absence this week was also noted; she Instagrammed important White House moments, mentioning support, but she wasn't at her usual place, seated at roundtable discussions, or standing beside her father's chair in the Oval Office. Instead, there she was in Aspen, toting her kids, wearing $585 Dior sunglasses -- and leaving her new West Wing digs vacant, opting instead for quality spring break time with her immediate family.

That Time  interview didn't do Trump any favors. If Ivanka is smart, she and her fancy sunglasses will be sitting in on all future interviews that Trump does, and not allowing any interviews to take place in her absence. I don't like Ivanka, but I sure don't envy her role in her family as her Father's caretaker.

[GreyhoundFan]

4 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

That Time  interview didn't do Trump any favors. If Ivanka is smart, she and her fancy sunglasses will be sitting in on all future interviews that Trump does, and not allowing any interviews to take place in her absence. I don't like Ivanka, but I sure don't envy her role in her family as her Father's caretaker.

She's not making any fans in her new neighborhood: "Ivanka Trump’s Secret Service detail roiling her D.C. neighbors"

Quote

Ivanka Trump’s neighbors delivered a handwritten note welcoming her to their gilded Northwest Washington Zip code after she and her husband, Jared Kushner, moved from New York with their three young children.

When the president’s daughter did not respond, Rhona Friedman, a lawyer who lives next door, understood.

Ivanka was busy settling in, she figured.

But Friedman and other neighbors were far less patient when two “No Parking” signs appeared outside the Trump-Kushner house and Secret Service SUVs began swallowing spots on Tracy Place NW, their block in the Kalorama neighborhood.

Their exasperation peaked Monday when city workers installed two additional “No Parking” signs — not in front of Trump’s house, but outside Friedman’s residence next door.

“I started screaming,” Friedman said.

Then she began writing emails.

On Friday, after discussions between the Secret Service and aides to Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), city workers removed the signs outside Friedman’s house, liberating that portion of the block for any mere mortal seeking a spot for their car.

Score one for the resistance.

With their long history of hosting Washington dignitaries, Kalorama residents were largely unfazed when they learned that the Trump-Kushner clan, as well as former president Barack Obama and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were moving to the neighborhood after President Trump’s election.

The neighbors are willing to put up with the Secret Service blockade on both ends of Belmont Road NW, the nearby street where Obama lives. He’s a former president, after all. And they appreciate that the Secret Service placed a few relatively unobtrusive orange cones outside Tillerson’s house on 24th Street NW.

But the security surrounding the six-bedroom house Trump and Kushner rent?

“Are you kidding me?” asked Marti Robinson, a trial attorney who lives across the street. “This is the adult child of the president. Sometimes there are 10 cars out here.”

Metal barricades along Tracy Place and Kalorama Road now make it impossible for pedestrians to use the sidewalk bordering the house. Neighbors talk of clusters of Secret Service agents lingering on the pavement, conversing in loud voices and even changing their shirts in public view.

“They’ve completely taken over the whole street — as if they have the authority!” said Robinson, an Obama appointee to the U.S. Product Safety Commission. In her own email to the mayor, Robinson wrote that the Secret Service encampment “has truly ruined my peaceful enjoyment of my house.”

...

 

[LeftCoastLurker]

I really appreciate the fact that they NYT opinion piece referenced above called the orange one "Mr. Trump" and not "Mr. Presidunce"!

[fraurosena]

Oh dear. The Tangerine Toddler is still living in his own widdle alternative fact world. 

As I posted yesterday, the US State Department has predicted this will only lead to 50 extra jobs. 
 

[Toothfairy]

I still can't believe this man is president. I'm waiting for him to blame for media or Obama

[fraurosena]

On Thursday, Obama's office sent out this memo, commemorating the 7th anniversary of the ACA. 

Quote

When I took office, millions of Americans were locked out of our health care system.

So, just as leaders in both parties had tried to do since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, we took up the cause of health reform.

It was a long battle, carried out in Congressional hearings and in the public square for more than a year. But ultimately, after a century of talk, decades of trying, and a year of bipartisan debate, our generation was the one that succeeded. We finally declared that in America, health care is not a privilege for a few, but a right for everybody.

The result was the Affordable Care Act, which I signed into law seven years ago today. Thanks to this law, more than twenty million Americans have gained the security and peace of mind of health insurance.

Thanks to this law, more than ninety percent of Americans are insured – the highest rate in our history.

Thanks to this law, the days when women could be charged more than men and Americans with pre-existing conditions could be denied coverage altogether are relics of the past.

Seniors have bigger discounts on their prescription drugs.

Young people can stay on their parents’ plans until they turn 26 years old.

And Americans who already had insurance received an upgrade as well – from free preventive care, like mammograms and vaccines, to improvements in the quality of care in hospitals that has averted nearly 100,000 deaths so far.

All of that is thanks to the Affordable Care Act. And all the while, since the law passed, the pace of health care inflation has slowed dramatically.

Prices are still rising, just as they have every year for decades – but under this law, they’ve been rising at the slowest rate in fifty years.

Families who get coverage through their employer are paying, on average, thousands of dollars less per year than if costs kept rising as fast as they were before the law.

And reality continues to discredit the false claim that this law is in a “death spiral,” because while it's true that some premiums have risen, the vast majority of Marketplace enrollees have experienced no average premium hike at all.

And so long as the law is properly administered, this market will remain stable. Likewise, this law is no “job-killer,” because America’s businesses went on a record-breaking streak of job growth in the seven years since I signed it.

So the reality is clear: America is stronger because of the Affordable Care Act.

There will always be work to do to reduce costs, stabilize markets, improve quality, and help the millions of Americans who remain uninsured in states that have so far refused to expand Medicaid.

I’ve always said we should build on this law, just as Americans of both parties worked to improve Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid over the years.

So if Republicans are serious about lowering costs while expanding coverage to those who need it, and if they’re prepared to work with Democrats and objective evaluators in finding solutions that accomplish those goals – that’s something we all should welcome.

But we should start from the baseline that any changes will make our health care system better, not worse for hardworking Americans. That should always be our priority.

The Affordable Care Act is law only because millions of Americans mobilized, and organized, and decided that this fight was about more than health care – it was about the character of our country.

It was about whether the wealthiest nation on Earth would make sure that neither illness nor twist of fate would rob us of everything we’ve worked so hard to build. It was about whether we look out for one another, as neighbors, and fellow citizens, who care about each other’s success. This fight is still about all that today. And Americans who love their country still have the power to change it.

And that's how you troll with class.

[sawasdee]

This just emphasises what the US lost when tRump replaced Obama - it's like replacing a Rolls Royce with a child's tricycle.

[onekidanddone]

11 hours ago, JMarie said:

Anyone else feel like doing a shot every time someone mutters the phrase "death spiral"?

or 'explode"