Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Submission Preview

Premature White House Celebration of Trumpcare "Victory"

Rejected submission by -- OriginalOwner_ http://tinyurl.com/OriginalOwner at 2017-05-05 06:22:13 from the guys-who-never-played-sports? dept.
News

The San Francisco Gate reports [sfgate.com]

President Donald Trump celebrated House passage of legislation undoing much of former President Barack Obama's health law with jubilant Republicans at the White House Thursday. (May 4)

The spectacle of Republican members of Congress cheering the passage of their revised health care bill with high-fives and selfies in the White House Rose Garden didn't sit well with a former Fox News veteran.

The jubilant representatives were bused to the White House on Thursday after the revised GOP bill [passed by one vote] in the House.

"What is the celebration? It can't pass in the Senate. It hasn't even gone to the Senate", Greta Van Susteren told her new collegue at MSNBC, Chris Matthews.

[...]"It's like claiming victory in a football game at the end of the first quarter[...]"

PoliticusUSA notes [politicususa.com]

While Trump Was Celebrating, Senate Republicans Killed The House Health Care Bill

While House Republicans and President Trump were in the Rose Garden celebrating their health care win, Senate Republicans announced that they wouldn't be voting on the House bill, but will instead write their own.

As reported [altleft.host] by the Alt Left Press[1], an AARP attack ad awaits any senator who declares support for Trumpcare.

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), the nation's largest seniors group, is running [an unflinching] radio ad that could be a preview for what's in store for Members of Congress who vote for Trumpcare.

The AARP ad, which ran [May 4] on Washington D.C.'s WTOP, opens with the kind of dramatic music usually heard in an attack ad.

"Sometimes a bad deal is just a bad deal. And when it comes to the health care bill in Congress, a bad deal just got worse". the narrator tells listeners in the D.C. metro area, which includes a swing district in Virginia represented by Republican Barbara Comstock.

While the ad ostensibly "thanks" Comstock for opposing the bill, it is clearly a shot across the bow for those [who] support it.

[...]"We all know that too many Americans are paying too much for health coverage, but this bill could cost you up to $2,500 more a year if you have a pre-existing condition. Buried in the fine print, an 'age tax' allowing insurance companies to charge older Americans five times more--or even higher--for their health coverage than anyone else."

The ad's not done.

"That's bad enough, but it gets worse", the narrator says, as the music gets even more dramatic. "While millions of older Americans get priced out of coverage, big drug and insurance companies get billions in tax breaks."

The ad finishes with a plea to call Rep. Comstock to thank her for opposing the "high priced" bill--reiterating that "it's a bad deal that just got worse."

Trumpcare is wildly unpopular [fivethirtyeight.com], even in Republican districts. A poll in March found that just 17 percent [qu.edu] of Americans supported the bill.

The ad could easily be repurposed to criticize those who vote for the bill--keeping all the substantive statements and replacing the lines asking people to thank Comstock with lines asking people to ask their Representative to stop voting for such bad deals.

[1] Originally at ThinkProgress, but I like these guys' webpage construction MUCH better.


Original Submission