Senate Republi-fascists’ Hell-Care Bill—
A Prescription for Suffering and Death
June 22, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
After weeks of secrecy, the Trump/Pence regime’s Republi-fascists in the U.S. Senate revealed a health care bill that will—just like the House version, and the Trump/Pence budget overall—over the next ten years cut over 20 million of the poorest, sickest and most vulnerable people in this country off of Medicaid, their only protection from disease, illness, and death. Whatever revisions are made before it’s passed, the basic framework of this hell-care bill is set.
Medicaid covers 20% of all “Americans” in this country (11 million or more undocumented immigrants are excluded); 39% of all children; 49% of all births; and 64% of all nursing home residents. These cuts are going to threaten the lives of broad sections of the poor of all nationalities: those sick with pre-existing conditions, women, and the growing population of older adults. And they are going to disproportionately impact Black, Latino, Native American and other oppressed people. Add to this the cutting of any payments to Planned Parenthood for the next year at least, and the 1¼ million women who rely on Medicaid to pay for the life-saving cancer tests, maternity care, and birth control they get through Planned Parenthood.
The die has been cast. Unless they are stopped, what remains to be seen now is only how soon this Trump/Pence regime hell-care will become law; and how many young people, disabled children and adults, elderly, and poor men and women are going to be sickened and killed as a direct result of this fascist regime in power and their cronies in the U.S. and state legislatures.
There is a fundamental shift toward a fascist state concentrated in this attack on health care. They are out to put an end to the idea that the millions of people forced to live on the edge in this country should have the “right” to even the most basic kind of medical care. As we wrote when the House passed its version of “health care,”
“If they can’t afford it, they shouldn’t have it.” What better way to capture the ugly, reactionary logic at the core of capitalism – that something so basic to humanity as health care is a commodity, which those who can afford it “deserve” to have and those who can’t, don’t. What kind of system and what kind of society breeds this kind of mentality!
“Making America white again” means restoring white supremacy, the legitimacy of dog-eat-dog, look-out-for-#1-individualism, and the railing against any kind of government “handouts” to those (the Black, Latino, and poor people in their millions forced to the bottom) who “haven’t earned them.”
The method in which the Senate hell-care bill is being rammed through is itself a significant step toward “normalizing” fascist rule. There has not even been a pretense of involvement of the “other party” in discussion and debate over the content of a bill so threatening to people’s lives. And Trump himself, in a speech in Iowa, made clear that there is no reason for the Democrats to be involved in any of the measures he plans to ram through Congress—because they are just "obstructionists."
All this makes Andy Zee’s call from Refuse Fascism even more timely and urgent:
To all who are confronting members of Congress over their vicious cutting of essential health care for millions, keep on them, but now is the time to also be raising the demand that the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! And, now is the time for you to be part of organizing for July 15.
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