It Is Imperitive to Defeat GOP Healthcare Replacement

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is both hypocritical and irresponsible in the manner in which it has rushed the American Health Care Act through the legislative process. It is hypocritical in the sense that the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers were accused of "jamming" the Affordable Care Act through the legislative process. It is irresponsible in the failure to allow public input into the process. There were months of hearings and plenty of opportunity for public input before the ACA was enacted into law.

First, let's take a look at the positive accomplishments of the ACA:
#Reduced the uninsured by 20 million.

#Increased access to primary care, specialty care, surgery, medicines and treatment for chronic conditions.

#Young people can stay on their parents' insurance policies until age 26.

#Patients are less likely to skip needed care because of costs.

#Removed the cap on coverage.

#Provides pediatric dental and vision care, mental-health care, and preventive care.

What critics say about the ACA  and the responses:
#The ACA is collapsing --- Response - The Congressional Budget Office says the market will be stable for the next ten years.

#ACA recipients don't have access to care --- Response - Children and adults enrolled in Medicaid are as likely to have a usual source of medical care as are those with private care according to a November 2016 brief by the Medicaid and CHIP and Access Commission.

#Medicaid recipients don't have access to doctors ---- Response - Based on the same source as immediately above, Medicaid recipients are about as likely to have seen a doctor in the past year as have those with private insurance.

#The ACA has led to greatly increased premium costs --- Response - The Kaiser Family Foundation has found that cumulative premium increases were 63% for 2001-2006, 31% for 2006-2011, and 20% for 2011-2016.

#CBO projections are unreliable --- Response - The Commonwealth Fund rates the CBO "excellent" in forecasting outcomes for the ACA.

What outcomes does the CBO project for the AHCA?
#14 million will lose health insurance coverage through 2018 and 24 million will lose coverage through 2026.

#Insurance premiums will rise initially by 25 to 30% but will decrease by about 10% beginning in 2026. The average drop in insurance premiums will be due largely to older recipients dropping coverage because they can't afford to pay their premiums.

#Those aged about 55 or older will see a major increase in their insurance premiums because the ratio between their premiums and those for young people will increase from 3 to 1 to 5 to 1.

#The percentage of those aged 19 to 29 without insurance will double.

#15% of people in poor areas would lose access to health care.

#Medicaid outlays will be reduced by $880 billion through 2026.

#The mandate for coverage of mental-health and substance abuse would be eliminated.

#People would pay a 30% surcharge in their premiums if they experience a gap in coverage of two months of longer. This penalty would discourage people who have dropped out of the health insurance market from reentry unless they are sick.

#The cap on pay for insurance company executives would be raised from $500,000 to $1 million.

Finally, for those who lose their preexisting conditions exemption temporarily due to change of job or who suffer a financial setback, both and Ryan and Tom Price advocate state-run "high-risk pools." But in the thirty-five states that offered high-risk pools to the uninsurable before the ACA, inadequate funding delivered terrible coverage, with extremely high premiums and deductibles, and annual limits as low as $75,000.

Defrauding Polish Undocumented Workers and Other Trump Subject Matter

1.) Underpaying Polish Workers
Fro 36 years, Donald Trump has denied knowingly using undocumented workers to demolish the building that would be replaced with Trump Tower. Trump had sought out the undocumented Polish workers when he saw them on another job; instigated the creation of the company that paid them and negotiated the hours they would work. The men were put on 12-hour shifts with inadequate safety equipment at subpar wages that their contractor paid sporadically, if at all. [1]

By early June 1980, the Polish workers' unpaid wages totaled over $100,000. A lawsuit was filed  by the workers' lawyer, John Szabo, and at the end of the trial, Szabo and the U.S. Labor Department own a judgment of $254,523 against William Kaszycki, the workers' boss and Trump's middleman. 'Trump never had to pay the  Poles another cent." [2]

2.) Trump and School Choice
Donald Trump has promised $20 billion in federal grants for poor children to attend a school of their family's choice: magnet school, charter school, public or private school. The grant would come from existing federal spending.

Trump made the announcement at a charter school that has received failing grades from the Ohio Department of Education for its students' performance and progress on state math and reading tests.

Congress rejected a Trump-like plan in its last major overhaul of the nation's chief education law last year. Proposals such as Trump's bleed dollars from traditional public schools.

3.) A Busted Democracy (One Commentator's Opinion)
"Donald Trump's presidential campaign has been like an oil train derailment in slow motion -- the spectacle is awful to witness, impossible to turn away from, and mesmerizing in its sheer horror." "Trump enjoys being a bully. His bigotry and his bile are nauseating: the calculated cruelty, the willful ignorance, the lack of empathy and grace." "Our democracy is, in a word, busted." [3]

4.) Following Charity Rules
"Full Measure" host Sharyl Attkisson asked Donald Trump if the Trump Foundation has followed all charitable rules and laws. Trump answered: "Well, I hope so, I mean, my lawyers do it. We give away money; I don't make anything."

Under the laws in New York, any charity that solicits more than $25,000 per year from the public must obtain a special kind of registration beforehand. Charities as large as Trump's must also submit to a rigorous annual audit that asks -- among other things -- whether the charity spent any money for the  personal benefit of its officers. Washington Post reporter, David Farenthold, learned that the Trump Foundation doesn't have the required certification.

The attorney general of New York has suspended the Trump Foundation because it doesn't have the needed certification.

5.) Doing Business With Cuba
Late last month, Newsweek magazine broke a story that Donald Trump did business with Cuba. A company controlled by Trump secretly conducted business in Cuba, which is illegal under trade laws. The money was run through the consulting firm Seven Arrows Investment and Development Corporation. Seven Arrows instructed senior officers in Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts on how to make the venture legal by linking it, after the fact, to a charitable effort. A total of $68,000 was spent in 1998 and linked to a Catholic charity.

6.) A Sampling of Trump Sayings and Reversals
*At the GOP "Your Money, Your Vote" CNBC 1st tier debate on October 28, 2015, Trump said: "We'll take some Syrian refugees on humanitarian grounds." He later reversed himself when he saw that so many of the refugees were men -- but about half are children.

*On September 16, 2015, Trump said that the 14th Amendment should go through the Supreme Court -- it was created by the Supreme Court. Trump also said: "A lot of really bad dudes in this country [came] from outside." "This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish."

*In 2011, Trump said he did a great service in forcing Obama to produce a long-form birth certificate.

*At the Iowa Freedom Summit, Donald Trump said that half the undocumented residents are criminals.

*In his book, Time to Get Tough, p. 145, Trump said that foreign students coming to this country should be allowed to stay. Also, in the same book, Trump recommended hiring 25,000 border patrol agents. Now he wants 5,000.

*On "Meet the press," November 8, 2015, Trump ruled out tariffs to pay for the border wall. He said they will pay "one way or the other."In the October 28, 2015 GOP debate, Trump said; "A politician cannot get them to pay, I can." "I would do something very severe unless they contributed or gave us the money to build the wall."

*The Wall Street Journal on Trump Tax Cuts: "His deficit-financed tax cut would drive up interest rates, sucking in foreign capital and driving the dollar higher. The result would be higher imports, weaker exports and more foreign debt than otherwise."

Footnotes
[1] Massimo Calabresi, "Trump's Tall Tales," Time, September 5, 2016.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Jason Mark, "The Worst Environment Money Can Buy," Sierra, September/October 2016.