The President Launches An Outright Attack On The Health And Well Being Of Millions Of Americans, Out Of Spite
Trump’s Got A Problem:
• Obamacare is still the law of the land. Trump and Congress were repeatedly unable to repeal it. So all its mandatory coverages and protections are intact. Including for instance, coverage of pre-existing conditions.
• So since Trump can’t kill off Obamacare, he’s systematically killing off the rules and agreements that make it affordable.
Trump has decided to stop paying cost-sharing subsidies to insurance companies. Immediately. Blowing a $9-billion dollar hole into Obamacare next year alone.
Trump in a series of Tweets this morning blamed Democrats for the mess he alone is making, saying they should “call me to fix“.
This latest move amounts to pure punishment, just because people didn’t do what he wants. It doesn’t even save taxpayers money. And for millions of Americans, it can only lead to two things:
- Higher premiums for everybody covered by Obamacare. (Healthcare consultants estimate an average increase of about 20% to cover this change alone.)
- More insurers dropping out of Obamacare marketplaces in more places.
Open enrollment for 2018 starts November 1st. Because insurance companies do not want to risk losing money, they’ll either add surcharges sending premiums sky-high, or decide not to offer plans at all. Either way it’s going to mean fewer coverage options, and far higher prices. Trump’s betting that will turn public opinion against Obamacare. We’ll do our best to make sure everybody understands it’s all on him.
• This is separate from Trump’s Executive Order that you may have already heard about, and would also weaken Obamacare by allowing insurance companies to sell small group plans that would offer less comprehensive benefits. As we mentioned earlier in the week, the result of that would likely be:
- Higher premiums for people who stick with Obamacare
- Less coverage for those who don’t
Today Trump will start demolishing Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. And he calls himself a builder.
Nearly 30% Of Republicans Vote Against Hurricane And Wildfire Aid
The $36.5-billion package passed anyway, and everybody voting “no” knew it was going to pass anyway. (That’s on top of a previous $15.3-billion relief measure in September.) It includes money for Puerto Rico to help pay its bills now that tax revenues from tourism has completely dried up.
Still, the naysayers: mostly members of the House’s Freedom Caucus said they’d never support disaster relief without an equal amount of spending cuts in other areas. The real test is going to come when these same Representatives are asked to vote for trillions of dollars in tax cuts, with no spending cuts. Or maybe they’ll talk themselves into believing the tax cuts will “pay for themselves”.
Trump’s Silence On California Wildfires Speaks Volumes To His Base
There are now 31 people confirmed dead. The Washington Post says that makes this week’s wildfires the deadliest in the history of the state. FEMA has started allowing people with homes that have been destroyed to start applying for federal disaster aid.
Trump has still Tweeted nothing. And in the past few days, we’ve seen multiple posts on Facebook where people in the U.S. (we are assuming they are in the U.S., and not Russian trolls) have suggested that Californians should burn in hell. Including in The Chaos Report’s own comment section. These folks are happy Californians are losing their lives and homes.
What the hell is going on in the country? We have become a society where one group can wish upon another group for fellow Americans to go burn in hell. Just based on where they live.
Sure, Trump deserves some of the blame. He doesn’t seem to care about places like California that voted against him. Hillary beat him by 4 million votes in California, “so screw those people” Trump and some of his supporters seem to be saying. Although 4 million people voted for Trump in California.
This isn’t all Trump’s fault. Obviously there are people in this country that have a lot of hate inside them to start. And when things aren’t going well for people, it’s easier to blame a scapegoat. We might be guilty here of taking what might be a small group of nuts are saying and blowing it out of proportion.
Warning. We are going to apply Godwin’s Law here. But watching events and actions like these in the Trump era have made us get a better understanding of how Germany under Hitler happened.
Editorial: Democrats Need To Stop Negotiating With Themselves About Trump
We remember right after Election Day, when so many of our “blue” friends were saying, “Well, Trump’s probably going to spend the next 4 years crazy Tweeting but he’ll surround himself with competent people and listen to them“. Nope.
Trump attacks the 1st Amendment by threatening the broadcast licenses of TV networks. And we hear: “Well, Nixon did the same thing!” Nope. As this story in the Washington Post points out, then ignores, “The difference here is that Nixon talked about the scheme only privately.”
Nixon’s campaign against several TV stations owned by the Washington Post was highly secretive; carried out by third-party “friends”. The only reason we know about it today is because of Oval Office tapes. Trump on the other hand, is playing his hand out in the open on Twitter. So both the objectives and the intended audience are completely different. In Nixon’s case he was sending an oblique message to a limited audience: telling the Post “I can squeeze you”.
Trump is sending a direct message to the widest audience possible: “Don’t believe anything you read!” Especially when it’s about him.
Completely different.
We Will Keep Repeating This Until We’re Blue In The Face: Resisting Trump’s Incessant Efforts To Chip Away At The First Amendment Is More Important Than Anything
And now we have an ally in Conservative Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse who issued the following Press Release (curiously, not as a Tweet, even though Sasse tweets a lot and it’s only 112 characters long):
One Of The Best Examples Of The 1st Amendment In Action We’ve Ever Seen
We’re talking about Eminem’s freestyle anti-Trump rap. Which Keith Olbermann called the “Best political writing of the year, period.”
But it took us a while to figure out just why it’s so effective. We watched it over and over again. And today we finally realized: it avoids the #1 mistake almost everybody else makes. It’s not a direct challenge to Trump (even though it consists of an almost endless stream of anti-Trump arguments and insults). Instead, it’s a challenge to Trump fans, many of whom Eminem acknowledges are also his fans. But it never talks down to them, never tells them what to think; just tells them what he thinks and then hammers it in. Never insults them, until the last…
Anyway, we thought it was a good thing to leave you with this week.
